Curtain Alterations

I don’t have any before pictures of this project. I chalk that up to a lack of forethought on my part.

Picture four curtains (colors aren’t important, you’ll see them later). Ok that takes care of the before picture, and onward we go.

I’m having a terrible time writing, so this is all forced writing which may result in a more clunky narrative than I would prefer. But you know what they say, the only way to get through writers’ block is to write.

Right on to the project.

I present the first set of curtains I was planning on deconstructing.

This one was pretty simple. I had two of these curtains which I was going to cut in half (this is one curtain folded in half so I know where to cut). The two curtains would then become four narrower curtains which would serve as window display elements.

Regrettably, I deemed the cutting and hemming process unnecessary to this part of this particular project so I didn’t take any pictures.

Also, right after I cut the curtains semi-perfectly in half I came down with a really nasty sickness that knocked me out for a few days.

I didn’t accomplish anything for about a week, and then I went on a trip, so nearly a month passed before I actually hemmed the cut side of the curtain.

Now that that part was done I moved on to the second part (remember I did say there were four curtains at the beginning).

The second part, or rather second project was these curtains.

This was destined to turn into a skirt for some stairs (don’t worry about puzzling out what that will look like, there’s a picture at the end, just enjoy reading the process).

I had two pretty normal sized curtains that I cut into strips that were roughly two of my floor boards wide. You can see here I used a revolutionary fabric marking tool known as a sharpie to make a connect-the-dots on the material.

Once all the strips were finally cut I sewed them together, short end to short end, until I had and extremely long, narrow piece of fabric. Then I hemmed, and hemmed, and hemmed (really, there’s no way to make you understand how long this really took) for hours on end. I ran out of thread at least six times while doing this.

At first I was lazy and did a single roll hem figuring that would be fine, but the darn curtains frayed everywhere so I had to go through and redo half of it (I smartened up halfway through and decided to do two folds to contain the crazy strings). All told the cutting, sewing together, and hemming took a solid 10 hours, though not consecutive.

Then it was decided that the massive length of skirt needed some kind of ruffle to a) reduce the length (I’m not kidding, it felt like that was a hundred feet of fabric) and b) to make it look more fun and exciting.

Oh right, I forgot to tell the reason behind this project. Oh well, I’ll get to that at the end.

Honestly, this was the easiest part of the whole thing. I was supposed to measure each of the pleats I made but I didn’t, I eyeballed roughly the same size for each one and it turned out pretty much perfect.

And now for the grand(ish) reveal…

For the hanging of the curtains, you

‘ll want to get a good idea of what the finished product will look like. Use one hand to hold the accent piece, your second hand to hold one side of the curtain, and your third hand to hold the other curtain.

Once we were satisfied with the look we nailed all of the points of contact to the wall so they will never come undone.

Now for the stairs…

They look pretty decent. Bland but at least they’re painted and accentuate the adorable bistro cafe tables. But they needed something to really make them pop.

And now a word from our sponsors.

Sorry, I can’t actually say sponsors because no one is really “sponsoring” this per-say. However, I did do this for something specific and for someone who has been an incredible mentor and support to me. You’ll notice that my house appears to have become much more spacious and colorful than it has always been. Well, that’s because this isn’t my house. This is my friend Crystal’s (second) dance studio. That’s right she’s amazing and has two full blown dance studios where people can come play, have fun, and learn to dance!!! Her studios are the main reason I’ve been able to keep dancing as much as I do and build a wonderful dance family.

Now, without any further ado…

The Grander Grand Reveal

We’ve all decided that the stairs look absolutely stunning with this skirt on and bring the whole room together!

The studio looks so warm and inviting from the outside!

Imagine walking past this place on your day at the mall and hearing music playing and seeing people dancing and having fun. It truly is that magical! <3