They had curtains up, but the missionary's wife (Mrs. B) said they had been up for several years and they were ready for a change. This is one of the old curtains:
and taking a picture of me:
Red on Black |
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On our missions trip to Panama in July of this year, I was enlisted to make curtains for the church auditorium. This all happened after I started this blog, but silly me I didn't even think about putting this project on my blog! I do have a lot a pictures, but I wasn't thinking "take pictures for my blog" while I was sewing, so it may seem like I have a ton of the same pose and nothing to show the process, but I do explain with words.:-) They had curtains up, but the missionary's wife (Mrs. B) said they had been up for several years and they were ready for a change. This is one of the old curtains: The green material swagged down in the middle and came to a huge bow on either side. You can see in the picture the colors of the browns and greens. I drew out some ideas of curtains I thought I might be able to make with no pattern. Obviously, for a church auditorium, they wanted the new curtains to be fancier than just plain hanging curtains. But I honestly couldn't think of any other style! Mrs. B asked about adding ribbon onto the curtain, and I remembered about those curtains that sort of look like Roman shades. After I figured out a drawing that I thought I could work with, we went to the store to buy material. This is a shortcut we took: I seriously thought we were going to fall into the ditch. That road was so narrow! To top it off, Mrs. B said that she only goes this way when it's light out and if she has someone else in the car with her. Um, thanks? Anyway, we got to the store, and I just had to take a picture: Their prices are so cheap! I wanted to come back and buy material to bring back to America with me. But alas, there was no time. Next time I go to Panama, I'm coming here again and I'm going to buy cheap fabric! Notice there are two sewing machines next to each other? Also notice my shirt in the very first picture is gray, and this one is orange. That's because when we got back to the church with the fabric, I took some extra pieces and "practiced" on that old machine over there. Mrs. B (far right) had warned me that sometimes it doesn't work right, so I wanted to make sure I knew what I was doing before sewing the actual curtains. She was right. The machine wasn't working at all. I tried everything short of calling my mom in America for advice! So the next morning we went to Sam's Club and bought a new sewing machine, compliments of the mission team. Here I am with one of the other girls from the team exploring and explaining all the pieces of the new machine. It was nice. The needle threaded itself. Here I am trying not to be embarrassed. Not having an actual pattern, I kind of just made it up as I went along, and I hemmed the top before hemming the sides, meaning in the end the back would show across the top (or something like that). I don't know that it would have been a problem. The old curtains had a splash of blue in them, and this material was double sided in that all the dark brown you see on this side was a light blue on the back. But we all agreed it would look better with all brown. Mrs. B didn't have a seamripper (don't worry, I have since sent her one!) so one of the boys from their church volunteered to snip the hem with scissors. Apparently he just said something funny. :-) Working as hard as I could with people coming in every five minutes asking how it was going and taking a picture of me: There's the pile of material and wad of ribbon. That fabric was thick and luxurious, and it was only 5.99 a yard. Can you believe it! Material like that in America would cost between 11-15.99 a yard. The ribbon was only 60¢ a yard. Oh, I want to go back to that store so badly! And there's the knife that didn't work as a seamripper: Still working, still having my picture taken every five minutes by someone new: Finally, the music class began. People from the missionary's church came and learned choir songs with the members of the missions team. I had to finish the curtains, so with everyone else otherwise occupied, I finished in peace. Which also means my pictures go from not done at all to completely finished. I cut a strip of material off the main piece and sewed it right back on with the end of the ribbon in between the main piece and the strip for the top. (Read: there was a lot of pinning, measuring, repinning, wondering if I was totally crazy for attempting this project with no pattern, remeasuring, and repinning and THEN cutting and sewing.) I sewed another ribbon the same length to the back, so the ribbon can be tied to make the curtains any length. Somehow (it always happens) we measured at the fabric store for extra ribbon but when I was all finished there was only about 6 inches left. I was going to sew a ribbon bow on the corners of the curtains, similar to the old curtains (but not as big and poofy). Obviously there wasn't enough ribbon to make 4 bows, so we just did this with the extra instead: The new curtains are brown and green just like the old ones were. Maybe they aren't as fancy, but I think they are simple and elegant.
2 Comments
Mom
9/14/2012 05:19:37 am
Glad you didn't call me from Panama just to ask what was wrong with that machine!!! LOL
Reply
jo
9/14/2012 11:21:48 am
Quite the seamstress!
Reply
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In 2006 I had a stroke, and every day my husband encourages me to use my remaining brain cells to the best of my ability. I love to organize, make crafts, and go on adventures (safe ones). I hope that through my blog posts, you will be encouraged to accept and make the best of challenges God throws at your life. Categories
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