Curtains - progess report

The rolls of fabric I'll be using



Curtain no.1 in progress.

As you can see, I have a lot of fabric to deal with.  In fact there are 36 metres of fabric in each curtain, when you tot up the curtain fabric, lining and interlining.  Goodness knows how many miles of stitching I will have done by the time I've finished!

The sewing is actually really easy, but with so much fabric, trying to iron the seams etc is a nightmare.  The most difficult bit so far though was trying to get all three layers in order and inserting the buckram.  I literally had to crawl inside the curtain to do this!  Anyway, now all that is left to do on curtain no.1 is the pleating and hemming now.  I'm going to leave the hemming until I've put them up as I think the floor is uneven.

However, the Christmas tree is now up and in the way, so even if I finish the pleating before Christmas, we won't actually hang the curtains until 2013.

Curtain up II

In the prequel to this post I told you all about my sewing plans for our home and we've now finally reached the second project in that list.

I must admit that I can't wait to have curtains in our living room again.  After the new windows were installed we applied 'privacy film' to the living room windows and used the curtains that had previously been in the living room to replace the hideous blinds we'd inherited in the bedroom.  I can't tell you how nice it is to draw the curtains in our room every day.  It feels like such a luxury after two years of dirty, dusty venetian blinds!

Having said that, I'm also daunted at the prospect of making such HUGE curtains out of silk for the living room and also trying out a new curtain top to boot.

I've made numerous pairs of curtains over the years and have even tried my hand at roller blinds (although they weren't exactly that successful - let's just say it was a rather expensive lesson in how not to cut a straight edge by following the pattern in the fabric!), but the curtains have all had good ol' pencil pleat headings.  But for whatever reason, I've decided to go for triple pleats this time.

I may have mentioned once or twice (!) that they're going to be HUGE curtains, but naturally, you've no idea why.  Well, firstly we have a lovely bay window in our living room which measures about 4.5m in width.  We also have very high ceilings on the ground floor, so the curtains will be almost 3m long too!  As I asked here, how do I save myself from 'drowning' in so much fabric?

If I ever surface from the sea of fabric, I'll try to keep you all posted on my progress!