Day off

Today has been a day of resting on the boat and I have been underway with the curtains in between reading a brilliant book. I found machining the heading tape on to the top of the curtain hard to keep in a straight line even with pins. Why is it that Mothers always make things like that look easy! When I was working on them at Mum's she machined the header of one expertly with no problems, where as I initially had the wrong colour thread coming through the front so spent ages unstitching, then the tape kept riding up to the very top of the curtain. Still, I've finished that one off and it hangs really well. The wobbly stitching can barely be seen inbetween the ruffles!


Here is how they look so far...


So only one left to finish, just the bottom hem and one side to do!


We are out of, well quite a few things of late, but most importantly clean smalls. It's been an age since access to easy washing machines and with limited water resources on board I was putting off a big wash. However this evening I decided to give the Wonder Wash a go.


It worked well. After filling with some hot water and detergent, in went the clothes and the spinning began. This is where Leigh came in, the machine did move around somewhat, so next time I'll use it on a truly flat surface. The pressure closure works a dream and no water leaked during the spin. It took about 1 minute of turning, they suggest 1 turn a second and then we inserted the short draining pole to allow the water to drain out. This took a bit of experimenting with to get out all the excess water in the drum. Initially the water was very dark and upon several rinsing attempts it did seem to clear. However it didn't run clear, it would've take up alot more water than we could offer up to this pursuit. Leigh wrung the the clothes out and hung them about the boat to dry ready for tomorrow.

Curtains to it!

My dear mother has been helping me to make some lovely curtains for the boat, winterising her as much as possible. I found some huge fabulous green velvet drapes in a second hand retro shop perfect for the job. They already had lining so just needed some good snipping and stitching up.


After trying to get my head round doing the curtains myself, I had to dash home to mother-bird for assistance, it just didn't make sense. I have never been much of a seamstress in my childhood and had little idea even now where to pin, stitch or anything else really.


After a day of female shenanegans, we set to working on making 6 curtains at 9pm! Note here I was aiming on driving back from the south to the midlands the next morning! With the measurements of the windows to hand, tape measures round our necks and the curtains stretched out we set about pinning along the lines to cut.


As it came together, it became clearer what we had to do. Cut one large curtain in half and this was enough for two windows in width allowing for some small ripples of material. It had heading tape already in place so we worked with this and just added in the seams either side and fixed the lining in place.

By midnight we had cut and pinned two out of six curtains.


So the next day, mum got up and was already sewing away before I had had my first cup of tea! And look what a wonderful sewing machine she was using...







Now that mum has shown me what to do, I have been sent to the floating home with Singer and the rest of the material to finish off. And they are coming along swimmingly! Already we have three windows hung looking very regal indeed.

With plans ahead of leaving our base this week we are tying up all lose ends and so the curtains will have to wait to be finished when we are on the move.

Stay linked to the kite project to see our move in text and colour!