In the Mood

 After the first of the year, remember when I committed to finishing one room at a time on the Manchester? Weelll. I've cut the wallpaper for the living room located in the Real Good Toys addition, and I really like the way the room will look with that bold William Morris print, except the paper is printed on 8.5x 11" paper edge to edge landscape, which makes it wide enough to fit the wall, but not tall enough reach both to the ceiling and the top of the baseboard. I had decided not to add crown molding to this house because I hate making the mitering cuts for the ceiling corners. Now, however, because the printed wallpaper sheets are not tall enough to fit the 12" tall walls, I have to install crown molding, so I am procrastinating that miserable project. 

I decided then to make curtains for the room, which led to making prototype shades for the kitchen and bathroom, which led the bedspread for the bedroom, which brings me back to the crown molding. But first I have do some staining before I can go any further in finishing the living room.

I have such a hard time committing to finally stages in this house, like gluing in the floor in the  living room. I love how the floors, all finished except for staining, turned out. I used  very thin half inch wide flooring"boards" that came with the Duracraft San Franciscan that I assembled a while back. I really like this thin veneer-like flooring. It stained beautifully. I create the floors, I glued the wood planks  to Cricut's 1.5 mm chipboard, making a very nice, solid floor. 

  

One of the final projects for the living room--and the rest of the windows in the house--are the window treatments. I tried a cutting fabric and sewing a rod pocket to just gather fabric on a rod, but it just didn't hang right in the living room, so I decided to try my hand at making pleated curtains. 

A few Pinterest tutorials led me to believe that I could make the pleats, but all the methods seemed too tedious, like folding the creases in the fabric and pinning them in place and setting or stiffening the fabric with either hair spray or fabric stiffener. Others used narrow boards in between the folds to form the pleats and using fabric stiffener to set them. I didn't have appropriate lumber to create the boards to make those pleated curtains and that seemed to be a lot of work.

 I made my curtains using pinch pleats. My mother who made all of my clothes talked about pinch pleats, which I had totally forgotten about until the middle of the night last night as I pondered this morning's editing of the post.  It's a simple technique: just pinch the fabric between your fingers to make the folded pleats. 

I began with the simple basics: Spray laundry starch. I used to iron pillow cases for company and starched them to make them look crisp and pretty and table clothes, too. Back in the day--the '50s-- when I was a little tyke I did a lot ironing to get out doing farm work outside. Back then everything had be ironed after being washed in the wringer washing machine and line dried in the sunshine--all my little home sewn dresses, dad's shirts, mom's blouses. All cotton, no polyester wrinkle free blends. We didn't have spray starch back then, but I keep it on hand just incase I get the urge to iron a table cloth or something. 

I dug in my fabric inventory to find some scrap of cotton blend.

My practice curtains were made from a fine cotton batiste that I used to make American Girl doll undergarments.  The curtains actually turned out pretty fair except the frayed edges needed hems for a finished look. 

I used the widow frame to help determine the size of the curtain panels. In real life when I have made curtains, I followed my mom's advise: each panel should be 1.5 times the width of the window to get the amount of ruffling and fullness for the window. 

Once I had cut the fabric (still in the practice size--learning as I go), I ironed out the wrinkles and starched the fabric to get a very smooth, wrinkle free panel. The stiffened fabric would crease nicely and hold its shape.

For my first practice piece, I didn't measure my folds. I began by folding the right end of the panel then made the next fold the opposite direction, and so forth, working back and forth pinching the pleats into shape, hoping for 1/4 inch pleats. 

So for the next trial panel, I measured 1 cm intervals as guides for my folding, using magical disappearing ink. Actually my marker is specifically made for marking sewing projects. It lasts enough to make correct seams, but totally disappears without leaving behind tell-tale stains.  

I followed the same pinch folding process, making folds in alternate opposing directions. The end result looks like an accordion bellows.

Once I had all the folds made, I used a hot iron to press them into place

Here then is my second attempt to make pleated curtains. This one is just about the correct size for a pleated window shade, but it needs the edges seamed for a clean, finished look. 

Take a look, too, at the how the pleats lost shape on the curtain rod. I needed to correct that, too.

One of the great features of fabric is that it is very forgiving--as long as you don't make an error cutting it. So I started over with me practice piece by ironing out the pleats and ironing in 1/4 inch seam allowances. Once repeated, I had the perfect window shade instead of a curtain.

