Well, just one curtain to be exact. My mother was auditioning this beautiful brown fabric with the embroidered vines for her new bedroom, and I decided it was just too pretty to leave in the bedroom.

There really wasn’t enough to make a full skirt, but I found the darker brown fabric on sale at Jo-Ann’s and between the two was able to make matching skirts for me and my daughter (she’s still at the age where matching Mommy is a cool thing Not sure I’d use that kind of fabric again–it shreds like crazy (thank goodness for my serger), and every needle prick made the tiniest of runs in the fabric.

But every single time I sat down at that infernal machine, it was a battle. One I rarely won. Then again, it didn’t help that I picked nice easy first-time projects like a full-sized LeMoyne Star quilt. I still quail at the thought of all those mitered corners. Agh. I think I eventually gave the pieces away. In the end, the machine beat me–I gave up sewing (except my counted cross-stitch, but that’s another story)

But in 2002 my mother got me a Husqvarna Lily 535 as a wedding gift. Suddenly, I had a machine that liked me, that wanted to make beautiful things together. My Lily is a nice, even-tempered machine. Maybe she doesn’t have all the bells and whistles, but we work well together.

With a biddable machine to assist me, I started making curtains for our new house. Then clothing for myself. Then skirts for one friend and prom dresses for another. Somewhere in there I attempted a baby quilt (our church makes memory quilts for each child born or adopted into our families). It turned out nice, but certainly nothing to shout about.

When my daughter was born I made crib sheets, sleepers, special pants when her allergies made her itchy all over. By the end of 2005 I was making baby quilts again. Nowadays it’s very difficult to tear me away from the sewing table.

In fact, I’ve a date with Lily right now (two baby quilts to do the actual quilting on).

TTFN!