Quick Christmas Curtains - part 1

My living room windows are usually curtainless. But this year I am adopting a Swedish Christmas custom and putting up Christmas curtains ... albeit a little later that the Swedes do.

The problem is I don't have any Christmas curtains, so I guess I will make some.  But, I don't want to spend too much money or spend too much time.

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I am a quarter Swedish.  My father's father was born here two years after his father immigrated. Up until now I no clue how to find out exactly where in Sweden my family came from, but about a month ago, a Swedish man contacted my sister Theresa via Facebook.  She forwarded his message to me. He turns out to be our third cousin and now we are all becoming friends.  Turns out his great grandfather is the brother of my great grandfather, the one who immigrated.


So, a few days before the first of December, he matter of factly said ... "time to put up the Christmas Curtains!" 

Here is the plan for my Christmas curtains. The plan is to make some sheer drapy curtains and make a bunch of burlap Poinsettias to decorate them and maybe add some tiny lights.

First step was to find inexpensive sheer fabric.  After much looking I settled on this Kaufmann 118" sheer for only $4.19 a yard at Fabric.com.

I bought 6 yards, planning to cut it down the middle to make it now 59" wide.

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Boy, did it look different than I expected, grey instead of off white and an actual mesh, with holes.


Well, the price was right and I like making curtains with striped and checks.  It is so easy to cut them, because you can just follow the lines.

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So, I opened it up on my living room floor.

And started cutting ....

and cutting ...

Found the center, which wasn't the pressed fold!

and cutting ...

And cutting!

Since the selvedge is really good I only needed to hem one long edge for each and the two short ends, which I did with a straight stitch on a one inch double fold.

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To hang them, I hammered in one flat head nail to each corner of the molding around the window.

Tied two sections with 5/8" ribbon loops and hooked that onto the nails.

OK ... so far 2 hours of my time and $27 for the pair.  




I will report back soon with the burlap flowers.

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