It’s curtains for us…

Some time ago I looked into replacing the thick red velvet curtains that had been in the drawing room since we moved in.  They were not that in keeping with the decor of the room, and when I looked at getting them dry cleaned I realized that they were really past redemption.  So I looked at buying some new ones.

The length of the curtains has to be 3.2m, with a width right into the bay of 4.7m – so ready made ones are right out – not even Lewis’ (where I got the bathroom ones) make them that big.  So then I looked into made to measure – and the majority of places won’t even go up to that size even when you are getting them custom made.  I got a price for them eventually – £1100.   And that was for a cheap fabric that I was not that enamoured of.

So I decided to bite the bullet and make them myself – I’d done curtains before, but not on this scale.  The saving grace is that curtains for this room are just ornamental – we have shutters if we want them for warmth, and the room is not overlooked.  So as the curtains are never closed and just back on to the shutters they do not need to be lined, and don’t in fact need to span the whole width of the bay.  So some lovely William Morris fabric was £16 per meter and including tapes and thread the materials bill was £120.

They took me about four hours to make – it would have been less if I had not made a rookie error when I pulled the cords and did not secure them properly at the far end causing them to pull right out.  Luckily I managed to thread them back in with a darning needle.

This is the curtains hanging.

All in all I am quite pleased with them for a first attempt.  During the process of making them, I discovered that the bobbin winder on my cheap sewing machine had packed in, so I decided to buy myself a new singer.