Monday, July 11, 2011

Mom sewed and I tried not to screw it up

I've got pinterest/redesign/DIY fever. It's ridiculous. You already know that I sold our old couches and bought a sweet new-to-us sectional. (Check out that post here if you missed it.) The sectional is very neutral so I wanted to get some new curtains and pillows to bring some color into the room. Side note- we just moved to one income due to God's continued faithfulness to our family, so expensive anything is just not an option. I'm fine with that though, I love hunting down good deals. While I was cutting costs and thifting it up like no ones business, I also knew I wanted nice curtains. So, obviously, for my 28th birthday I decided curtains were at the top of my list. Seriously, curtains. Oh well, so curtains it was. I turned to by oh-so-talented mom to help me make them. I had already found the fabric at Joann's and my mom kindly paid for it and helped me make the curtains and recover some throw pillows for my birthday gift. My mom is a really talented seamstress and has made countless quilts, dresses, and curtains. I always default to her, which is probably why I stink at sewing.

I'm not sure exactly how long it took us to make the curtains--- maybe 3 hours? We started out deciding how long I wanted the curtains. I bought 6.5 yards (which is 234 inches) of fabric. We (okay so my mom thought of this) wanted both curtains to look exactly the same so we had to figure out the exact pattern in the print. It worked out and we cut each curtain at about 100 inches. Once we made sure they lined up, we started pinning the sides of the curtain. Let's be real, I suck at pinning. My mom pinned her entire curtain and I was still finishing up my first side. It was laughable how slow and terrible I was at it. Mom had us double the hem and then pin. (see picture) I guess that gives the curtain a cleaner edge. From there my mom measured to make sure that the pins did in fact all measure exactly the same. Let's just say she had to pull a few million pins from my curtain. Once that was done, Mom just sewed along the pins. Phew, that completed the sides. We did the same thing with the bottoms of the curtains.

Finally, we got the top of the curtains. I had originally planned to just hem the entire curtain (which you can do and it's probably 9000 times easier) and buy the rings that just clip onto the fabric; however, I love grommets. I don't know why, but I do. There's something about them that seems fancy or polished or something. So, I found some snap on grommets at Joanns that looked pretty simple. False. This was the point where my mom almost gave up. It was the math. The curtain was 52 inches across. We were using 8 grommets per curtain and my mom suggested we put a grommet 2 inches in on both sides and then space out the other 6 within that. For some reason though, the math was just not coming out right. My mom pinned and repinned the placement for the grommets about 6 times. Finally after an hour of hassle, she was able to figure it out. Thank goodness - math's not my thing and neither is sewing.I would've been screwed if she did throw in the towel! I taught social studies, remember? So anyway, the package came with a nice little template that you could trace on the fabric with a fabric pen and then cut out the circle of fabric (see picture).

At this point, it was all downhill. Once we cut out the fabric, the grommets pretty easily snapped into place and created these beauties:

My curtain rods were originally black, so I used some spray paint (Rust-oleum metallic spray paint- satin nickel) and they ended up matching my grommets perfectly!  Here are some other shots and the pillows that we recovered.







There are still plenty of things that I'd like to finish/change/paint in the room. See that black mirror by the entryway- I'm spray painting it white as we speak. See the space between the curtains- I'm looking for something to fill that space. I'm leaning toward a circular framed white mirror. Anyone other ideas on how to fill that space?  I'm also debating between pulling the curtain back and leaving it hang, DIY-ing a sign for the other part of the room, finding some accessories, and possibly a plain yellow or green fabric for a few more pillows. So there you have it. Progress in the living room. Later this week I'll show you the other side of the living room with a new light and chair! Here's the quick before/after of the living room from just a few weeks ago:




I love the way they turned out and loved that I got to make them with my mama! 
Thanks Mom- you're the best! 

1 comment:

a blog full of weldons. said...

they look great!!! i need to learn how to make those!