Grey Then Sunny.

The day began with choppy grey seas and gloomy grey clouds but as can be seen from the photo below things improved by the end of the afternoon. 

Because it was windy I took a chance and did a load of washing after breakfast. I hung it all outside until the clouds got so dark I brought it back in, mostly dry. I should have known to leave it outside and waited until I actually saw any rain but there you go.

While Peter went off to Aber, with instructions to collect the replacement curtain rail from Argos in his travels, I set to work making the seagull curtain. It was absolutely wonderful to have so much room to work in even though I did have to use the floor as well. With the sewing machine set up on the table and surfaces to lay out all my equipment it was such a change from working on a small coffee table.

In the past all the curtains I've made have either been plain fabric and/or only one width wide so it was a challenge to pattern match the seagulls. The curtains will be gathered so I suppose it isn't crucial but I tend to be quite meticulous (at least at the start of a project) so I tried really hard. A shame that a few of the seagulls have three eyes or legs. I blame it on the printing as other examples of the same seagull came out normal. You would have thought that the pattern would match when sewn edge to edge but I had to lose at least six inches from one side before it would match. For the very top of the curtain I was able to make a fold above a row of gulls with just some legs dangling down from above. I used a double duvet cover with a small blue and green pattern for the lining. So far I've done the centre seam and sewn on the gathering tape attaching the lining at the same time. We've still got to put up the curtain rail before I can sort out the length and then I'll do the hem and sides by hand.