Wet.

Rain all day. We had some sun in the morning but the afternoon was nothing but greyness.

Today I kept myself busy making yet more curtains. A couple of weeks ago I came across a pair of curtains that used to hang  in front of the two wardrobe spaces in our bedroom at Dingles. I washed them and then began to wonder if I could reuse the light muslin front part of the curtains in our bedroom. Being so close to the street we have Venetian blinds up but even with them half open it feels quite gloomy. Although I dislike 'nets', (they seem so old fashioned) I'm very happy with the ones I made for my study. Putting the light curtains in front of the blinds fully open gives better privacy  whilst letting in a lot more light. We checked the visibilty and during the day even with the main light on with one of us in the street and the other right up by the window inside not a thing could we see. I made the curtain for the other window as well but I need to buy another length of dowel and some more cup hooks before I can put it up. While I had the sewing machine out I made another face mask as it doesn't look like we'll be shopping without one for a long time yet. I used the purple sleeve from a top I once altered lined with white cotton. All that's left to do is to add the elastic.

While I was ironing and sewing my thoughts turned to the history of the curtains I was re-using. I made the first version to go across an alcove that we'd put a hanging rail in (UK houses don't or at least didn't have built-in/walk-in wardrobes). That was in our first home after we were married over 45 years ago. I made the curtains from some very light cream fabric lined with heavy cotton sheets which I assume came from my mum using an old Singer sewing machine much like the one below. I have no idea what I did with my old machine, maybe gave it to a charity shop. It had the long bobbins and you turned the handle with one hand while feeding the fabric along with the other. Later my mum gave me her electric sewing machine. She bought it from a friend and I have it still.

A few years later we moved to our first house and the curtains were put away in the loft. That house had some built in wardrobes, the Victorian ones with lovely pine doors but too shallow to put hangars in the usual way. The curtains made a reappearance when we moved to Devon nearly 30 years ago. They were a perfect fit for the wardrobe alcoves in our bedroom. We painted the walls cream to match the wardrobe curtains and I bought the 'Country Diary' curtain fabric for the windows at the seconds shop.  Sadly when I washed the wardrobe curtains the outer fabric shrunk and I had to re-make the curtains using off-white muslin over the original lining. We didn't use those curtains when we moved to town 4 years ago but being me I kept them and I'm glad I did so. I'm awarding myself top marks for recycling. Once this place is fully sorted I'll give away/ recycle whatever's left of my curtain and fabric collection.