Home Improvements




So, after a year of meaning to do so, I have finally finished the curtains for our 3rd floor bedroom / office area!

The process of dealing with them has really been quite complex. You see, my sewing machine and I have been in a battle of wills for years.

The machine was my mother's. She received it in the mid 1970s, from a lawyer she was dating, who thought that it was all she really needed to make her a domestic goddess/proper little lady. She was intimidated by the machine (or perhaps the attitude), and I remember the few projects she took on to be full of angst, frustration, and language perhaps not suited for a small child to witness. Before long, the machine was relegated to a corner, and she returned to crafts more her forte — sequined napkins and Christmas ornaments, knit mice slippers, and the like.

The machine, confident that it had prevailed, grew more assured of its powers.

I learned to sew in a theater costume shop, where attitude (of the machine, OR the actors) was just not an option. In a costume shop, you have a lot to do and a limited time to do it.

My mother then gave the sewing machine to me. Knowing I was my mother's progeny, it sought to intimidate me as well. I was having none of it. For years it has fought me with bad tension and other, more mysterious problems. One Christmas I actually asked for a new machine, only to re-receive this one, all tuned up. Sigh.

It tried its tricks again tonight, but I really wanted to get the curtains done, so I wrestled it into submission. And finally, after all these years, by the second panel it gave in. I have curtains, and a sewing machine wiling to collaborate with me.

They are not the be-all and end-all of all curtains. But I like them and they look pretty good, and I got to spend some time in my future daughter's room (where we have the machine until the front room is finished) working on them, and I feel good.

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