Saturday, October 29, 2011

"New" Curtains.

I have always maintained that I need to decorate my home in order to be motivated to clean it.

Hah! I now realise, that was just an excuse!

As a result of my 31 days of housekeeping project, I have this utterly fabulously clean home. Right. We know that. What I didn't know and could not have anticipated--was how much it motivates me to decorate!

I feel like it's become a sickness.
(But maybe it always has been. It was just half-hearted under the squalor.)

Nonetheless. Let's get to the curtains without further ado.

Before:

This photo was taken as part of the tongue in cheek "room tour" I posted back in March. What a lot of changes writing that post has brought to this room!

I bought the fabric sometime in the summer from a lower income department store here called Zellers. (Sort of like K-Mart.) It was a twin sheet. By happy accident, I discovered that a twin sheet is the perfect width for curtain panels 54-56" wide. There is extra fabric at the sides: but I just turned them to the back, pinned, and sewed through all three layers together.

I got one panel done just before Thanksgiving (October 14th).


I desperately wanted to finish the second one. So, the morning of our big dinner, I came downstairs and decided I'd take an hour and see how far I could get on the second one.

I got as far as measuring it, cutting it and pressing under the raw edge. Then Daedalus (my husband, not his real name) came into the dining room where I was working, plunked himself down on the computer and tried to rustle up the Thanksgiving Monday Canadian Football League game with the Montreal Alouettes. (He grew up there. He's a fan.)

That was it. I folded up my fabric, put away the iron, ironing board, and sewing machine and wandered into the kitchen to start chopping onions for stuffing.

Yesterday, almost two full weeks later, I finished it. Took about an hour, maybe two--between writing up a blog post and making dinner.



I grinned all night.

(Here's the photo which shows I got the second panel to line up perfectly with the first--and, hey, that hem's not bad either!)

Linking up to another inspiring 31 dayer: Marianne at Songbird. Her topic was "getting things done" and boy, did she ever! She was inspiring.

PS. You may remember I promised a tour of the dining room/home office/project room. I haven't forgotten. It just may take just a couple more days to happen.

3 comments :

scb said...

They look great!

I need new drapes in a couple of rooms... (hint, hint...)

Actually a friend had a fantasticly creative idea for my writing room, I'm just not sure how to pull it off. She suggested, since the throw on my "day bed" (aka Mum's leftover hospital style bed) looks kind of like a painter's drop cloth, but also has some writing on it, that I get other drop-cloth-like fabric for drapes, and write quotes and authors names and whatnot on it. Interesting idea in theory. ???

Anyway, well done on your drapes. Sheets are so versatile.

Marianne said...

Ah this is such a good example of getting things done. Your curtains look wonderful and all it took was two rather short sessions.
Now 31 days of housekeeping is an idea. My house could use that challenge....

Carol-Anne said...

What a huge difference that has made to the space! It just looks more 'finished' and custom ...and less like you just took some curtains out of a package and stuck them up there!

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