Altered and Fancified.

One of the items on my most recent to-do list was making curtains for the living room; I came up with an idea to try and frame the entire area so I set out to find some curtains. I saw this post over on The Lettered Cottage about turning some tab top curtains into rod pocket curtains, seemed like a good idea to me! The next time I was at Ikea I picked up a set of Lenda curtains. They were $15 for the pair! Woot woot! I also loved the detail on these drop cloth curtains from Suburban Spunk. But I'm more of a straight line kinda gal, so I also purchased some 1.5" wide black ribbon.

The first thing I did was measure the curtain panel hems on both the top and bottom and pin them into place.

I thought that once the pinning was done I would be all set to start sewing but it turned out that the tabbed portion was too thick to fit through the sewing machine. Well, it fit but it was a struggle. I decided to attempt to rip the seam out and remove the tabs. I was anticipating that it would be a real pain in the rear but it was actually pretty easy. I'd say it took about 10 minutes for both panels and that was because I had to watch out for the pins!

I'm glad that I ended up ripping the tabs out because I think it looks much better than having cut them and leaving little straggly threads everywhere. But I got all the sewing done after that. Then it was time for the ribbon trim. I was a little nervous to sew it on because I'm still pretty new when it comes to sewing. Good ol' JoAnn's saved the day with this miracle product Stitch Witchery.

I just lined up the Stitch Witchery on the curtain panel, put the ribbon on top, covered with a damp washcloth, and pressed the iron down.

All that ironing took a little while but then the curtains were finally down. That's when the real problems started. I was so excited to hang the curtains up in the living room but they looked horrible in the space. First, I thought it was because of a rinky-dink curtain rod, but even with a thicker rod things still looked stupid. I'm sorry that I don't have any pictures of the disaster - it's because I was crazed and crying because I'd worked on these dang curtains so long and then they weren't working out right. Loren and I tried to think of different solutions, even tacked the curtains to the wall in different positions. Finally, I gave up.

I was determined to use the curtains still...so I decided to put them in the dining room! I've been sort of working on a makeover in there anyway so it seemed like a good idea. Loren raised the existing curtain rod up and they worked!! It was a miracle!

So, that's the saga of the curtain panels. I really like the way they turned out but they're still a little tainted in my mind because of all the drama. :P And I'm thinking that I want to paint the dining room...oh boy.