Sewing & other stuff

Well, since this is our week off from school, I use this week to go places, visit people and catch up on things around the house. Of which there are many. Today I am going to try to accomplish 3 things with the sewing machine my stepmom gave me. I want to hem a pair of curtains so that they will still be fit to hang, sew up a loose seam in a pair of jeans without altering the jean size 4 sizes and cut off and hem a long house terry robe thingy into a shorter bathing suit cover up terry robe thingy. I am NOT a seamstress. In fact, in my otherwise stellar scholastic career, I got one F on one thing in my life - my home ec sewing project. We had our choice of 2 things to make - a wrap around skirt or a caftan. The skirt looked quite difficult - making the belt and all. So I, in all my 9th grade wisdom chose the caftan. How hard could it be? One long piece of material, fold in half, sew down the sides, leave room for arms, cut out a neck, sew it and hem the whole dang thing up. I convinced my mother to buy me this very comfy feeling stretchy material. Wrong move #1. No, I think signing up for home ec might have been #1 and this was further down on the list. Anyway, if I had a picture of that blob of wasted material I would share it with you. I poked so many holes in the neck and had to patch them that the neck looked like a series of knots. I still recall the teddy bear patch I had to put over a big hole. I hemmed it wrong side out. The arm holes were of major different sizes. Suffice to say, Mrs. Gill was not impressed. Neither was my mother who had financed this fiasco. The other sewing project we did that year was making a purse out of placemats. I was a tidge more successful at this. Buy 2 matching placemats - lay them together pretty side in, sew them around the edge about 2/3 of the way and turn it inside out. Weave it through a store bought handle and tack that down. Done. Simple. Hard to mess it up. I got a C. So as previously stated - sewing is just not my thing. But, I want to do this today. I also have some other things to take care of. I bought some paint to paint the arms, legs and faces of the people on the house sign Kathy bought us. Since they are dark, they sorta just blend into the brick and it looks like the boy's ball hats are floating. Also, I have a place behind the back door to sand and paint. You know the kind I'm talking about, where the door is pushed open with major force and the knob goes through the wall. Our door was swollen with moisture during the big snow storm this year and in trying to get the door open, Bill managed to open the wall behind it too. So I hope I still have that color of paint in the garage. There is another spot in my bathroom ceiling to sand. Bill put in an exhaust fan over the weekend, so he had to cut a hole in the ceiling to run the wires. Now that he has that done, I will be taking over the bathroom project. He got the easy part of that project. I will be putting up beadboard and new baseboards and molding in there. We just remodeled that bathroom a couple of years ago, so the fixtures are all fine. The steam in the bathroom has made the wallpaper all loose though. The walls are very rough in there, so I am just covering them rather than messing with taking down paper, etc. I hate wallpaper. My attention span is obviously not long enough for wallpaper. We have lived in this house almost 9 years. Every room has been painted or papered at least twice. My living room is on it's 3rd go around. I have learned to just go with border. The last thing I need to do today is replace a piece on the kids' art easel. And I want to do an experiment with the kids using the chemistry set Jacob got for Christmas. Maybe.... we should blow up the sewing machine and save me from my misery.