Saturday, February 21, 2009

Sewing Curtains

By no stretch of the imagination can I claim to be a seamstress. My attempts to make friends with a sewing machine ended early on in my life. This stung a bit, especially since my mother is beautifully talented when it comes to sewing.

Thinking this might be an issue with age more than anything else, I've tried a few seemingly simple projects over the years. Surely my analytical mind and easy way of picking up the odd project would greatly aid in making something fantastic out of patterns and fabric, right? Not quite so.

Still, I didn't let that stop me when it came time to make curtains for the boys' room. They've had blinds covering the windows and have, over time, managed to destroy them! Our toddler's sudden anxiety about the lights coming in to the room only hastened our decision to do something about it. So we thought about picking up some panels (long curtains) over at JC Penny, but holy cow were those expensive! Instead I let the boys' each pick out a color they liked at Walmart.

At first, when they decided to pick out two different colors, I hesitated. Then when I brought them home and pulled out the panels, I was dismayed to see there was only one in each package (which was apparently clearly printed, but I was too blind to see!!!!). My idea of doing a simple hemming job went up in smoke. I seriously considered giving up, asking someone else to do it, or just going back and buying two more of each color. But my knowledge of our bank account status, my reluctance to ask anyone to do anything, and inability to just let things go won out. That and two sets of pleading blue eyes. In any case, here's my most recent creative attempt.


I should add the boys' got new mattresses and bedsheets as well. That's why there's a picture with them (and little sis, who thinks all new things are for her own enjoyment!).
Here's a better view of how we laid the curtains out. The blue denim on the outside, the red on the inside. The red curtains shrank a little in the wash, which really bugs me. But the boys' are happy with it, so I'll try to be as well.

In case you're wondering, this may be the first and only sewing project you see here on this blog :)

3 comments:

Little Messy Missy said...

Good job the curtains look great!

Unknown said...

Nice job!
I just made curtains for my livng room. A little tip or hint to save money. I buy flat panel sheets when they are on sale and use that, it is alreaday hemmed and you can just cut a little hole in the hem to go across a curtain rod. I don't have a curtain rod so I sewed little loops of ribbon on the top and hung sticky backed hooks on the top of my blinds and hung the curtains that way. I love them.

Cynthia said...

I like Greg & Talena's advice! Another thing that I like is buying from IKEA because they are inexpensive and you just do the hem with an iron-on adhesive that comes with the drapes.