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!

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)

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.