It was REALLY cold this morning. I really shouldn't have gone to the flea market, but I just couldn't resist. When I got in the car, the temp said 32. When I got to White Horse, a mile away, it said 27. That's really cold for down here. The rednecks had a lot better sense than I did, and prudently stayed home. There were a few die-hards there, but in general there was nothing much to look at.
I knew that JB and Rick were coming to finish the trees today. I have this puritanical thing where I can't just lay around inside if someone is doing work around me. It makes me feel idle and worthless. So I decided to get to work on James's curtains. He gave me the fabric about a month ago, but it was in the midst of all the holiday stuff, and I really didn't have a chance to do anything on them. I have the LOCK project I need to get going on too, so I really needed to get this smaller job done first. So I got to work.
JB and Rick came. And finished. And left. And still I worked. Curtains aren't that hard. The problem is that James has never sewed a stitch, and things that seen really easy to the uninitiated can be really hard to actually do. First, tailored things are actually harder, because you can hide a lot of mistakes in lace, or ruffles, or lining, or various fal de rals. Second, the fabric he chose was plaid. Geometric patterns are very difficult to work with, because if you are the least bit off, it shows. Third, he told me he couldn't decide which side of the fabric he liked better, so he wanted them to be reversible. That really should have been where I drew the line, because that made everything else exponentially more difficult. I had already refused to do button tabs at the top ( 1. I don't do buttonholes. 2. That makes them look like they came from the JC Penny catalogue). There wasn't enough fabric to just double them. That means every seam and every seam allowance shows. There isn't any place to hide a mistake. Next, he wanted the favored side to be piped with the seam allowance from the other side. Which is fine, but ditto on the no mistakes thing. Basically, that means that what would be the back on normal curtains is the front of these. That also means the seams will show, and my seams are never straight. Lastly, he wanted a reversible attached valance. That isn't terribly hard in and of itself, but I had no measurements on the window to tell me how long to make said valance.
I got to work, and cut the fabric down to size. I lucked out because there was about a 12" drop on the pattern, but I only had to cut off about 4" on each side to make the patterns line up. Then I started sewing. Since the curtains were to be un-lined, I double-turned all the seam allowances, and that went pretty well on the first piece. On the second piece I tried to get fancy and save myself a step, and ended up having to take a seam out because I did it in the wrong order (they had to be done in a certain order for all the seam allowances to be pretty all the way around). When I went to take the seam out, I ripped the fabric. I decided to work on the bottom seam, which was going to be less complicated ( the top seam allowance had to be done backwards for the offset fabric to show when the valance was flipped over). I got the bottom seams done, laid them side by side, and the bottom seam allowances didn't match. Worse, that threw the pattern off, so it didn't match up where the curtains met.
By this time, I had been sewing all day (stopping only to scarf down half a pizza, and burning the &^%$#!! out of my mouth in the process), and was running out of time because I had to get ready to go to Kimbley's birthday party tonight. I was frustrated and tired of looking at them. I went ahead and made some tie-backs from the 4" scraps I cut off earlier to raise my spirits. Making tie-backs is my favorite part of making curtains. Then I got ready and went to dinner. Running late, of course, but I made it on time.
We went to Bonefish Grill on Woodruff. It's a pretty expensive place, and I ordered the wrong thing. I got a mahi mahi piccata that had no lemon in it (hello!), which I just don't get. The drinks were good - but for $7 apiece, they fucking ought to have been. The recommended appetizer I had was wonderful. Some of the people got dessert, and I have to say the creme brulee was excellent. But then it's really hard to screw up creme brulee. I ate everything on the table. I don't know what was going on. I just was ravenous. I ate a salad, half an appetizer, finished Jennifer's soup, my entree, finished JB's calamari (which was excellent), and finished half of Jennifer's creme brulee. I felt like a total pig.
A really bad pic from the restaurant. Kimbley is eating to the left, so she's probably just as glad you can't really see her.
Another bad pic of the other end of the table. I lucked out as far as seating goes. I got to sit beside Kimbley. Then when Jennifer and Christina came in, Christina sat on my other side. She is as charming as she is lovely. They are both really sweet, and I enjoyed eating dinner with them. Still, the service was incredibly slow, and by the time we had been there for three hours I was really ready to go.
We repaired to Amy and Aaron's place for a game night. I hadn't been there before. We played a really cool video trivia game in between the guys trying to set the deck on fire. It was the boys against the girls, and with one game each Donnie and Mark went home. Aaron and Chris were on a team with me at that point, which meant that I got all the girl questions from after that. But we did well, and ended up coming from behind to deliver a trouncing. Aaron and Chis were very appreciative and supportive. They are really nice guys, both of them. I seem to be making all these straight friends lately. Amy and Aaron were both really nice and hospitable to me, and I enjoyed the visit very much. I'd like to get to know them better.
It was a very nice evening, but I didn't make it to bed until 2:30. I was really glad to hit the sheets.
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