The curtain rod arrived yesterday, and we got the valence installed in the kitchen this evening. It looks nice, but the main thing is we won't see so much of our neighbor's junk now. The land goes up just outside the window, and their stuff towers over the fence. They store this stuff, supposedly "hidden away from view"; only we can see it. The valence should obscure it nicely.
I made a little progress on the Farm Play Mat, actually more than it shows since I had to start over. I made a mistake, and it is nearly impossible to recover from mistakes with this stitch. You knit into the back of a stitch on each row, which puts funny twists in the yarn, which fall apart when they come off the needle. It was much simpler to just start over.
I like the pattern though, and the stitch goes fairly rapidly, even though I'm being much more careful now. I think it looks like another plowed field. 8)
My valence is all done and hanging, not in the right place, but hanging just the same. OK, so my compression rod hasn't exactly arrived yet, but I do have this old rod that I had been planning to use originally, so I decided to hang the valence under the cutting table until the compression rod arrives. Hopefully this will let the wrinkles hang out without putting them out of reach for a quick steam.
And now for a solemn vow: As God is my witness, I'll never do pinch pleats again! And one of these days, I'll clean up that mess underneath that table too.
Once upon a time, I thought making pinch pleat valances for my kitchen windows was a good idea. This was before I had actually made any pinch pleats. I finished the valence for the large triple window, but the one for the much smaller kitchen sink window has languished, crumpled in a drawer, for years now.
As you can see, it's almost done, except for the pinch pleats, and there are only five more to do. I've given up trying to make them perfectly even, perfectly spaced and perfectly sewn. Completely. By this time next week, I'm going to have five more slightly askew, somewhat lop-sided and unevenly sewn pinch pleats done, but by all that's holy, they will be done!
I made a little progress on the Farm Play Mat, actually more than it shows since I had to start over. I made a mistake, and it is nearly impossible to recover from mistakes with this stitch. You knit into the back of a stitch on each row, which puts funny twists in the yarn, which fall apart when they come off the needle. It was much simpler to just start over.
I like the pattern though, and the stitch goes fairly rapidly, even though I'm being much more careful now. I think it looks like another plowed field. 8)
