Make do or go without -- or give into the sun

When it comes to home decor, I am cheap and picky. (Well, to be completely honest, when it comes to every purchase, I'm cheap and picky.) I have the attitude that if I can't find what I like for the right price point, I simply won't buy it.

Which explains why I've lived in this apartment for close to five years and until early this morning, had no living room curtains.

But it's getting scorchingly hot in Pittsburgh. We're hitting record temps most days of the week, and the sun beating down on my living room has simply been intolerable. So I decided that I needed curtains. And I needed curtains that AbbyCat wouldn't destroy.

The criteria:

1. Be adjustable, so that I could raise and lower them based on the amount of sun, and the tenacity of AbbyCat. 
2. Be able to be placed on a tension rod; I'm not installing a curtain rod just to take it down in a year. 
3. Coordinate not only with this apartment, but with the living room in whatever house I buy next year; I don't want to set my decorating standards next year based on a cheap curtain today. 
4. Cost less than $25 a panel. 

It's amazing how you can't find curtains that fit these criteria. I don't want flat panels because they can't be adjusted, and it's basically an open invitation to AbbyCat to come play and destroy. Likewise, traditional blinds can't go on a tension rod.

Which brought me to Pinterest, and the idea of Roman shades. While I didn't like the ones in this tutorial because they couldn't be adjusted, it gave me a jumping off point and led me toward Butterick 5159.

This would give me the best of both worlds -- I could hopefully control fabric costs, and get nice adjustable curtains with minimal opportunity for AbbyCat destruction.

 I initially hoped to lower the cost of fabric by buying a tablecloth and deconstructing it. No luck: I simply couldn't find tablecloths that were below my price point ($25 was what I had determined I would need for the main part of the curtain) and were attractive. I wanted something in a light color with a print, and it had to be 60x84 so that I could get two panels out of it.

When that didn't work, I went back to the quilting section at Joann. I had seen some fabrics there that I liked, but they were a little pricey. I did some more digging, though, and found two other prints that were just as nice, but half the cost. They'll still meet the requirement to fit in a house next year, but weren't spendy enough that I'd feel guilty about making new ones.

A couple of modifications to the pattern:

• I made 30-inch curtains instead of the minimal 36. My windows weren't big enough to make the 36, and I didn't want to go full-width, since I wanted to adjust individually. 
• They're on tension rods instead of the outside bracket that the pattern required. This didn't take any effort to change. 
• Instead of putting the ribbons eight inches from the fabric edge, they're six inches from the edge. 

I would definitely make this pattern again, and am keeping it in my stash so that when I move next year, I can make more using the same valance and panel structures. The dowel at the base keeps the middle from sagging, and overall makes it look nice and polished. Plus, I got to buy a hacksaw to trim the dowels to the right length!

From start to finish, it probably took me about three hours -- and the most complicated part was adjusting the tension rod so it fit without sagging. I don't like how the fabric seems to wrinkle so easily, but I'm hoping that time and hanging will get rid of that. If AbbyCat ends up pulling the rod down, I'll spray starch them before putting them back up, but ironing alone is not worth the energy to mess with that rod again.

They're definitely doing their job. Because the fabric is light colored, they let in light without blocking it -- but also without allowing the sun to beat in at full force.

Ideas for when I make them again:

• I want to possibly do a different color for the lining on the back, just so it doesn't look like (from the street) I just stuck a bedsheet up. 
• I'd also want to stick with a similar color theme between the valance and the main panel, just to give it more continuity.

One way to keep AbbyCat cool in the summer.

And the interesting side effect: AbbyCat won't go near them. She's been glaring at me all morning, and I suspect she's actually afraid of them. She'll figure it out at some point, but maybe in the meantime it'll cut down on the cat hair on the couch.

Role reversal?

So am I being the opposite of Scarlett O'Hara if I take fabric originally bought for a dress, and turn it into a lining for curtains?

Summer lovin' ... what'll I craft?

Summer is a difficult time of year for me to do crafts. Or, rather, it's difficult when I am trying to stash bust. Lots of stuff I could do, but nothing that I *want* to do. Yes, I have air conditioning in my apartment, but I'm frugal in some arenas (mostly with utilities) to a fault, and refuse to have it kick on until the indoor temperature hits 80.

In other words, I'm not going to do anything with warm fabrics until it gets cooler again. AKA: Why I'm sitting in my living room with a tankini on and a girly fruit/gin/tonic spritzer on the coffee table.

I have lots of lovely patterns to sew and make summer projects, but my stash fabric is mostly winter weights -- wools, tweeds, and heavy fabrics. Um. No. I'm not going to put myself through that, especially when I know I won't get to wear any of them until the fall, and with some luck, I'll have trimmed an inch or two from my waist by then. What's the point of sewing something, and then having it not fit?

And then let's talk the knitting. Wool, cashmere, silk, and more wool. A sweater on the needles, and a shawl on the needles that's rapidly getting big and heavy.

Would you want to knit any of those in a humid Pittsburgh summer? I certainly don't.

