I am convinced that it is never too late to learn new things. It doesn't matter what your background or how familiar you are with something already. If you have a passion to learn how to do something new, you should try!
It was about eight or nine years ago that I sat at my dining room table with an older couple from our church. The topic of sewing came up. I really wanted to learn to sew! I especially wanted to make a quilt. I inherited my grandmother's sewing machine and I wanted to use it to create things.
Well, this dear lady, her name was Paula, took me through the whole process of making a quilt. From buying the fabric, to ironing it, to threading my machine. I will always be thankful for that time she spent with me. I still remember what it felt like to thread that machine the for the first time. So awkward, so complicated. Now it is so familiar to me.
After making that quilt, I made other quilts. I tried my hand at matching sundresses for my daughters and their cousin Serena (That was three dresses total at that time!). I made a fleece coat for Amera. I was able to mend things that tore. I shortened my husband's pant legs and hemmed them. And now...I make curtains.
These are very simple curtains. I fully admit that someone else could probably make better curtains. My goal here is to simply say that I love them, because I made them and maybe you can make something that you love too.
I wanted to replace our Walmart curtains that were long and blocked the sunlight. I would tie them back, but that didn't quite look right either. We also found it amusing that they spelled espresso with an "x"!
These curtains served us well and I was glad to have them. But I just got to thinkin' that I could
make something that I liked even better!
Here is the machine I inherited from my grandma. She wrote instructions on little labels to help the user. Isn't that sweet? I started to remove some of them, but then decided I kind of liked having them there.
They were tough to get off anyway!
I totally winged this project. I bought 1/2 yard of three matching fabrics. I would use less than that for the trimming fabrics, but I wanted some extra for some other projects I am working on.
The main fabric I didn't cut at all. The other two I cut with a rotary cutter on a mat.
I began by sewing on the trim for the bottom (red), and the trim for the top (yellow). Once that was done, I began ironing all the edges. I fold in the edge (about 1/4") and iron across one side. Then I go back to where I started and fold it over again, and iron it again. This helps everything to stay in place when you are sewing it together.
The above picture shows the top of the valance. I simple studied the way my old curtains were sewn together and copied that. I just folded over the yellow trim fabric and sewed it in two lines in the back.
That created the opening that the curtain rod would go into.
At first I thought I wanted to shorten the valance a little bit, but I decided to leave it.
I'm quite happy with my cheery little valance. It was fun to make and cost me less than ten dollars!
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