Sew cool

Looking back at the list I created earlier this week, I laugh. I actually got a LOT of that stuff done. Just not nearly enough. And I hit a couple of snags.

First, the good stuff. I got the kitty cubbie curtains sewn and up. It's hard to tell what the fabric is, but it's a mish-mosh of French envelopes, handwriting, postmarks, and the like. I ordered the fabric online and hoped the color was going to be okay (needed something with a print, since solid would just show every last bit of fur). Turns out, it was perfect, spot-on.

And yes, you read that right. I SEWED them. I dragged out the sewing machine my parents gave me, pulled out the step-by-step directions my MIL wrote out for me on how to thread and load the dang thing (honestly, I don't know why the inventor of the sewing machine hasn't won the overall humanity award for the most amazing, indispensable, and complicated contraption EVER--I mean who THOUGHT of all that????), and after a little while of figuring it out, I got it all to work. Who would have thought loading the bobbin thread would be the hardest part? I mean, I got the main thread through at least 5 different gizmos (yes, this is the technical term my MIL used), threading right to left and UP, and so on, and then through the eye of the needle. That part was the part I was initially the most intimidated by. Her directions were a piece of cake! But the bobbin stumped me for a while. Everything my MIL wrote out was correct, but until I watched a youtube video on it, I couldn't make heads or tails of it. You put the thread through slot A, pull tab B, twist 3 times, squinch your eyebrows together while simultaneously rubbing your belly and patting your head, and voila! here it comes magically from a hole underneath the needle and you have to pull it out. Everything else on this thing is magic and seems to defy logic and physics, except the very last step, which requires manual adroitness I don't possess. And boom, you're in business.

And did I mention that the genius inventor even put a FLASHLIGHT on the thing?? I mean, absolutely brilliant!!

The biggest thing, especially, since I'm pretty religious about following directions, was remembering to put the pressor-foot down on the fabric. It wasn't written down (because normal people would have found that obvious, I suppose), and numbskull me forgot the first couple of short passes. I would pull out the fabric and wonder why the stitches were all uneven and the underside stitches were basically non-existent. Luckily, I have a stitch-ripper. :o) Anyway, after I figured out that bit of genius, I was sewing like a champ! I even put black thread on the bobbin side and cream thread on the needle side, so it's a very cool-looking stitch. I hemmed all three sides of each curtain and then sewed a pocket for the rod up top. Once it was on the rod, it naturally bunches up and looks professional. Don't look too hard at the seams--I got cocky a couple of times and let it speed up, so not every hemline is perfectly straight--more akin to a slightly listing pleasure cruise. But again, they're made, they're what I wanted, the print hides a lot, and I'm 100% positive the kitties won't care about my sewing skill level. If they do, that's a whole other barrel of monkeys to mess with.

Meanwhile, it took a while, plus an unexpected trip to Lowe's, plus dodging raindrops, to get much done in the bathroom. We got the light and the fan working in the poo room! We were even going to work on installing all the outlets, but realized we didn't have all the new type we needed (they're tamper-resistant, so you don't find an escapologist little one shoving pennies or Super Sugar Snaps into the outlet holes anymore). So we had to skip part of that. But we have light and fan in the poo room, and light in the mini hallway.

I've gotten all the trim up, caulked, puttied, sanded and primed. We had to stop part of the trim installation to solve the threshold problem going into the poo room. Since there's a height transition, as well as off-kilter walls, it was a bit of a pickle. As we were trying to figure it out, I asked HW "It's not going to take all day, is it? I mean, it's just a threshold." Dumber words were never spoke. It took a better part of the day, actually, with measuring, cutting, routing, hand sanding, filing, and trying to create a trompe-l'œil with the threshold to disguise that one side of it needed to be a little wider than the other because the poo room and hallway are a bit wonky/not quite square (big surprise). So the threshold is basically masking the problem a bit. So when you look at it, in totalem, you won't notice, which would be the perfect feedback. And then I had to stain and poly it. (See previous posts for staining while it's raining and humid.)

Once that was in, I was able to complete the rest of the trim.

Then I started on the tile. LARGE sigh.

The field tile I knew would be a tiny bit taller than the edging tile, but it wasn't really that much of a big deal and could have been masked with the grout. However, I didn't take into account the adhesive mastic needed, and that the sheer amount of it for large tiles versus the small mosaic tiles would change the overall height of the tile. Now I believe it's a bit too tall. Am waiting on HW to take a break from work to check it out and render an opinion. Do we yank it and put in something else, or do we live with it?

So now I think I'll start the actual cutting in and painting, if the tile can take my weight yet.

At least I got those curtains in!