I don't know what it is, but once spring semester finishes and I'm in "summer mode" I start sewing like crazy again. Remember last May, when I sewed 18 tote bags and used up 36 yards of fabric stash? Well, I'm still working on that same large stash of printed cotton duck. I knew I wanted to use it for some home dec type projects, like recovering cushions and things like that. But when the spring inside my bedroom roller shade curtain broke, I realized I could change the fabric when I replaced it (besides, it was really shabby looking thanks to holes in the shade my cat had made (see below)). It dawned on me that I could use my cotton duck fabric for curtains! And then I got excited. So this is project number one on my recent curtain overhaul.
And this is the after! The side curtains were the easiest part, since I got rings that had a clip on them. So all I needed to do was hem the raw edges. This is approximately 2.5 yards of fabric cut in half lengthwise. Since the roller shade provides the privacy, the long curtains are decorative only and didn't need to actually cover the entire width of the window. I didn't line them, since I want as much light as possible to filter in--and I love how the flowers really stand out when they are backlit. The roller shade was more of an adventure. Primarily in getting it trimmed to the correct size. I purchased a cheap roller shade at my local Lowe's, and they will custom trim it for you .... except at my store the trimming machine was broken. So I had to drive to a neighboring city to get it cut down to size. When I brought it home, I realized it was still too long to fit in the existing brackets. Grrrrrr. This I actually attribute more to my measuring error. Having watched the Lowe's employee pop out the fittings, I felt confident enough to take about the shade and trim it down myself the additional 1/8 of an inch with a box cutter. Finally, it fit! So I ripped off the cheap plastic blind it comes with and used double-sided tap to attach my fabric shade. And now I realize it's not quite perfectly straight. So I'll be taking it down again to adjust that, but otherwise I love it! So much more cheerful, and so much more "my style" to have flowers and color in the bedroom.
4 comments:
How cute! You did a great job. We just moved into a new house last month and there's a weird combination of roller shades, Venetian blinds, and my favorite, papery blinds with cords to control the top and bottom ends independently of each other. Ew. It's all gotta go, and now I have some great ideas on sprucing all my window treatments!
Love it! I had roller shades in all our rooms of our last house. The house we are in now has all slat blinds. I hate them! But replacing 18 window treatments is not in the budget right now! I guess I could just start a few at a time?
Omg, 18 is a ton! yeah, I would do one room at a time, just because that many is overwhelming! I did see some cool tutorials for turning blinds into roman shades that didn't look too hard--google that!
Papery blinds? Weird!
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