I'm a Sewing Machine

Now that the floors are completed (HOORAY!!!!!) some things can finally move into the room. I've been sewing a lot lately to get our curtains finished so we can hang them up and replace our current rosin paper curtains that are up...

How welcoming :)

I bought the fabric for our curtains probably about 2 years ago when I was buying curtain fabric for a few other rooms. The two fabrics we got are gray, yellow and cream stripes and the other is natural hemp-y/linen-ish. The plan was to use the striped fabric on the large, center picture window and the natural fabric on the two tiny sliver windows to the left and right of it

The two windows on the left and right of the fireplace would just have the striped fabric. But as I've been thinking about the curtains these last 24 months I thought it might be nice to pull in more of the natural fabric. Ultimately I decided that the fireplace flanking windows would have double the curtains: a panel of the natural fabric that would cover the entire window as one panel and then the striped fabric bordering the sides.

Luckily the fabric still had the tag on it (I bought it on fabric.com and they put a sticker on the fabric with the name and product number). I looked up the fabric and found that the price had risen to $15 a yard. And I needed 6. Ouch. I googled around for hemp-y/linen-ish fabric and found some that I thought was a good match. I knew it was risky, but it cost half as much so I bit the bullet and ordered it. I sat nervous for a few days waiting for it to arrive, but when it came and I opened it and compared it to the original fabric it was nearly identical

You can really only see a color and texture difference when you get really really really close to the two, and because the two fabrics will be on separate walls I considered the 1/2 price purchase a success.

And with that, it was time to cut, pin and sew sew sew. It actually took a pretty long time because each of the two windows on either side of the fireplace required me to sew 3 panels that were nearly 9 ft. tall, and the picture window required another 3 panels at about 7 ft. tall. That's 9 panels at 7-9 ft. tall.

But sew I did

And as I completed each window set I folded all the fabric together and pinned it with a handy note so I new which window they belonged to

And once they were all done...

...it was time to put them all up!

We put down red rosin paper so we didn't scratch or hurt our floors in any way possible (seriously, I'm so paranoid)

Then I laid out the fabric to make sure things were sewn correctly and at the right height

Then it was time to measure things out and put up the rods

And you wanna know the hilarious thing? After we put up the first set of curtains on our double rod bracket we stood back and noticed that things weren't level, which was strange because we measured everything correctly. Then Chris noticed that the just out of the package Ikea brackets didn't match (look at where the drilling holes are)


Not lined up at all. Lame. So we adjusted things and put the rods back up and hung the curtains so they didn't look like they were falling into the fireplace. We repeated the same thing on the right side and voila!

Mah-velous! :)

The natural fabric is great because it's pretty thick so it lets some light in, but also prevents people from being able to see in. It's also a similar color to the natural/cream color in the striped fabric, so I think the two fabrics look really great together.

Now, hanging the curtains on the picture window didn't really work out as successfully. Sure, they went up, but my whole three panel idea looked really sloppy and left a lot of gaps where people can see inside

Chris and I were both not fans (and Chris especially)

(I should probably iron these...)

Also, that natural fabric on the two smaller side windows is a lot thinner (that's the original natural fabric), and I didn't like that very much.

So the verdict: we'll be buying MORE fabric and I'll re-sew more panels. Bleh. The plan will be the same arrangement, but those two natural fabric side panels will be wider so that there is overlap between the natural and striped fabric so people can't see in as much (and it doesn't look as sloppy). Sigh. I was beyond annoyed after we put them up and I realized I'd have to sew more curtain panels. But as I look at it more and more they annoy me more and more so I feel like it definitely has to be done. We'll leave these up for the time being, but I hope that fabric comes in the mail soon so I can finish all this damn sewing!