I got one window installed last night and I wanted to get the other 3 done today!  I still watched my Youtube tutorial between each step just so I didn’t screw something up, but there were some lessons learned that I think made it a little easier.

If you watch the video linked above, you’ll see that they’re sewing a window into clear plastic for a boat enclosure.  Since I can’t see through my orange canvas, I had to mark the underside differently.  They just see through their material and mark where both sides of the bias tape meet.  I decided to mark the other side after I sew on the first piece of tape.  It’s easier to see where it stops and I can shove my pen into it and it actually draws pretty nicely.

I also like to put the basting tape in the middle of things. That doesn’t work around corners very well, so I started taping things at the edges. On some critical seams that bend around the corners I would have two layers of tape.  Might seem like a waste of tape, but it sure made things easier.

I guess I have a little bit of an excuse with the first window in that I was learning how to use my brand new machine, but it seems pretty obvious now that the more consistent the seams are, the easier it is to use them to locate other seams… So I stepped up my game a bit and it made everything look, and work, a bit more nicely.

…and because I always forget that the little shit is down there… periodically check the bobbin thread.  I ran out once this time and it just pisses me off out of principle because it’s such a small easy thing to fix.

For the forward window I used the little thread-thru buckles because I didn’t have enough of the clip buckles that I was going to use.  Upon further review, I liked how small the thread-thru buckles were and gave up on the clips.

By far the most annoying part of sewing these windows is keeping the canvas rolled up and out of the way.  I have a lot of canvas and a small table, so this is harder than it sounds.

If this were saturday or sunday night I could totally be done with the windows today.  But as it stands, I have to go to work tomorrow and there’s not quite enough time today to finish up. Which is disappointing, but I have a few very easy hours tomorrow and they will be done! 🙂