The Project -- Part 2

Of one thing you can be certain: I don't know how to measure.  I bought a new iron yesterday and immediately set about ironing the remaining panels so I could get them up and get this tedious project at last completed.  It became a lot more tedious when I noticed that two of the panels still grazed the floor. How could this be?

And here I must admit that my first reaction was to blame Ikea and their obviously defective fabric that shrank at different rates when washed.  I really thought this and railed on and on about it to Bruce, who was working from home yesterday.  Then I got out my tape measure and measured both panels and discovered that the two panels had each "shrunk" by exactly one inch.  Ikea was vindicated and I had to bear the blame for measuring incorrectly -- and not once, but twice.

So I called Bruce into the bedroom and asked him I could get away with leaving them the way they were.  Was it really that noticeable, I wanted to know.  I'm sure that at that moment Bruce wished he'd gone into work that day, but he was trapped.  He, of all people, knew how much I loathed the idea of ripping out those two hems and redoing them.  So he said what I wanted to hear -- that he didn't think anyone would ever notice and I should just leave them as they were.  And then he fled back to his office.




I studied the curtains hopefully.  I looked at them while they were open and while they were closed.  Then I pretended that I was someone walking into the room for the first time, just sort of glancing around.  And every time, my eye was inexorably drawn down to the bottoms of those curtains.

This morning, I dug around for my seam ripper and commenced ripping.  Then I hauled my sewing machine back out of the cupboard and sewed the hem of a panel that is exactly 87 1/2" in length.  

I still have the second one to do and vow that it will be done this afternoon.  And it, too, shall be 87 1/2" long.  So help me God.