Having cut the curtains to size, I prepared them for their grommets.
I was worried that the curtains wouldn't hold the weight of the grommets very well, so I put a strip of blackout shade material between the two layers.
Spacing took some time. I had a sheet of instructions from Fabric Depot, but I ended up using that as a guide and roughly guessing. The grommets came with a template, and you can see where I have traced my circles.
It was the kind of work that involved a lot of attention (wouldn't want to cut in the wrong spot) but it wasn't very difficult.
Here, you can see one finished curtain. After cutting the holes, I just had to match a top part to a bottom part, and snap them together.
That done, I moved on to adding some flair to the curtains. Which was the part I was most interested in, anyway.
I had leftover material from the shade, so my plan was to cut out the leftover birds and add them to the curtain, so things would blend better.
Two observations. The birds on the outer realms of the fabric--the shade was cut from the middle--are not as bright as the ones in the middle. Second observation. When I last visited Ikea, their textile department had disappeared, which was disappointing.
I had paper cutouts which I arranged in different ways before settling on this one. You can also see the ribbon I will be sewing to the top and bottom of each curtain.
So the cutting of the birds commenced. This ruler, which I think is meant for quilting, was invaluable. In fact, I use this ruler and the other one almost every time I sew.
Should you be curious as to what brand of grommets I used, I have taken a picture of the packaging.
And so we begin pressing. Four sides, on twelve squares. It was a lot of pressing. I listened to podcasts.
When I finished the birds, I still had to cut and press the backing for the bird pictures. Four more sides, times twelve more squares equals more podcasts listened to.
And that was end of the sewing time today.
4 comments:
The grommets turned out great! They look amazing. Nicely done! And I appreciate all of your focused work with the little birds!
Wow, I am impressed. I wouldn't have the patience. They look great and seen in real life even greater. Super job! mom
How odd about the color of the birds, that their brightness depended on where you cut them from. Is that a sign of poorly dyed material, I wonder? Also, I feel a bit sad that Ikea's textile department went away, even though I haven't been to an Ikea in 4 years and never shopped in their textile department. They had cute prints though.
As always, I'm in awe of your creativity and your attention to detail.
Attention to detail/anal perfectionist. Kind of all the same thing. :-)
I think the brighter colored birds in the middle of the fabric was the choice made by the fabric designer, to draw the eye to the very colorful ones in the center.
The weird thing about things disappearing from Ikea is I can never figure out where they were. It's like the store just opens up and swallows a section. The same thing happened with the Pet Department, but that one was right on the edge before you go into the warehouse part so I noticed. With this, I was home from Ikea before I realized we never walked by the textiles. A second visit confirmed their disappearance.
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