I've sewn.

I am posting the below photos to my blog as proof that I actually sewed last weekend. I actually used my sewing machine, as I have always wanted to do, and sewed a curtain for our dining room windows. My fantastically helpful and capable mother helped me learn how to use the sewing machine, but I did do the actual sewing. I now have another project lined up (more curtains), so this is only the beginning. So I'm told. The curtain for the dining room actually came out well, despite my lack of thinking the project through enough to realize that I would have to do something about the bar in the middle of the window. Our curtain rod spans the entire length of the three windows in the dining room, so there's this bar in the middle of the window frames that keeps the curtain rod from sagging. I forgot that I would have to take this bar into account when hanging the curtain on the curtain rod, but thankfully my dear friend Chris suggested that I just cut a hole in the curtain for the bar. Great idea, and problem mostly solved. Now the curtain hangs much better in the middle, enough so that I'm not constantly bothered by the gathering of fabric, and I can say Mission: Accomplished.

Here I am sewing. See? My mother didn't do everything for me. I worked the actual sewing machine. This is good, because I'll need to know how to do it when I make my next curtains all on my own like a big grown-up girl.

This is the final product. The finished work. The completed project. The masterpiece. Don't look too closely at the seams... I haven't learned how to sew in a straight line yet, but I am pleased that I only had to rip the stitches out in a couple of spots. Not too bad for the first time!

The material that I used to make the curtain was a tablecloth. Doug and I had been looking for a simple curtain that would go with our purple room for a while, since we moved in and painted the room, but hadn't found one that was right. I decided that I would just sew one, and I think there are cool tablecloths out there, cool enough to make curtains out of. So I picked up a couple of these (very cheap - clearance!) tablecloths from Target a month or so ago. I have a lot of material left over... perhaps I'll be making matching placemats.

There she blows! This is the beauty that made everything possible. She does a lot more than I'll ever need her to do, and I hope she doesn't ever break. I once had ideas of becoming a quilter, but I might stick to easy things like curtains or simple repair jobs.

Perhaps this weekend I'll have time to start on my next sewing project, but I'm also knitting another scarf (as a birthday gift... the birthday's in a month!). Look at me, so ambitious with craft projects! It's like old times.