A Li'l Curtain Fixer Upper-ing

Hello lovelies! After a week of mulling over and over all things GDPR, Blogger, Google Analytics, cookies (not the bake-in-the-oven and store-in-the-cookie-jar, kind) private policies, blah, blah, blah.....I am back in my  little world of all things pretty and beautiful. Yes indeedy, I am back to waxing lyrical about stitching pretty things.

One day last week, whilst I was enjoying a cup of tea in my sunny family room, as I looked about me I decided that the curtains which graced my five metre long windows really were looking a tad sad. The sun had faded these window coverings in places and the lining had perished to the point that when I touched it, the lining would tear like paper.

I decided now was the time to do something about my once beautiful curtains. I had put it off for long enough. Now was the time to do a little fixer upper-ing to my curtains. I had stitched the curtains ten years ago, cutting vintage Italian coverlets into patches and stitching them together in a random arrangement. These curtains truly had seen better days. Also, I wanted a pretty, more pronounced backdrop with colours just a little more vivid for my tarted up needlepoint chair. Perhaps a splash of darker pinks and a darker mauve?? Isn't it funny the snowball effect that happens when you add a new pretty to a room and you decide that 'this' needs a little more verve and 'that' definitely needs a little more oomph! 

I love these curtains. I have lived with these pretties for ten years and still I have not grown weary of them. The gorgeous vintage coverlets always make me smile, even on those dull, sunless days. I had looked for a long while for suitable curtain fabric to replace what I had but nothing I saw even came close to matching the beauty of my patched, Italian coverlet pretties. That is of course, nothing that was less than $100 per metre. Oh, I saw gorgeous, gorgeous $100, $200 per metre fabric that would sing the merriest tune at my windows but alas, my purse would need to be overflowing with pennies from heaven for me to bring metres upon metres home with me.

I had enough remnants of coverlets sitting in my armoire so why not fashion something similar to what I already had. The thought was to pull the curtains down and only replace the patches that were looking a little "how's your mother" with new fabric, but upon starting to do this I decided that the old and new just didn't play nicely together.  When I suggested a complete revamp to my husband, just for a fleeting moment,  a look of the fear of God came into his eyes!! Come to think of it, I see that look quite often in his eyes when I say "I've got a fabulous idea"!! =) He knew (he has lived with me and smiled at my eccentricities for forty years) this li'l bit of curtain fixer upper-ing would mean some help from my significant other. These curtains weigh a ton so I was going to need another pair of hands to help me accomplish what I had in mind, and unfortunately for my husband, that other pair of hands was going to be his. Poor man, he truly is the most patient of men!

So the torture fun began. I don't know how many times I hung the curtains up as I stitched the patched coverlets together, checking the seams both vertically and horizontally were straight and then pulling them down. Up again, down again, up again, down again, .........and so on and so on and so on, clambering up and down the ladder until the curtains were pieced together and my persnickety beady eyes were happy. But that was only the beginning. Now I had to sew the grommet tape on. Have you ever made curtains where you have used grommet heading tape?? Sometimes it's easy as...........and then there are times when the blasted grommets decide that they are not going to co-operate and no matter what you do, it takes forever to push the blasted rings on until they click into position. I used a mallet, a piece of wood, my foot with my whole body behind it, but to no avail.....they were not going to budge. This process took hours. I have sewn curtains with grommet  tape many times before, mostly the process is quick and relatively pain free but not this time. Eventually that task was done and then the lining was sewn in and the side and bottom hems were stitched.

As I have a penchant for beautiful passementerie, I decided to embellish with some of these pretties randomly, here and there. Two years ago, for one of my favourite teenager's 13th birthday ('she' is one of my sewing girls), I stitched some curtains fashioned from vintage coverlets and passementerie. I loved them so much that I decided there and then that I really needed curtains dancing with lengths of these fanciful trimmings and fringings in my life. So that is exactly what I did. Yep......love, love, LOVE these decorative and elaborate lengths of gorgeousness.

Swirls and twirls of messy, beautiful passementerie.

Oh look, I'm wearing my pretty woolly. I have been living in it of late because it's a little chilly way down here.

The stitching of these curtains was a herculean task. They fought me all the way, especially forcing them through the sewing machine. There were times when the sewing machine wouldn't have a bar of these curtains but I pleaded, cajoled and enticed it to behave.......and finally it relented. This is where my husband's help was invaluable. He pulled and straightened the curtains as I fed the fabric through.

Are not these vintage Italian coverlets and gorgeous, fanciful trimmings beautiful?? Be still my beating heart!! I am soooooo in love with them!!

After a very long week, finally my Italian coverlet curtains with passementerie dancing in straight lines are up and saying......look at me....look at me!!

Love all the glorious textures of the vintage coverlets!

Fill my world with colour, glorious colour!!

You know, I don't think I will ever tire of seeing all these glorious Italian coverlets bedecked with passementerie adorning the family room windows. So, so happy these windows are dressed with beautiful new pretties. So, so happy I won't have to think about stitching curtains for these windows for another ten years. Me thinks, just between you and me my darling husband is very happy about that, too. =) So, so happy I can just sit, with a cup of tea in hand and drink in the beauty of  all that vintage gorgeousness! 

Have a beautiful week all you lovelies. Thank you so much for visiting my little place. I wonder what fancies I will conjure up whilst enjoying a cuppa, this week??

Until the next time......................

Linking this week with the lovely Jann's Share Your Cup.

