By the yard

I mentioned that on the weekend, I went for a walk to pick up some supplies for a project I've wanted to tackle for a while.

When Dave and I started dating, he gave me a 40 gallon fish tank and stand. Since then, I've kept it full of fishies, and it's followed us from home to home. When we moved here, he put a shelf in the bottom so I could store my various fish-keeping equipment, as well as some house plant accessories. Over time, it accumulated more and more until it looked like this.

And, of course, the fish tank is in the dining room (and the lower level is open concept) all this mess was visible to anyone who wandered in. I've long wanted to sew some kind of skirt that would cover it all, but still allow us access when we needed it.

I had a plan, I even had some fabric in my stash that would work. All I needed was some sticky velcro tape. So off to Lens Mills I went. While walking, I decided even though I already had fabric, it might be fun to use some fish-themed fabric. I only needed two metres, so it wouldn't be too expensive. i decided to see what they had and then decide.

They had some very nice ocean reef fabric... but my fish are fresh water, so that just didn't seem right. They only other thing they had was hunter/angler themed, definitely not what I was looking for. No biggie, I had fabric already.

But... then I made the mistake of wandering past the clearance table...

This beautiful patchwork of pre-sewn tapestry fabrics was on sale for $6.99/metre... with an additional 25% off for their Valentine's sale. The colours nicely complemented the colour-scheme I'm slowly changing the lower level over to (a mix of beige, cream, green, pink and gold). And while I was standing, waiting to get it cut... I started thinking about how the dining room could use some new curtains....

So I got six yards!

On Monday, I set to work and in no time, the front panel for the tank was done

 So much better! And we have easy access whenever we need it - just pull back a corner

And velcro it back up when you're done! The sides got individual inset panels too.

Also velcroed for easy removal.

And as for those curtains... the old curtains followed us here from the old townhouse. They were sheer aqua coloured panels I got super cheap. Aqua is not one of my favourite colours, but I got them because they were super cheap, and matched the ugly aqua couch our old neighbours gave us (again, I don't like aqua, but when you have no couch at all...)

By the time they'd made it  to this place, the couch was long gone and the curtains were faded, full of cat holes and well past their prime. But.. we needed something on the window, so they got put up there and I just tried not to look at them.

But an hour of sewing and now....

Soooooooooooooo much better. It's hard to believe curtains could make a person so happy. But they go so nicely with grandma's pine table.  And when the sun shines through them, they light the room with a warm, pink glow.

A little bit of rough twine made a nice, simple, rustic tie back, too.

And... I still have about 2.5 metres left! So maybe I'll whip up a couple pillows one of these days.