Monday, October 24, 2011

1 Drape to 3 Drapes

Last summer, we repainted our master bathroom and a few other areas in our house. We had had mini blinds on the window in there since I replaced the towels I hung up when we first moved in and so I got rid of them because really they are not the best coverage for a room that you are naked in. Anyhow, after it was repainted I got a tension rod to put inside the frame and stuck this brown curtain panel in there "temporarily". I forgot to get a before picture because I have been meaning to cut and hem this curtain for over a year now so once I decided to do it, I just got going! To give you and idea of how long the curtain was before, the top section in this picture is for my bathroom. We had installed a towel bar below the window and instead of holding our towels, it was holding the train from the curtain.
I basically, measured the height inside the window frame and added a generous seam allowance. Then because the lining material is so slippery, I folded up the bottom, pinned and stitched and then did it again.
 

I also had to make a pleat in the center of the lining because it was not the same width as the main fabric. I suppose this didn't matter because on the original panel the two fabrics were only joined at the top and down the sides, not at the bottom.



Pretty nice, eh?


Next, I used the remaining length of curtain and split it into 2 pieces for our small basement windows that have been in need of coverings too (especially one that is in our basement bathroom). We also used the tension rods for those windows so that the curtains are contained in the frame.





For the top casing, I made it a little longer and then stitched a line through about an inch from the top so it would ruffle above the rod.
 
This also made it so it didn't have to be shoved all the way to the top of the frame to cover the whole window. Doesn't it look cute?

For the bathroom, fold sew repeat ;) and done!

 So nice to have that crossed off my to do list FINALLY!


Sunday, October 16, 2011

Freezer Stencil Shirt and Layered Dress-Up Skirt

I'm so excited! I know its been a long time since my last post but usually when I come back, I don't have any fun projects to share! This time, I have been a crafting MACHINE! I can't share all of the goodies just yet because I want the recipients to see them first when they receive them! But, this one I has already been received so let's check it out!

I knew I wanted to do a freezer stencil shirt with the bday girl's first initial and then I was thinking dress up... sooooo, I started with the shirt.
I had just gotten a pack of plain white tshirts but they were really boxy, not girly at all, so after I did the stencil I grabbed a cute xs old navy shirt in Evie's garage sale totes (having all those different sizes sure comes in handy!), turned the white tshirt inside out, laid it on top and cut, cut, cut! I moved the sleeves in, made them smaller and narrowed the sides and shortened it a tad. This was one of the times that I was super glad that a couple years ago for my birthday/mother's day the hubby got me a serger! I serged up all the seams and then used my double needle that came with my sewing machine to do the bottom hem. I got brave enough to try the double needle for the first time after seeing Ashley's tips here. The one that came with my machine was not very wide, so I got a 4.0/75 at the fabric store today for the next time.

Also, I appologize that I apparently didn't take very great photos of the steps...

For the skirt, I had some different dressy fabric remnants a friend had given me so, I used them to make a layered ruffly skirt. For the skirt, I just took about 3x the waist measurement  so it would gather more and be fuller, then I think the longest layer was around 14 inches and then the middle layer (tulle) was a few inches shorter and the pink fabric (?) was just barely shorter than that. I serged the fabrics together and folded it over about an inch for the waist and I serged the bottom of all the layers too. I also had some fun pink ribbon/embellishment that I attached to the tulle layer to make it fun!

Ta DA!
Then, I had some more time with it... and thought it just needed something more, so I searched through all my stuff and found some lace and pink biased tape so after that, I felt like it was done!


 And one final touch :) hand painted labels

And, the sweet girl <3 we've been having some beautiful weather, though this week its getting a bit cooler
 And, D got the Christmas lights put up too, so now just have to try to wait...
So, what do you think? It was for the 6 year old daughter of the couple who host our church community group. I gave it to her the night we had our group when the kiddos (who are mostly little girls) spend most of the evening playing dress up, and that night "L" wore it first, then the other gal who is about the same age, "M", came down wearing the whole thing too. I think that means they like it :)