The love of home has wrapped its arms around me and it is truly wonderful to be back after my time in Uganda.
A fun and hugely challenging project that we've launched ourselves
into over the past few days has been the gradual transformation of our
Camper's interior soft furnishings. We'd got all the gorgeous fabric
(thanks to eBay) and bits and bobs lined up a month ago, and so it was
just lots of empty time that we needed to get things started.
I have been thrown into the deep end in terms of my sewing skills, which I would honestly say have never been that confident. Having done very little since I left school (and back then it was only a waistcoat, a teddy bear and an abandoned attempt at making my grandmother a dress!), everything has been painfully slow. My brain has ached under the mathematical strain of calculating how much fabric I needed to produce the same fullness (an additional 7%) for all the different widths of curtains each time.
And my brain went on strike over the
curtain for the very back of Belle, which had to incorporate incisions
for the awkwardly placed hinges either end. It may sound simple, but when you have to take into account the heading seam allowance along with a multitude of other variables, my head felt like a crappy outdated computer that had too many programs running at the same time. My Lucy-processor speed is really pathetic!
Anyway... that particular curtain took two attempts until we were finally satisfied with the look, but I am so pleased we had another go at it.
Many ideas have been bouncing round over how to use the neodymium magnets
which will hold the curtains back in place against the bodywork of
Belle. They are powerful little buttons which would mark the fabric
over time if we were to sew them into the lining. We were also
reluctant to use them naked against the bodywork, because they attract
with such force that they would chip the paintwork and also snap together
pinching your fingers. After much debate and
several trial runs, we have come up with a prototype that we like. We
have sewn this magnet into a felt pocket. This will probably be the
answer! Only 25 more to go :-)
And this is how Belle looks so far. We have to make two more fatter cushions, five little curtain tie-backs and one more tricky curtain to design and make which will hang down behind the driver and passenger seats. And then Belle will be dressed in all her glory, as she deserves.
I have been thrown into the deep end in terms of my sewing skills, which I would honestly say have never been that confident. Having done very little since I left school (and back then it was only a waistcoat, a teddy bear and an abandoned attempt at making my grandmother a dress!), everything has been painfully slow. My brain has ached under the mathematical strain of calculating how much fabric I needed to produce the same fullness (an additional 7%) for all the different widths of curtains each time.
And my brain went on strike over the
curtain for the very back of Belle, which had to incorporate incisions
for the awkwardly placed hinges either end. It may sound simple, but when you have to take into account the heading seam allowance along with a multitude of other variables, my head felt like a crappy outdated computer that had too many programs running at the same time. My Lucy-processor speed is really pathetic!Anyway... that particular curtain took two attempts until we were finally satisfied with the look, but I am so pleased we had another go at it.
Many ideas have been bouncing round over how to use the neodymium magnets
which will hold the curtains back in place against the bodywork of
Belle. They are powerful little buttons which would mark the fabric
over time if we were to sew them into the lining. We were also
reluctant to use them naked against the bodywork, because they attract
with such force that they would chip the paintwork and also snap together
pinching your fingers. After much debate and
several trial runs, we have come up with a prototype that we like. We
have sewn this magnet into a felt pocket. This will probably be the
answer! Only 25 more to go :-) 
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