Big kudos to my Mom for helping me with the sewing. On a 90 degree day. In her second-floor sewing room with a southern exposure. And no air-conditioning. (She loves me.)
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| Yay for mommies! |
First we had to cut the panels to size. Steve and I had raised our drapery rods to 95", and we needed to leave some extra for the rod pocket, and then a little more for me to hem them to exact length after they were hung up in the dining room. We ended up unrolling the fabric on the floor in my parents' foyer because it was the only place we could get 105" of flat surface area. After we snipped the first panel, we just used that as our cutting guide for the other three panels.
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| That's a lotta yellow. |
The trellis pattern made all of our hemming and cutting really easy because we just followed the patterns. Lucky for us, the repeats were frequent enough that we were able to create panels that followed the exact same patterns. Once we drug the panels upstairs, we needed to make sure that we put the rod pockets on the same side for each panel so that the pattern would appear aligned across both windows. So, I took a picture of the pattern for the "top" of each panel. Naturally.
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| This side up. |
We noticed later that the edging actually had arrows that we could have used, but since they'd shortly be ironed over for hemming anyway... whatever.
When Mom helps me with sewing projects, it usually means that I do the ironing (the grunt work) and she operates the machine (the scary part). It works pretty well for us. It's *definitely* faster than doing it all by yourself.
Here's the first fold for the side of the panel. Since the fabric was 55" wide and I wanted my panels to be at least 50" wide, I just used the color to guide how deep to make my first crease with the iron.
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| Follow the yellow brick(?) road. |
Then we used the pattern again to iron our second crease. See what I mean about how helpful the stinking pattern is? Plus the fabric ironed like a dream- nice and crisp. We also liked how thick the side hems are. Mom and I thought it'd look more professional with thicker hems.
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| Dreamweaver. |
From there it was all Mom's job. (And it was my job to get all up in her business to take pictures.)
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| Nice job, Mom! |
After we had hemmed all of the sides, we repeated the process along the top of each panel, leaving about 3" for the rod pocket. We didn't line these drapery panels because a) I'm lazy, b) did I mention it was 90 degrees that day? and c) Steve and I are the type of people that like privacy sheers but still like light, so lining seemed unnecessary. We also left the bottom unhemmed so that I can hem them to the exact length I want once they're hung. Here's two of the panels folded and draped on the bannister in my parents' house. They are sooo long! The rod pockets are laying on the floor behind the bannister rail.
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| Cheery yellow in bulk. |
And then my sweet husband hung the panels that night while I was out to dinner with friends. Love that man! Unfortunately, my pictures don't do them justice.
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| Hello, drapes! |
I was surprised how little extra fabric drags on the floor. Like maybe two inches worth. That'll make hemming them super-easy. And gotta love Ikea's Lill sheers. Less than $10 on sheers for that whole room.
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| Love it! |
I am especially happy with how they turned out. I was a smidge worried that they'd be overwhelmingly yellow, but the charming lattice design makes them fit right in. Although they surely make a statement. They totally Funned-Things-Up in our dining room. Now I just have to get around to hemming the bottoms.... One project begets another, right??
But still, I've pretty much stuck a fork in this project. How do you like them apples, Crate & Barrel?!
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