fabric

Yesterday, a fly sneaked in behind me as I closed the screen door. It buzzed around for a while, viewing the goings on around it, and then settled on the wall beside me. As I sat there watching that fly on the wall, I wondered what it was thinking?

The fly’s line of vision was aimed directly at the mess of colourful fabric, lying haphazardly across the sofa. The white cords zig-zagged across the back of the fabric, and spilled over onto the floor.

Let me explain

The saga started a long time ago. Well, almost three years, to be exact. When I moved into my unit, there was an issue with the door that leads out to the balcony.

It is big, glass, and bare!

I had inherited vertical blinds from the previous owner, but! – they were plain, and -well – what more can I say without using the ‘ugly’ word? So the vertical blinds have remained constantly in the open position, leaving the glass door vulnerably naked. And me feeling like a goldfish in a goldfish bowl.

For almost three years I’ve been thinking about making some kind of curtain to hang at the door; I just didn’t know how to tackle the problem. I wanted something to cover the bare glass, but still allow me access to the balcony without tripping over a curtain.  

Thanks to technology – well – Pinterest, the answer came to me a few weeks ago. The simple (or not!) solution was to make an Austrian Blind. I figured I could pull the blind up through the day – and down at night. Unless I have a light on through the day, I would be shielded by the expanse of balcony between me and the rest of the world. But at night time, I would need to have the blind down, for privacy.

I’ve Got This!

With Pinterest to the rescue, I saved the instructions, found the fabric I wanted, and set about making the blind. Having made one years ago, I thought I had this covered – except for one small detail. Instead of securing the fabric to a baton, which in turn would be secured to the top of the door-frame, I figured I’d take a short cut and put the blind on a curtain rod. The door frame seems to be made of some kind of metal, and I didn’t want to start messing with making holes in it. It would be much easier to use a tension-rod inside the frame. Some of you are probably ahead of me at this point and can already see where this will end. I didn’t.

After hours of sewing little loops onto the back of the fabric, I carefully threaded the cord through each one. I started from the bottom loops and ended with each cord making its way across the top of the blind, to be anchored on the left side. I figured this would be the easiest side to hide the cords on.

Disaster!

Do you know that feeling when you’ve finished a project and are about to give it a trial run? That moment when you suddenly think “What if this doesn’t work?”. Well, I had that moment.

After threading the top of the blind carefully onto the tension-rod, I hoisted it all into position within the door frame. All five cords hung neatly, as planned, down the left side (facing me). I gently started pulling the cords to raise the blind. Well, that bit sort of worked. What I hadn’t calculated was the cord on the far right of the blind, gently pulling the blind to the left side – sort of gathering the top – until the blind had departed from the right side and was now bunching up towards the left side.

The worst was yet to come!

Had I mounted the fabric to the baton, as I should have done, this would not have happened. The blind would have hoisted up, leaving the left and right sides in their intended positions. Oh, and in the process of the trial-run, I had to keep pushing the tension-rod back into position. It seems that all that gathering and hoisting was too much to bear for that skinny little rod. Therein lies another problem – the rod just isn’t strong enough.

So with the clock fast approaching midnight, the curtain gathering across the rod, and the rod constantly dropping out of its rightful place, I did what anyone would do in that situation. I dropped the whole lot onto the sofa, and went to bed. And that’s where it all was when the fly landed on the wall the next day.

Was the fly on the wall laughing?

Perhaps it did look funny – the blind laying haplessly on the sofa – and me trying to figure out how to make it work.

Ideas that have sprung to mind so far are:

• Lash the rod to the brackets that hold the (almost) redundant vertical blinds (big problems with this idea)
• String the cords up and over the brackets that hold the (almost) redundant vertical blinds (even bigger problems with this idea)
• Buy a blind and have someone put it up – properly (definitely worth thinking about)
• Go to the hardware store – buy a baton – fix the blind to the baton – and secure the baton to the inside of the door frame (seems like a feasible solution)

I will add here that a trip to the hardware store is on my ‘To Do’ list for tomorrow.

I’ll keep you posted on the outcome – if I ever get it right. 

If I was a fly on a wall at your house, what would I see?

G-Rated responses only! If I have landed on a bedroom or bathroom wall, spare me the details. I don’t want to know…

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