I MADE CURTAINS!

Yes, I'm yelling with excitement! I sewed curtains for our living room and they actually look really good. I am shocked and excited!

Let me back up a bit. I received a sewing machine for Christmas from my mother-in-law. I had only used a sewing machine once and it was all set up for me, I just sewed 2 pieces of fabric together and made a pillow. So the fact that I set up my machine, cut my fabric, ironed and pinned down the seams, and sewed everything virtually on my own AND they turned out great, makes me so proud. I did have a tiny bit of help. The machine was giving me problems so I brought it in to work and one of our seamstresses looked at it for me. As I had suspected it was user error- I threaded it wrong.

I really enjoyed the project. I have tried tons and tons of hobbies, but I usually don't enjoy them or get very frustrated at the first error. I made a couple of mistakes on these and let me tell you ripping your seams out is time consuming and not fun but I never got frustrated. Maybe sewing is my meant-to-be hobby. I guess we will see after I take on a few more projects.

Anyway, let me remind you of what our living room window looked like before:

And now:

 Here is a close up of the rod: (Sorry I should have turned the overhead light off.)

 And a close up of the fabric:

I LOVE them. They make the room look so much taller and add so much personality to the room. I love the colors in the fabric too. Our main colors in the living room have been: green, teal, and orange. I only had a few orange things, so I'm going to switch those out for yellow and this fabric will fit right in.

I hung the curtain rod 5 inches down from the ceiling and each side is 1 foot out from the edge of the window. I've never done the high and wide thing before, but after reading it everywhere I decided to try it. What a difference- very dramatic!

I just did a small seam on the bottom and each side. The top is a 3 inch seam and I sewed ribbons in after seeing it on Welcome to Heardmont. She hot glued hers, but I just sewed them in. I don't have a hot glue gun -yet. I just love the way it makes the front of the curtains wave. I didn't line my curtains.

What do you think? Are you a sewer? Ever sewed curtains or used the iron on bonding stuff?