Showing My Roots

OK. I can't believe I'm admitting this on a public forum here, but I am a total idiot. Totally.

It started with Mary trying to pull down the blinds in the den--and ended up pulling them down off the window. *sigh* John bought a set of curtains to put up, but they were too long. "Can you hem these?" Sure. I've seen Trading Spaces. I know how to work a sewing machine. I can DO this!

So, I did it. I took the set of curtains, figured out what length I wanted them, measured them, cut them, ironed and pinned them, and sewed them--and they looked great! I was soooo stinking impressed with myself!

But...now the problem is that there are TWO windows in the den. So....after a brief period of time, we finally got around to buying a second set of panels for the second window. OK. Same curtains for the same sized window in the same room bought from the same store. No problem. I used the same measurements I'd used before and went to work.

I hung up the first panel of the second set and....it was blatantly SHORTER than the panels on the other window. Um...huh? How'd I do that? Oh! I must have measured wrong--18 inches instead of 16 (don't ask me how I figured on the two inches--it's just another case of dumb blondeness....).

I then took a several month hiatus trying to figure out if I wanted to a) completely rip seams, re-measure, and re-sew the two longer panels, b) just say to-heck-with-it and sew UP the edge of my hem two inches (the "magic number" I figured was the difference), or c) say to-heck-with-it and buy another set of panels to hem to the first set's length or d) ignore it, and see if it would go away.

Option "d" obviously did not work, so the other day I FINALLY pulled out the sewing machine again to shorten the first two panels and finally hem up the last.

So...I cut off 18 inches of the last panel and hemmed it up (you do know where this is going, don't you?). I hung it up next to that tricky third one and...it's SHORTER THAN THE ALREADY TOO SHORT PANEL. WTF?

I now realize that the ORIGINAL panels is where I mis-measured. I was apparently measuring longer than the 16 inches I calculated with them. I did it RIGHT the third time.

FINE! (Good thing I cut the first two so long, and these curtains are still covering window space!)

So...I hemmed up the first two panels another four inches and I hemmed up the third panel another two to match them all up. And then hung them up.

NOW, the first two panels are STILL longer than the second (now-matching) set. WTH?

And why no, I never bothered to actually compare panels together. WHY ON EARTH WOULD I WANT TO DO THAT??????? GRRRRR!!!!!!!!!!!

I have a sneaky suspicion here. I think...I think that when the curtains were bought at different times and after the packaging of the first set was thrown away...I think a different LENGTH was purchased the second time. I think...that instead of focusing on how much length was getting cut OFF, I should have been measuring how long I wanted the curtains to be in the first place. I think...I think I am an idiot.

And...I think that the first set now match. The second set now match. And...I think I'm DONE hemming curtains for a while.