I am sitting here, sipping my coffee on the sofa with a Boo kitty at my hip, dryer running in the back ground, gazing out the living room window that is flanked by my (lovely) tab top curtains, and I am thinking to myself how easy those were in comparison. I am comparing them to the solid navy silk-esque grommetted curtains I "finished" yesterday.
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| These will be the perfect length once the sheers are cut to fit the window. |
The faux-grommets from Joann's worked like a dream. Mark the spot on the fabric, cut out the circle, stick in the front piece, pop on the back piece and voila! The circle that you cut doesnt even have to be all that perfect since its edges will be covered by the plastic grommet. They are a bit pricey in my opinion, but Joann's always has coupons so you can just print one off the web or wait for one to show up in the mail. Either way, its the way to go if you want grommet style curtains but cant find them ready-made.
The difficult part for me was the solid navy fabric. My Mom commented about how difficult it would be to make certain the patterned fabric curtains matched on both sides, but I found that the patterned fabric was much easier to "measure." I am not much of one for precision in most cases and I simply trimmed them to length based on matching the pattern along the bottom. In this case, I spent quite a bit on fabric and was determined that they would be constructed perfectly. Without a pattern to reference I felt as though I was left to guess about the various measurements. I eyeballed the top border without too much of a problem, but determining the length of the curtain was a bear! Its one thing to whip out a ruler and measure a 2 inch seam and quite another to find out if both panels can be hemmed at 86 inches!
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| See the bunching! |
In the end, the process involved pushing all the living room furniture to one side and laying the panels, one at a time, flat on the floor. I then took my measuring tape, the hardware store kind, set to 86 inches and measured from the top. I also ironed the crease into the fabric while it was on the floor so I wouldnt have to pin and move and screw everything up! I was worried the floor was going to ignite right under me, but I think all I managed to do was sanitize the area with a nice burst of steam. There was a near breakdown in the middle of this whole process, but I reminded myself that curtains werent worth a breakdown and I pulled it together to get them finished before they wore out my last nerve.
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| The small hole below and to the right of the curtain rod is where the sheer is supposed to hang. |
The double rod I purchased from Bed Bath and Beyond isnt adjustable so the sheer curtain I was going to hang behind the navy grommetted curtains lays too closely to the main curtain rod. It makes the waves or folds of the curtain get all smooshed along the backside and creates a mostly unsightly window treatment. I contributed to this unfortunate situation by only buying two packs of grommets. Evidently they are supposed to be spaced about 4-5 inches apart, but no one told me and the package didnt say so either, so my folds are too big given that I spaced them about 9-10 inches apart. Needlesstosay, I will be stopping by Joann's later today to pick up some additional grommets. I am hoping by doubling the grommets I will also be able to use the subsidiary rod to hang the sheer curtain behind but if not, I will just hang the rod provided with different mounting hooks in a slightly lower position to get the same effect. Since the sides of the rod holding the sheer curtain will be hidden behind the navy panels, no one will be the wiser!
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| The curtains appear more like this, matte with a sheen, but the flash made them look extra shiny. |
The curtains themselves are wonderful though. The slightly off-navy color matches the darkest shade in our duvet and they have a lovely sheen with little nubbins of non-shiny fabric to give it a bit of interest. The dark color of the fabric blocks out the neighbor's spastic motion sensor light that flickers on every time the wind blows and allows us to turn the light on in the bedroom without giving our neighbors a free peep show. Its a beautiful thing and I cant wait for the wall color in the room to match the elegance of the curtains.
