• TheInsane42@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    My sewing machine. I (m) wanted curtains, my wife didn’t want to sow them (no sewing machine didn’t help).

    Bought it last year (€270), made curtains troughout the house, monthly energy bill went from €630 to €230 a month due to savings on heating. (And I learned something new, always fun)

    • oxjox@lemmy.ml
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      1 year ago

      HOW? I have a sewing machine I bought primarily to hem pants for my short-man legs. I’ve purchased the fabric to make curtains but after an hour of struggling to get it to lay straight and cooperate with me, I gave up. It’s just too big to deal with 😩

      • sat012e@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        YouTube, man. Husband booked us a trip to the Star Wars hotel at Disney, and decided he and our son needed costumes. He taught himself to use it on YouTube.

        He didn’t even ask me for help. “Oh, this lady on YouTube has been sewing for 30 years!” SO HAVE I!

      • TheInsane42@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Curtains are a lot easier, especially when you start with pre-fabricated ones that need to be sewn together for wider windows and made shorter.

        • Fit curtains
        • Get loads of needles and make the roughly to size
        • Cut the bottom so you have more then enough fabric to correct mistakes
        • Curse as you forgot that the fabric slides of the table while cutting (leaving you wiuth a few cm left in 1 corner)
        • Hang curtains again to see what you can salvage and correct
        • Decide the curtains in the kitchen won’t reach the work top, just the bottom of the windows.
        • Sew everything together and hang the curtains
        • The slight tilt is ‘by design’ and be done with it. (They cover the windows and keep the cold out, that was the main goal)

        Curtains are visible for only me and my wife, so great items to start with. (I won’t touch clothing for a while, I know I’ll mess it up)

      • TheInsane42@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Thanks, especially the front door was a huge problem, lots of cold coming from there. Also the huge windows in the livingroom and kitchen on the 1st floor (ground floor is garage) were a huge advantage. Especially the gas bill went down a lot, not to much saving on electricity. The moment it starts to cool down, curtains close. (keeping the warmth in) Gas for heating costs loads more then the few cents extra for lighting.

        • ladicius@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          That’s his I handle it, too - small flat, curtains closed most of the time in winter. Really easy and cheap was to save a lot. And it’s dark most of the dead anyway so why keep them open? 😉