Curtains R not Us

Curtains R not Us

I had a great day on the beach at St Cyrus with the children on Monday, the May Day holiday. It was sunny, not windy, lovely and warm beside our driftwood bonfire. We just sat and watched the waves, built a moated sand castle and made hot-dogs washed down with cups of tea. I didn't even worry about my To Do List at all!

I did battle with a pair of linen curtains for the next couple of days, regretting using the thick blackout interlining. There was barely enough so when the sun shines I can see that it doesn't quite reach the top. The linen seemed to keep moving every time I measured it and I could not remember how to use the blind hem foot so I simply used invisible thread for the hem instead. After hanging them they trailed voluptuously and annoyingly on the floor so I took up yet another hem that I wasn't pleased with. The finished curtains seemed so bulky after the 40-odd year old velvet ones that I thought they looked like bedspreads and decided that from now on I will only make Qurtains or pay a professional to do them properly. I know I should have sewn them by hand; using the machine was not necessarily faster. I am going to make a pelmet with pompoms to finish them off. Visitors declared them to be very posh so I must stop obsessing over the mistakes that only I can see.

I added some painted details to the Hare but there seemed to be something missing. I thought he needed a shadow but Mo favoured a standing stone. That is the trouble with not planning something in advance. I looked up images of hares and standing stones but just could not find inspiration. In the end we have decided to cut a bit off the bottom end of the Hare panel so that he no longer seems to float in the middle and we will attempt to add on some new quilted borders with Celtic details. Meanwhile, Mo is going to appliqué a Green Man's head so hopefully we will have a choice of panels with which to enter into the two person category at FOQ.

As an antidote to all of that artistic decision making, I ran up a super simple 5-bar Amish style strippy in 2 colours of Oakshott which I intend to quilt very geometrically for a change. I absolutely MUST make some progress with writing so will work on that on and off during the week, while continuing to churn out quilted/corrugated Yurt roof sections and try to make a decision about dates on which I could offer classes.

This weekend we went on a family outing to have a go at 10-pin bowling. I don't think my dodgy elbow appreciated hurling the incredibly heavy bowls but I came second and enjoyed the nachos. The children became utterly addicted to the 2p pushing machines in the amusement arcade and fed all of their winnings straight back into the slots until they were broke. After a slap up supper at Costco, it was time to supervise music practice, do the ironing, organise packed lunches, read bedtime stories and update the blog at the end of yet another week that simply flew past.