So I'm thinking socks to tide me over for the rest of the month. I found some Ultra Alpaca when I was cleaning out the craft room, and those should be small enough to keep me going through June. They're also small enough that I can tuck in my bag when I go to my night class, and I won't need to worry about having this massive thing taking up so much space. (Seriously. The shawl is huge right now.) This pattern seems reasonable enough -- there's lace involved, but the chart looks easy enough.

I feel guilty, though. I told myself I wasn't going to start new projects until the old ones were done. And here I am doing it, just to alleviate my crafting angst and heat-related misery (see above about the AC -- I'm not stranger to heat- or cold-related misery). I'm not buying new materials, which I guess is the point of the overall thing, but now I'm not getting anything *old* done.

*le sigh*

But what the heck. It's hot, and I'll make socks. My impossibly high standards can wait for another day.

iPad cases are SO overrated...

Having now made two iPad cases, this is my sage advice: Spend the $30 and buy one. Don't waste time trying to sew it and figuring out why the heck the laws of physics don't apply to fabric in your home. Just buy a case made by someone who knows what they're doing.

This is my second attempt at the process. "But it looks pretty," you might say.

So. Not. Worth. It.

I had great plans initially. I was going to use this cute quilting fabric, put a layer of solid foam between two fabric bags, and put a zipper in. I was going to write up a tutorial about how to do it.

And then the cursing started.

I failed to realize in the initial plans that to fit the foam and make the whole thing snug enough to actually protect the iPad (silly me for wanting it to be more than just cute!), the two bags would have to be different sizes. And they wouldn't line up. And thus a zipper could not be added.

Lots of swearing involved by the time I figured all of that out.

So this is how we have it now: no zipper, and the inner core is merely tacked to the foam and the outer core. There is a band and Velcro to keep it shut, and overall, it's still fairly well padded. I feel like a Bad Person for using fabric glue to attach the band to the case, but by that point, the idea of trying to sew Velcro through quilting fabric and one layer of foam by hand was something I just didn't want to do.

But it still serves its purpose.

And eventually, when I get the spare cash, I'm so buying a "real" case from Vera Bradley.

Early? Inconceivable.

The May Sewn thing is... done? On May 6, even.

Oh, this dress. Simplicity 2886, and Simplicity is the last thing this project needs to be called. Although it turned out nicely in the end, the beginning was pure misery, and resulted in one of many modifications.

Simply put, the bands that were supposed to be at the top were not working at all. They worked until I tried to flip them to the correct side. All I read online in reviews for this dress were that the seams "didn't line up".

That's one phrase for it. Another phrase to describe it would be "human boobs don't point in that direction" -- which is exactly what I said a week ago after spending close to two hours trying to make it work. The more I tried to fix it, though, the more frustrated I got, and finally decided to just tape the two pieces together, and cut it out as one whole piece. (Pro Tip: If you do this, make sure to delete the seam allowance from the bottom of the piece, before the midriff is attached, or else the front and back won't line up. I neglected to do that at first, and couldn't figure out what went wrong.)

Aside from that major issue -- which had me muttering about this expletive expletive dress for a while -- I quite like this dress. After last week's mishap, it was easy to finish in a weekend, and the only hemming involved was hemming the lining. All told, I'd say it probably took me five hours this weekend? Not too bad for stash fabric that's been sitting around since 2009,  and for a cute sundress that will serve me well.

The style was precisely what I wanted -- something that would use up the denim stash fabric I had, while making a sundress that was work-appropriate for casual Fridays. If I throw a white cardigan or bolero over it, it's nice for work, and then the cardigan can come off if I want to go out after work and have something a little more casual.

Many modifications to this, mostly because I liked the style, but hate how Simplicity does things:

1. Got rid of the bands at the top. See above paragraph about human boobs and gravity. After I finished the dress, I also realized that the white bands in contrast would have looked too cutesy, and not what I wanted for this dress. 
2. No pintucks in the midriff. This started out as "I DON'T WANNA AND IT'S NOT GOING TO WORK" and then shifted to "Wait. Why are there pintucks in a summer sundress?" With the way the ties are, I like having it smooth all the way across. 
3. Gathers instead of pleats. Pleats don't look good on me, and with the lightweight denim, I was worried that pleats would just look weird. 
4. Wider elastic in the back. I felt it needed a little more support than the narrow elastic would provide, so I went to 1/2 an inch over 1/4 inch. It fits nicely, and gives the girls a little more support in the back. See previous references about gravity. 
5. Fully lined. I prefer lined dresses, and even though the bodice was lined, I didn't think it was enough. I went with my standard Posh Lining from Joann Fabric. The price is reasonable, and it gives dresses and skirts a little more body. .

Probably the only time it's going to have a perfect bow. 

This dress sort of sums up my problems with Simplicity. I end up not liking how they've drafted the patterns -- or they just plain don't make sense -- and I end up modifying it to the point where the only thing I get from the pattern is the actual pieces. I don't know that I'm going to completely give up on Simplicity, but I'm pretty close. They have really cute patterns, but I do hate how nonintuitive the patterns are, and how some things take a lot of shortcuts. Like, why only line the bodice? Why not attach the straps through the back, instead of afterward? 

I'll probably continue to stick mostly with Vogue. Even though they don't always have nice trendy things (they do, but not always in the sundress assortment), the patterns make more sense and they're usually lined -- or at least easy enough to add a lining.