How hard can sewing be?

When I was in high school, most the girls I knew took home ec. I didn't want to waste my time - I wanted to get all the AP courses I could and besides, surely someone else would cook and sew for me. But we all know what happens to our best plans.

I have learned to cook (fairly well, I think) over the years. I can follow directions, and I do love my cookbooks. Sewing has been a different story. I still save hems and buttons for my mom. Mom has taught Princess to sew. She even bought her a sewing machine for her birthday last August. I have quite a collection of pillows now.

Last Friday I reached a crisis with the window covering in our guest room. The cheap blind (which came with the house) had finally fallen apart. I went to the discount bed and bath store (Anna's Linens) but could not see anything at all that I liked. A fabric store was right next door, so I walked in and immediately saw the perfect fabric. How hard could it be to make a basic panel? I bought the material I thought I needed and had them point out the correct thread. I had Princess thread the machine later that day. And then while she spent the next day Geocaching with the Girl Scouts, I had a pleasant day of sewing. Well, perhaps except for the carpal tunnel, the couple desperate phone calls to a student who sews and a friend who was carting around 3 feuding girls all day, a flung bobbin or two (who the heck ever named those ridiculous things bobbins?), a flung instruction book, and a few choice words mumbled here and there.

And didn't it turn out well? (and please, never look too closely when you come to the house)