Now and then I’ve been looking online for fabric so to sew new living room and dining room curtains. The rooms are open to each other, bisected by the upstairs staircase, so the rooms need coordinating decor. The wine colored swag valances, which we’ve had since we moved in now remind hubby of a funeral home! So, they need to go into storage, aka the too small linen closet.
We both like the Waverly Charmed Life and Rustic Life toiles, but I actually found it to be far less costly to just buy the curtain panels and tie backs, then the fabric, to sew them myself.
Amazon has the curtain panels reasonably enough. As they didn’t have a 54” length, which we need to clear the top of the long radiators under the windows, I bought the 84” length, which I’ll trim and re-hem. This will also give me extra fabric for pillows and whatnot.
Caveat: The listing says the color is cornflower. It isn’t, it’s much closer to navy. I have this toile in cornflower, which is much lighter. The color isn’t what I prefer, but hubby doesn’t mind it, so I’ll live with it.
They are unlined, but a heavy enough fabric which doesn’t necessarily need lining. So, I’ll press, cut and re-hem and hang them as they are, BUT, 4 of the 5 windows face south, with no trees out front to block any of the sun. The 5th window faces west, so is only slightly less sunny. Sun = fading.
Even the curtains on the east-facing kitchen window and kitchen door window have all faded, and that’s just east light! SO, one pair at a time will come back down and get a muslin lining. It will be a less onerous task to tackle that project a bit a time instead of lining all 10 panels at this particular point in time. Sewing is done in the dining room, which is warm in the summer with no AC in that room, so, small doses of working there is preferable.
As the sewing machine was coming out anyway, I figured I’d tackle all the other windows that needed a redo.
I began with the bathroom cupboard, which stores toiletries and medical supplies. The sink is a pedestal, so there’s no built-in vanity to put all this stuff. I’ve been wanting to make a Swedish blind for the cupboard for quite awhile, ever since I sewed new bathroom curtains and a shelf topper in this blue, white. and yellow plaid fabric.
So, this was the first project to get done. Swedish blinds are great – they only need a face and lining fabrics not much wider than the window, which can contrast or coordinate, a couple of 1” plastic O or D rings, some cotton cord, a window cleat, and about a 1/2” dowel or scrap length of narrow wood for the bottom of the blind. As the blinds use far less fabric than a pair of panels, they are less costly to sew.
Traditionally, the blinds were attached to a wood batten and secured to the top of the window frame, as shown in "Swedish Style" by Katrin Cargill.
I prefer something more impermanent, so I just hang the Swedish blind from a tension rod. This makes it super easy to take down, vacuum or wash the fabric and cording.
The cotton cord on this blind, and the 2 coming up below, was some soft cotton 2-ply yarn I had no other use for. I ran it through my spinning wheel, adding a lot more twist, then cabled it back onto itself. Although I have some proper cotton cording, I find it to be rough on the hands.
Next up was revamping my bedroom curtains. I sewed plain, lined panels with ties several/many? years ago, but not only did I get tired of tying the curtains up every morning, then letting them down at night, but, even with the double layers of fabric, they still let in too much light at this time of year.
So, they came down, got washed and pressed, then cut down to size. The face fabric then became the reverse side fabric, and I added a darker allover print to the face, then sewed tabs from the wide selvedge. As we were all out of scrap wood or dowels, I temporarily used the rollers I saved from the old living room and dining room roller shades, when the vinyl went kaput and we needed to replace them.
I am seriously no fan of vinyl, and avoid it if I can, but I share the house with hubby who needs the living room as dark as possible at night, as he’s needed to sleep there since the first of the recent bout of surgeries, with more to come.
Next up is making new curtains for the kitchen, the toughest project, as the kitchen window is 70” wide x 33” deep. This window needs a plain, light blocking panel that ties up at 2 places, as the window faces east. All that light is far too bright in the morning, especially for someone (not me) who tends to wake with a massive headache. So, it needs to tie up and then be let down at night. It’s too wide a span to easily have a Swedish blind.
Whatever I sew for the window, though, also needs to coordinate with the kitchen door window and the valance for the sliding glass doors in the breakfast room. LOL, all using just what I have on hand.
All for another post!
Onward!
Dawn
No comments:
Post a Comment