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. 😉