Poor Jay

Yes, poor Jay never knows what to expect when he comes home from work on Wednesdays (which is usually my extra day off). For instance, yesterday he opens the door to the hum of my ancient, dusty sewing machine that hasn't seen the light of day in almost a year, since the wedding.

You know I can't post one of these without telling the whole story so here goes...

While trying to catch up on our pathetically, embarrassingly neglecticed laundry situation yesterday, I got this burr under my saddle about redecorating my table for valentines day. Now if you have read some of my recent posts, you'll know that I'm not a cheesy kind of decorating person. I have to come up with something creative and beautiful without resorting to cliches.

So, once a load had been put in the drier, and one in the washer, and I knew I had at least an hour before I could do anything, I put on a ball cap (because I'm surely not going to get dressed up to go to Target on my day off), and hit the road. I started at my old staple Target, but had remarkably little luck, although looking at my receipt you'd hardly get that impression. I swear I can't get out of that store for less than $60! I bought a beautiful night gown which I'll wear on valentines day to serve dinner (and no I'm not worried about spoiling the surprise because I know Jay doesn't read this, but noone better tell him!), some X and O cookie cutters, some heart shaped ice cube trays (LOVE me some shaped ice cube trays), and some new pillows since Jay has been complaining for a while. Plus I knew the pillows would justify my trip without tipping him off that I was planning something.

Unfortunately, they didn't have any type of tablecloth or runner that I liked. Everything was either not valentine-y at all or totally cartoon-y hearts and crap! So, while walking around, I got the idea that I might be able to make something. I knew I didn't want anything fancy. My simplistic, minimalistic design style really helps out when it comes to the pocket book, so I decided to head to walmart to look at fabric.

Now, I must say that Walmart is like my least favorite place in the entire world, and I do my best to avoid it. Target is by far my preference so that's why I started there. I could have gone to Hancock fabrics but that was all the way in Matthews and I had to get back to the laundry. So, I guess, just like I'm always yelling about, I sacrificed my ideals on the alter of low prices and convenience. Oh well, no one's perfect. :-)

ANYWAY! After picking up some candy hearts (totally off the subject but I love those darn candy hearts! I know they have to be so bad for you, and if nuclear holucast were to happen the only things left would be cockroaches, those scary easter bunny shaped peeps, and valentines candy hearts, but I still love them.) ANYWAY! ... candy hearts and dark read taper candles, I headed to the fabric section.

I really wasn't holding my breath because, really, this is walmart. But there it was, the holy grail! The most beautiful toile print fabric I'd ever seen, and at $5.50 a yard I couldn't pass it up. So, I grabbed 2 1/2 yards just to be safe and headed home to hide the secret stuff and get started playing with my fabric. I'd already summised that I could probably just fold the fabric in half and sew it together, but wasn't sure exactly how I was going to make it work. I looked at patterns, but they were all too ruffely, fuffy, duffy, for me. I just wanted something simple so I figured I could figure it out for myself.

Once I got home and hid the surprise stuff under the bed, yes, I'm not a very imaginative hider, I cleaned off the table which was a mess as usual. One of these days I'm going to have a crafting room where I can have everything layed out, but for now our dining table has to multiple duty as crafting space (when I'm not working in the middle of the living room floor), table for company (we eat on the couch in front of the tv), and general crap catcher! Once it was cleaned up, I layed out the fabric to see what I was looking at, and realized that not only did I have enough fabric for a runner, but I had enough for an entire table cloth.

So, I measured off the amount I wanted to hang off the ends, and trimmed it up straight. Then I ironed and pinned down a half inch hem and sewed it down. Thankfully, I remembered how to use the machine. I tend to forget how to thread it and get this really funky rats nest on the underside, but after just two tries I figured it out again.

So just $14 and an hour later, we had...



Not the best picture, I know. But there's only so much I can do when its dark when I get home.



I love it so much. It's perfect and exactly what I was looking for. Then this morning when I was trying to explain what toile looked like to a friend of mine, I came across this...



This was on William and Sonoma for $95!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Woohoo!!!!! Talk about Thriving on less. Plus, I like my pattern better. :-)