Keeping busy with projects

We recently had our master bedroom painted, and with the blinds removed for the project, I realized for the first time how much natural sunlight the room gets if you let it. At our painter's suggestion, I decided not to re-hang the blinds, but rather to hang sheer valances in their place. And since I had 84" valances from the former guest room that I won't be using anymore, out came the sewing machine!

My window is oddly shaped: 84" wide by just 16" high. It runs across the top of our bed, and into the side yard. So I needed two panels, each fairly wide, but only 17" long.

Once I had the old panels cut to size, I ironed the seams to make nice, crisp edges. This was quite the task, being 6 mos. pregnant. Since I got pretty lightheaded after crawling around the rug to measure and cut the panels, I set up a seated ironing table in our office. If I can sit, I can iron. It actually worked out really well:



After ironing a 3" hem, I realized that the sheerness of the curtains would make the jagged edge from my kitchen scissors show. Can't have that! So I folded the top edge in, so that there was about an inch of a hem, with smooth edges on both sides. And then I ironed like crazy, with a little spray starch.

Once I got the seam sewn across the hem, I realized that the stitching still showed. It looked alright, but when you have a spool of 1/4" ivory grosgrain ribbon in your arsenal, who's good with just alright? Not me, that's for sure. So I added a neat row of ivory edging, about 3/4" above the bottom edge of the curtain, smack on top of the original hem seam.



I'll be back with in-room success shots once our new furniture gets delivered and the room gets put together!