Month: May 2018

What started as a simple task of washing the curtains in the trailer ultimately led to the re-making of ALL of the curtains.  (Again I ask, how do I get myself into these things?)

The first one I made was the floral curtain for the “bathroom.”

There are two small side windows at the head and foot of the bed, and I used the same fabric to make new curtains for these windows. (The “blackout” fabric I thought I’d purchased was actually “light filtering” fabric, but whatever….  They’re pretty.)

I used a solid royal blue fabric for the curtains on the larger front and back windows.  While the formula for calculating the size of curtains is the window width times 1.5, divided by 2 (for 2 panels), I tried that for the front window and they just seemed too heavy and bulky (and short).

Fortunately, when I moved them to the back window, they worked fine.  (And I DID use blackout fabric behind these.)

I then made the curtains for the front window, purposely making them narrower and longer than the curtains for the back.  No, they don’t “drape” as well as the ones made using the “formula,” but I’m okay with that (less bulk, less to bunch up when opening them).  I’m still trying to decide if I want to use a lower curtain rod to help hold these closer to the front curved wall, but I could also add a couple of pieces of Velcro on the bottoms of all of the curtains since tiny Velcro tabs will stick to the fabric on the walls.

But all in all, I like the pop of color provided by the new curtains–especially as they play off the green of the dinette cushions.  While re-making these certainly wasn’t the original plan, ultimately I think it was a worthwhile effort! 🙂

In a previous post, I said I needed to wash the curtains as part of our preparation before camping….  Well.  To re-cap, three years ago I was motivated to learn to sew when I wanted to make curtains for the trailer.  I bought an older Singer sewing machine from a seller on Craigslist, bought and pre-washed some fabric I liked, and spent a crazy week or so trying to figure out how just how to do such a thing.  In the end, however, I had functional–if not perfect–curtains for our Scamp.  Yay, me!

I knew the backing fabric on the curtains had faded over the last 3 years, but I didn’t realize just how badly it had faded until I took them down to wash them.  Um, yeah.  This was navy blue at one point?

To make these look better–and to increase their light-reducing capabilities–I decided to add “blackout” fabric to the back of each curtain panel.  Seemed simple enough (she said, naively).

It actually worked pretty well for the smaller curtains on the sides of the trailer.  I sewed the blackout fabric directly to the back of the curtains between the hems.  Perfect?  No, but functional.

When I took a good look at the larger curtain panels for the front and back windows, however, I just wasn’t sure that this was going to work at all.  🙁  Since these curtains were SO uneven and SO frayed when they came out of the washing machine (I didn’t know, at the time, to turn under raw edges!), I decided to rip out the seams and start over.  That’s when I realized that I’d used the absolutely tiniest stitch length ever when I’d made these, and there wasn’t going to be a good way to pick apart the seams in this lifetime….

Okay, fine.  I’d recently seen the same fabric in a store, so I figured the best solution would be to buy more of it and totally re-make the front and rear curtains–with the blackout lining put in correctly.  I made a late afternoon trek over the mountain to the store, and–SURPRISE!–the fabric was no longer available.  Not good.

Since I was facing the prospect of making new curtains, I figured I might as well change it up a little bit.  I bought a bold, colorful, and wildly floral indoor/outdoor fabric that I thought would be cool to use for our “bathroom” door, and a solid medium blue fabric for the new curtains.

As large as the floral fabric was, I knew I’d need room to spread it out and cut it, so I took it to my classroom at school.

Two and a half yards of 54″ wide fabric = a LOT of fabric.   In and around my classes, I was able to get it measured and cut to size.  I stayed after school to sew the side seams and the top rod pocket, thinking I could “simply” hem it when I got home.

You’ve probably noticed a theme by now: nothing is as simple as I anticipate.  I’ll spare you the details, but ultimately the curtain was the length I wanted it to be.

This is certainly an in-your-face difference when you open the door to the trailer!  But I DO like how it coordinates with the pillows and seat cushions, and it’s a bright, pretty change.

After I make the new curtains (sigh…), I’ll probably use this floral fabric for the tie-backs.  And while I’m at it, I’ll make a couple of new floral accent pillows, too. 😉