Tuesday, March 2, 2010

curtains

proof that I have been working
so this is not a great picture, and these curtains are not only pinned to the wall, for the sake of a picture, but I need to make two more, and put them in the actual room they will go in, rather than this room. But I am loving how they turned out. I saw this blog post a while ago and thought "those are exactly what I have been wanting for my bedroom" (without really knowing what I wanted, does that make sense? so I logged on here and thought, there is no way I can afford those, considering I would need to buy four. Then I checked out this and thought, hey I could buy just two of those, cut them in half and hem them up, only paying half the cost. However, that was still too expensive. So I searched google images for anything similar, with a better price and I found this and thought, hey I could do that for some curtains. I was still debating if I wanted to put the work into it, and then my MIL gave me this. I had to do it, for the sake of learning how to use my new serger. Although I could have used a rolled hemmer foot, but I thought I would rather just serge, than hem. so this is what I did

1. I bought six twin sheets for $4 each at Walmart (you could use muslin, but I chose sheets becuase all the edges are already hemmed)

2. I marked how long I wanted my curtains and cut off the bottom (I wanted to keep the bottom the original width, so I could use it for ruffles)

3. I cut each curtain in half and serged the edges

4. I cut 6" strips with the remaining fabric and serged both edges. (I found out that a serger can ruffle and serge at the same time if it has a differential feed. I was so excited, so I serged one side and then on the second side I ruffled and serged, well, at least until I messed up some setting and it stopped doing it, and I wasted three hours trying to undo my mistake and make it ruffle again-I gave up, but am still determined to find out how I did it for the first part, anyone want to give me a tip I followed this advice for the first part).

5. once I gave up on doing my remaining ruffles with my serger I got out my trusty ruffler foot (yes I caved and bought one) I used this on a 3/4 of a curtain, and then it started acting weird too (again I do not know what I did to make it work great and then not so great, and again I wasted a few hours trying to get it to be so helpful again, and again I gave up. Again I ask, any advice?)

6. I finally did it the old fashioned way, ruffling by hand, it did not take as long as I thought it would and was far less frustrating then trying to figure the other ones out.

I still have two more to make, but I am getting faster with each one. I

As you can see I really owe my inspiration to a lot of people here, and I also own my know-how to good old google. I think you can learn how to do anything on the internet. So far I have learned how to sew and to crochet. I am currently trying my hand in carpentry so stay tuned)

I will post a better picture when they are all done, and in there final home
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Monday, March 1, 2010

Still here

and still working. I haven't posted any projects lately (although I have started many) because this has been taking all my time. We are making our basement the way we want it, and it is taking all my time. I will be back with more pictures and more posts when we are done.
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