Tuesday, October 14, 2008

Sewing projects for the commitment-phobic

As you probably have gathered, I am a huge fan of all things hand-made. And I have a new house, so that spells curtains! For inspiration on style I like to turn to Country Curtains. Their curtains are gorgeous and well made and fantastic. I own these curtains, which hang on these rods. Dreamy.

Anyhow, we're desperately in need of curtains in the living room window. You can see our whole lives from the street and that skeeves me out, but it just looks weird in there that it's a huge bare window (56"x112" of blackness at night). This seems like just the kind of project that will give me nervous diarrhea. So I'm going for it.

I found a pattern in Fun & Fabulous Curtains to Sew for these gorgeous pleated numbers. They are above my skill level and if I don't sew the pleats perfectly straight they're going to look terrible. I'm exhilarated.

I need over 8 yards of 54" fabric. JoAnn fabrics is having 50% off home decor fabric. It's fate.

Um, I was unprepared for the selection. And the prices. Oh I don't even want to talk about the prices. $39.99/yard, Christopher Lowell? What are you thinking? Right, so the selection. There are so many beautiful things and I went through all the aisles twice just touching everything. Then it was down to business. I don't want a pattern and absolutely can't use a stripe (too unforgiving). I kept circling around to the silk. I'm out of my finger-lickin' mind if I think I need silk curtains in a house with a toddler and a cat. I circled for close to an hour. I finally chose a very fine, polyester (read: machine washable) faux-silk. I found thread that matched perfectly right away. Good sign.

$90 later I was home, Robbie was napping and I... didn't start the curtains. I froze. I had already committed by buying a cut of fabric (although my heart raced when the shears made the first cut). But this isn't $6 of eyelet I can just throw out if it's ugly. Once I cut in to this bitch I'm all in.

I have all week to study the pattern before I have time to work on it again. Some days I wonder how I managed to get married when I hesitate to cut into a piece of fabric. Oh well, jumping that hurdle is part of the fun.

1 comment:

Marketing Mama said...

LOL - good luck with that! You were very responsible landing on the more durable fabric. :) I spent wayyy to much on mine from pottery barn. Too bad I can't sew.