A li'l curtain stitching

So.....where did this week go?? It seems that my week got lost in a flurry of a li'l curtain stitching. My week vanished with the playing of pretty textiles. It is my friend's daughter's birthday this week. A very auspicious birthday; she steps into the "fog of pubescent insanity"......a teenager!! That stage of life that we all pass through and come out sometime in the distant future. Do you  not agree, those of you whom have spent many a year with the 'odd' teenager or two.......moments of terribly 'interesting' episodes.

So....I decided to stitch my friend's daughter a curtain for her bedroom, in celebration of this very important milestone. Not just any 'go to the fabric shop and buy metre upon metre of curtain fabric for a window.....kind'; but a curtain fashioned from beautiful vintage Italian coverlets, similar to the ones I fashioned for our family room.

This is the house, where the curtain will hang forevermore (or at least for the next few years). By then, the said teenager could possibly dig in her heels of teenage angst and demand of her mother to take the curtain down, and replace it with something else!! =))

 Are they not these the most glorious windows?? If you open the gate and wander along the rose-lined path and peek a little closer, you will espy vertical blinds!! Oh no...what were they thinking!!



This building, which is an old school house, is swathed in 100 years of glorious history. Surely a building of this vintage demands window dressing with a little theatre; a little drama! I know, I know, this building was once a school house, and I understand that some old soul on the school board way, way back in the 60's or even the 70's, deemed it appropriate to hang these utilitarian and 'functional' ugly eyesores, but as it is now a home, they need to be banished to vertical blind hell. Me thinks soul-less, vertical blinds should be banned for all eternity???? Surely they are the faux pas of window treatments.....at least in century old buildings.....(Oh.....those chairs out the front are waiting for people's bottoms to be sat upon in celebration of the said owners' wedding. Me and my good husband styled this 'venue' for the wedding, a couple of years back. If perchance you would like to wander around the grounds, of this lovely home, on that perfect day back then.....then you can read all about it here.)

Vertical blinds...yukkity yuk. My sincerest apologies if you are enthused with the humble vertical blinds and are rather taken with them; it's just that they have never entered into my realm of possibility for window coverings.....never have, never will.  I won't allow my mind to slide down such treacherous and slippery slopes. =) Yes indeedy, one will never read any mention on any page in the tome titled "The Kim Sharman Book of Dazzling Window Design", of these less than desirable window coverings!!! Perhaps, if you really, really must; in a modern home, but certainly not in an 100 year, steeped in history, one.

Now.....to the curtains. I gathered my beautiful Italian pretties together and began to cut patches of varying widths and lengths.

Pretty pinks, blues, lemons, greens and mauves of lovely pattern and texture. As I have been collecting these Italian coverlets for a long time now, I am in possession of one serious stash of these scrumptious pretties. These days, these pretties are not easy to find.

I stitched and stitched and stitched some more. Both in the daytime......

And in the night time.

Oh dear, it seems I have a patchwork thing going on. 

As I was stitching the curtain I thought it would look rather hip if I stitched some fringing here and there. Not only are my Italian coverlets filled with glorious patterns, they are edged with pretty passementerie. Doesn't this glorious French word just roll of the tongue. I have cut these elaborate trimmings and fringings from the coverlets for use in many, many projects. Metre upon metre of ornamental edgings. For not a lot of money spent, these Italian coverlets are the gift that just keeps giving.

Day after day, stitching the curtain in my sunny sewing room, it was rather akin to a wrestling match. This 3 metre by 3 metre curtain, together with the lining, weighs a ton. Though playing with these gorgeous fabrics was enjoyable, just between you and me, I must say I wasn't sorry when the stitching for this curtain was finished. Just a little aside.....I am stitching another curtain similar to this one, for the said teenager's younger sister's room next door, who also happens to have a birthday in a couple of weeks,  BUT......I won't think about that now...I need to psyche myself up before another wrestling match!!

Before hemming the curtain I draped it at one of my windows, to see how it looked.....'tis a pity I can't keep it! I have just the perfect spot, where one, oh-so-theatrical window dressing could drape for all eternity!! Oh, how I love a curtain to puddle on the floor!

How's that for a bit of theatre....a bit of drama.

I rather like the touch of gorgeous trimmings, here and there. Fingers crossed the said teenager is enamoured with this pretty as much as I am. =) Of course, if indeed she does not applaud, does not favour this pretty's touch of quirkiness, it's sense of theatre, it can always find it's way back to my humble abode! This pretty will always be welcomed here with open arms. Though, it should be all good...as after consulting with the said teenager I discovered she was rather enthused with the idea of a curtain fashioned from vintage coverlets and pretty trimmings and the like. Phew!!

I have fashioned many pretties from my Italian coverlets; curtains, quilts, cushions...the odd chair or two.

A jumble of glorious passmenterie and Italian coverlets.

Swirls and swirls of messy passementerie. All that muddled loveliness does warm the cockles of my li'l ole heart. =)

Though the stitching of this curtain  took a long time, I do love it. This past week, the stitching of this curtain morphed into a life of its own. Those Italian coverlets and passementerie seemed to escape their rather confined boundaries, swirling their way throughout the house entangling anyone and anything into their messy, textile web. I am happy to have my tidy and organised home back again......as is my good husband!

This curtain will add a sense  of theatre to that glorious window in my friend's, daughter's room, in the old school house. Window by window, the unsightly vertical blinds are being pulled down and being replaced with curtain adornment more in keeping with the aesthetics of this grand old home! I do believe this curtain is soooo much lovelier than a hideous, vertical blind.....do you not concur?? Indeed, why have an ugly, vertical blind when one can festoon a window with a bit of fun, a bit of whimsy; bringing a sense of the theatrical to every day.

Until the next time.........

Linking up this week to Mary's lovely Sweet Inspiration Party over at The Boondocks Blog.