Melt into the Walls

So, I finished curtains this weekend, which is truly an accomplishment for me. I remember as a kid trying so hard to use my grandma's sewing machine to sew doll clothes, only to have the sewing machine eat the fabric and get clogged. My grandma, who spent every evening listening to the TV as she sewed stacks of clothing and quilts, would have to come in after me and clean out the mangled pieces of fabric wound tightly with yards of thread. Under her expert hands the machine would function beautifully, but no matter what tricks she'd show me, I just couldn't get the thing to work for me.

While I was at Penn State Melissa talked me into making her a dress for Halloween (I guess the bad memories slipped my mind long enough for her to convince me it would be fun), and that was probably my first successful sewing venture. The dress was huge--not only did we get the wrong size pattern, but I was so nervous about my ability to sew small seams that I cut something like an extra half-inch on every side of the pattern. Even as huge as it was, the dress turned out sufficiently nicely that I was willing to take up sewing again.

Anyway, my bedroom window faces the apartments next door, which have annoyingly bright lights on all night long. I haven't been around enough for it to really bother me, but lately I've had trouble getting to sleep, and thought actual darkness might help. To my happiness, they do, and they look really snazzy! The curtains are made from some lovely faux-suede fabric that was a joy to work with. I've got somewhere in the neighborhood of 9 yards of the stuff in other colors that I plan to make into a quilt (in my copious free time, of course).