The End of My Sewing Career

by abby on Sunday, March 28, 2010





Well, this is pretty embarassing. I haven't blogged since the start of 2010! A big HUGE sorry for everybody that has been diligently checking up on our blog. Jona of course has the perfect reason for her absence - she gave birth to a gorgeous little boy!! She and the bub are both fine & well but will be out of action as they're getting to know each other better. As for myself.. well I did lose my laptop & internet for a month.. I did get a new job which needed abit more settling into than I ever thought was needed.. but even with all the valid excuses, yes I was also abit lazy too. So here I am back in the mode with my new kitchen curtains to share!

The fabric on the dining chair above is the one I chose from Ikea for the homemade kitchen curtain. So the inspiration for this idea came from a recent Ikea trip where I fell in love with a show case kitchen (I've tried to find pictures of this showcase kitchen online but I can't find it anywhere) that had a simple, flat blue striped curtain which was one quarter the length of the window height. Now I have absolutely ZERO textile experience - I've never used a sewing machine in my life or never had to measure and cut any kind of fabric before. But since it was just a flat curtain piece with no ruffles I decided to give it a go. How hard could it be?

So I ran over to Ikea and chose the Beskada curtain rod:
Then I went over to the fabric section. I had no idea that I had to actually cut the fabric myself?? So I tried to calculate it on my own while the unhelpful sales lady tried to explain things like allowance and multiplying the length by this and that and at the end of it all she basically said that maybe I should come back after I had properly calculated the length of material I needed. But since Ikea is a 40minute drive from my place there was no way I was doing that. So I told her that I think I would just rather fluke it and started cutting the fabric up. She just gave me a look and walked away!

Discouraging much? Nope I was still excited and determined to see that fabric up on the rod! I wish I could remember the measurements right now in but really I can never keep up with figures in my head. So onto the next step: actually sewing the fabric into a curtain!

I had to borrow my parent's sewing machine which nobody had used for a couple of years. Since it had only been used once before and since I've never seen one up close before I'm not too sure if it's just my parents' machine that seems abit fiddly to use. It took me ONE HOUR to setup the thread properly before I could start sewing. It then took me another half hour to pin the fabric up properly. So when I finally finally had the machine and fabric all ready to go I thought that I was on the home stretch. But for some reason it took another ONE & A HALF hours to actually get it all sewn up! I was actually sweating beads of sweat! Despite all the crooked lines and the slightly uneven finishing I was pretty proud of it in the end, but I definitely know now that there is no way I am meant to be a seamstress and that I will unfortunately never ever DIY anything involving fabric ever again.

So after all that you must wanna see what I actually got at the end of all that...


This is the before shot of our kitchen window with its boring vertical blinds. The kitchen was abit hard to get a shot of since our kitchen is pretty long and narrow.



The end result! Like I said before I am happy with the outcome but still not 100 percent satisfied, particularly with the colour. I'm thinking I need something abit darker to make it stand out abit more, the fabric from the Ikea showcase kitchen was a dark navy striped style.



Just on a side note, here is one of my favourite parts of the house. My breadbox, straight from the Reject Shop, was something I'd been looking for so I was so excited to find one for $18! It was also the first piece that I painted white :) The Leksvik hooks are another Ikea purchase, while the napkin holder was another bargain steal - online this pretty little thing was around $20+ but I found one at my local homewares store for $10! Love bargains! Underneath the Leksvik hooks is my wooden step stool which I tried to include in the picture but I just couldn't get the angle right.

Anyhoo I think that's it for tonight, gotta get started on the usual preparations for the coming week (folding clothes arghhhhhh) but I hope every has an awesome Easter break!

Till next time!


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