Making a Sunshade — Janet Szabo

I sewed a batch of masks yesterday morning while watching a BBC documentary series on Henry VIII. History was not something I studied much in school, and I am enjoying learning about all sorts of stuff while I sew. I can’t just sit and watch TV without doing something else at the same time.

After lunch, I tackled the sunshade project. Being able to spread the fabric out on the floor of the new shop was great. I mentioned to the husband that it would be nice to have a sewing machine out there too, at which point he got that deer in the headlight look of terror that his wife might try to invade his new shop. In my defense, I would be happy to move my sewing stuff out to the old garage, but the place where I need to work is still occupied by stuff he hasn’t had time to move over to the new shop. Hopefully that will happen soon, because I would like to get my other industrial treadle out of the storage container and set up to use.

I took my big rotary cutter, my 24” long ruler, and an old mat with me to the new shop and squared up the piece of fabric I had cut off the roll. I turned under a 3” hem on each selvedge edge and secured it with large Wonder Clips (some of the best things ever invented, in my opinion):

Then I hauled the whole thing inside to my office to sew the hems on my Necchi industrial:

The sewing went very easily—the fabric is a plastic-y mesh and the Necchi had zero trouble with it. By far, the hardest part was wrangling 99 square feet of fabric through the machine. Once the side hems were done, I turned under a double hem at the top 3-1/2” deep—that’s where the grommets will go—and sewed that. I’ll wait to do the bottom hem until the shade is hung up and I can measure it.

I called my friend Tommy, who does auto upholstery and has the Singer 78-1 that I borrow periodically, to discuss grommets with him. He suggested I just get large grommets from Joanns and use those. My friend Scott, who sent me the Coolaroo fabric, also weighed in with a couple of helpful pics showing the grommets he used on his shade.

I’ll source the proper size grommets and get those installed, and hopefully finish this shade project in the next couple of weeks.

During our daily debriefing last night, the husband and I discussed how, even though this situation sucks for a whole lot of people, employment-wise, and we need to acknowledge that, it may also provide a lot of opportunities for new work to open up. I belong to a Facebook group that has been a huge source of inspiration to me in the past month simply because the members of that group—some of whom lost their primary source of income because of the shutdown—are constantly brainstorming about how to start side hustles, turn side hustles into more stable income streams, and be creative about eliminating debt. It’s a group of people who look for new opportunities and who get things done. I enjoy being part of it.

I also had a long talk with DD#2 yesterday afternoon. She is frustrated by some of the people she works with—one person in particular—who aren’t pitching in and pulling their weight. (That apple didn’t fall far from the tree, did it?) I told her that situations like this are when companies see who is worth keeping and who isn’t, and the person who is slacking may find herself without a job when this is all over. If DD#2 continues to show up and do more than is expected, as my kids tend to do anyway, that may also be noticed and rewarded.

In other news, Cathy is going to take some of the cowpea seedlings. I am curious to see how they do at her house versus up here. My friend Marcie has a Hubbard squash seedling for me and I’m going to give her a sage plant and some of the seedlings I started. It’s good to spread the plant genetic material around.