Curtain Hems and Sneek Peek

I will admit it. I am not a great seamstress. Some people may even say bad. But, on a deal I am willing to try. When we were at Bed, Bath & Beyond getting curtains for the living room we checked out the clearance section. Always one that like a great deal. There were 4 beautiful curtains, that would coordinate with the living room. You can see the dining room from the living room but not a whole lot, and vise versa. The package didn't say a whole lot on it. A plastic bag with a sticker that said clearance, online only, was $69.99 now $14.99. Obviously someone had purchased them online, didn't like them and returned them in store. Now this is all before we even closed on the house. It is so hard to pass up the deal. So, we purchased 3 of the 4 for the dining room. Throw them all into storage to wait for the house to be finished. Fast forward a month and we have moved in and hung curtains. Bad news. They are way too long. Some people like the laying on the ground look. Not me. We have 5 kids and 2 dogs. Laying on the ground they just get dirtier, and makes it hard to vacuum around them.  

Not just going to throw out $45 because it is too long. I can make a quilt it is just straight lines. Damn it I can hem these curtains. So, I have to find and unpack my sewing machine which busts into spontaneously unpacking my quilt fabric stash and organizing it. For now I am using the kitchen table for a sewing table. I think back what am I doing wrong when I hem? I determine that I don't use enough pins to hold it in place so it doesn't move around. Answer, use more pins. Easy peasy. Off I go. I determine I need to take it up 10 inches. Really I just guess and hope it is right because who wants to try and hem it up more again. I laid it out across the table and two chairs so it doesn't pull it down to the ground and start measuring and pinning. One pin on top edge, one pin on bottom edge, every few inches, and three on each end that should hold it.

Much better picture of how gorgeous these are.

I sew the far ends along the seam. Next I sew along the previous hem line, then 1.5 inches up from the bottom. Last 5/8 inch down from former bottom. Results?

Look pretty good. Not as great as a seamstress, but nobody except you, and me know.

Now my curtains are the right length. Just have to wait for hubby to get home and install the pull backs.

Sneek Peek of what is coming up for sale in my Etsy shop.

Needle Minders

Needle Threaders

Update on Snow

I know it has been awhile since an update on HEAD Snow by Gadd. Even in her tab, I have not been able to update. But, we are now moved into our new house. Eight days of no sewing, just packing and unpacking. Last night I was finally able to get her back out and do a few stitches. I am more than 5,000 stitches behind due to the delay but I'm pretty sure I can make them up once ALL the boxes are unpacked. I'm not even sure what day number I am on anymore.

Now back to stitching. Still have a November 1 deadline to meet.

Page Marking

Each person has a unique way of marking their pages to let them know what they have achieved. When I was little, home copiers were not even available. My mom would take us down to the copy store and have copies of the work blown up and printed. We used only a yellow highlighter to mark what was completed. In todays world you can download a pdf and work off you your tablet. I'm still old fashion. I love my paper copies. Although I no longer need to go down to the copy store and get them. Always, Always make a working copy, on a tablet or paper. If for some reason you mess up or spill something you have the original to go back to. There are more highlighter colors available now then when I was younger and I take full advantage of this. My current way of marking charts I use 3 different colored highlighters and a pen. When I complete 20 stitches I mark those 20 stitches off on the chart in Green. Green is good to go. Sometimes there are ninja stitches or colors that are rarely used and I want to save them and do them all together. These stitches are highlighted in pink to call attention to them in the future instead of having to look really close for them. My current chart all solid black hearts get highlighted in pink because they are Kreinik. This keeps me from wasting my thread by having to restring it over and over for 1 or 2 stitches. I can thread my needle to do 10-15 stitches, do a stitch tuck the end, cut, and it is ready for the next one with out having to rethread my needle. My example is a ninja that I wanted to be sure and get because he was away from all of his friends. (pictures are blurry on purpose)

Ninja highlighted to draw attention

When I have completed the pink highlighted stitch I just go over it with my green highlighter and it makes it a dark color, but I know that stitch is done.

Now mess ups. They are highlighted in blue because they are sad. Sometimes blues have to be frogged and sometimes I can fudge them and make them work. This one I did 4 squares in the row instead of the required 3. The blue lets me know there is a wrong color in that spot. Again once I fix it, it gets highlighted over with green making it dark.

But what happens when I mess up one that is already green or highlight one in green that I haven't really stitched yet? That is where the pen comes in. These 3 managed to get highlighted and were not actually stitched. Found them when stitching in the area and things did not look right. So I trace around it with the pen. Again it draws attention to it but it is harder to see the pen then the highlighter. So, highlighter is first option, pen is backup incase it is already highlighted.

Then when I have fixed the problem with the square I / over it to let me know it is fixed.

What method do you use to keep track of what you have completed?