conquering my sewing nemesis

Thank you all for chiming in with your own experiences regarding your spirited children - it's comforting to know that so many of you have survived parenting the little blighters, but it's amazing just how many of them are out there! Anna has actually calmed down a little this week - going to sleep at 7pm with no tears, and only waking a few times for 30min or so each time. She's also slept really well at daycare, which means she's a happy little girl in the evenings and eats her dinner with no tantrums! If only she was always like this. I did see my doctor about the situation, but while she was sympathetic, she certainly offered no suggestions.

Well this week I have finally finished sewing my living and dining room curtains, achieved only because I've been home sick from work for the last two days with another bout of tonsillitis, this time paired with a head cold and a mouth ulcer to boot. But Anna wasn't sick so she went off to daycare and since I had the house to myself I couldn't waste it by doing something sensible like resting and sleeping all day now could I! Luckily my husband has banished me to our guest bedroom because I'm sick and he's been dealing with Anna at night time, so I've had a relatively good night sleep knocked out on painkillers. See there is a silver lining to practically everything!

These curtains have been a loooong time coming. After a long search for fabric that looks good but was also reasonably priced, I settled on this cotton from Spotlight for the bargain price of $16.95 a metre:

I needed 20 metres plus lining fabric, so some of the beautiful fabrics I saw in the $50 to $150/m price range were definitely out of the question. I made simple 'S wave' curtains, which are the easiest to make and use the least amount of fabric too. All that is basically needed is to hem the curtain and lining fabric on all sides, sew on a stiff header tape, insert a curtain hook about every 10cms and then hang. That's all, no pinch pleating or pulling cord to gather it up, but it still took me a long time to do because a) sewing curtains are boring, and b) handling such large sizes of fabric is a pain in the butt.

Because my living and dining room are so bright, these photos are pretty crappy I'm afraid but here is the big reveal. First the living room:

And the dining room:

And because I tidied up the house today I can show you what is out of frame of my tightly cropped outfit photos:

I had thought long and hard about what to do with the triangle windows at the top, but have decided to leave them uncovered. They are laminated glass so should be energy efficient anyway, and there's no privacy issue or significant glare from them, so that's how they're gonna stay. A lick of paint to the window frames wouldn't go astray though, I guess....

And I would like to say that our living area is finally complete, but there are still a gajillion things left to do: painting window frames and door trim, painting the staircase railing, having a carpenter build a bookshelf, hang some artwork, etc etc.

But I am now free to start sewing what I like best: clothes for me. Stay tuned, I promise to return to your normal programming soon