I'm leaving the window shade project here, because I haven't totally worked out how to finish it, so to summarize making the pleated curtain:

1.  Select a fine, light weight fabric that will hold its shape if you want pleated drapes, giving the room a more formal look.
2.  Cut fabric to size. For full window curtains, cut each panel wider 1 1/2 the raw width of the window, measuring from the outside of the frame. Then add 1/2 inch to allow for a 1/4 inch on each side seam.  Decide how long you want the curtain to hang: just below the window frame or perhaps to the floor. then add 1/4 inch for the bottom hem. For the top hem allow the rod pocket to be wide enough to hold the curtain rod.  The top hem will require at least 5/8 inch to make the rod pocket and to allow for a seam at the very top of the rod pocket if you want the curtain to  ruffle at the top of the gathered fabric on the rod. The curtain panel looks finished with top stitching just below the top of curtain panel. Unpleated curtains will gather nicely while the pleated curtains will hold their pleats.
3. Use spray starch to stiffen the fabric once you have cut the panels. Caution: starch tends to build up on the bottom the iron and burn on causing, causing brown stains on your fabric, so pick up a tube of iron cleaner to clean off the bottom of your iron. If your ironing board is stained as mine is, use a tea towel or a Terry cloth towel, or even a couple layers of paper towel to make a clean ironing surface to avoid staining you curtain fabric. 

Sew the hems and rod pocket. While I am quite comfortable sewing, some may not be. For simple hems some will use tacky glue or even fabric glue. Rod pockets may be more difficult to glue in place, so hand sewing, taking tiny stitches works, well, too. 

With the hems sewed in and the pleats made, I realized that pleated curtain panels aren't gathered on the rod because they don't hang right; instead, they are either hung with grommeted holes, as my downstairs curtains hang or with attached rings.

                            

I tried making grommeted holes in a piece of fabric using the Cricut Maker to evenly space the holes, and it worked well.  I had never cut fabric on the Maker and it cut those tiny .4cm hold perfectly, except the fabric frayed, and I didn't have grommets, so I dug in my jewelry findings for jump rings to sew on as curtain hooks.

I found these figure 8 jump rings (look for them at Fire Mountain Gems). Using very fine embroidery thread, I began sewing the rings in place.

Working on the wrong side of the curtain, I placed the ring with the center of the 8 on the edge of the curtain so that the top ring will be visible on the curtain rod. If you don't want it to show, move it down; tack in place with 3 or 4 stitches. Don't cut and tie off the thread; instead move on the the next pleat, leave a bit of slack in that long stitch. 

Make sure to attach the 8 ring on the pleat folded toward the outside or right side of the panel; otherwise the curtain won't hang right.

Another thing to keep in mind, make sure that the end pleats--the first and the last are folded toward the back of the curtain, so that the curtain will hang straight.

While I was still in the mood to sew and while I have the sewing machine set up, I decided to make the bedspread for the bedroom. I've made several beds from lumber on hand and dressed them, using quilter's fat quarters. I found this beautiful collection of fat quarters when I first started the Manchester and knew that I wanted the blue bird in the center of the bed spread. 

I'm going to skip all the steps I went through to make the bed covering because if I added all the photos I prepared for this post, there would be 48 pictures, so briefly:

I use a seamstress tape measure to measure the bed across the width from the floor on one side to the other other side to get the width, adding 1/2 an inch for 1/4 inch side seams.

The top and bottom will be measured from the headboard end of the mattress to the floor at the bottom of the bed depending on the length of the drop you want on the sides and bottom of the bed. The top of the spread will be measured from the top edge of the mattress, add seam 1/4 inch seam allowance.

I chose the bold rose print for the back of the spread, making it a reversible bedspread. I needed some sort of padding for the in-between layer to give the cover some body. Rummaging in my little dresser where I hide some some fabric, I found this very thin, paper fiber that my new lap top had been wrapped in. I saved it just for this sort of project. It won't add any bulk to the bed covering, which is important because I don't want a lot of thickness. Quilt batting would work, but would add bulk, so it really is a matter of preference.

To begin I placed the lining between the two wrong sides of the fabrics, wanting it to be inside, but that would have a bad mistake because when I turned the cover to the right side after seaming it, the lining would be on the exterior. So, the lining that you will use will be placed on the right side of either the top or the bottom piece.

When the wrong side are stitched together and then turned right side out, the lining will end up on the inside between the layers. Does that make sense?

Another unconventional material that I used for the mattress was to substitute 1/2 inch foam board for sponge foam for the mattress. It makes a firm foundation for bedding. I used a 220 grit sanding block to round the corners for the fitted sheet that I would make.

I softened the hard mattress with quilt batting just to give it some body. For a fluffier mattress, I've used wool fiberfill that I use to stuff my rag dolls.

With the bedspread made, I made a flat sheet, a fitted sheet, pillows, and pillow cases. I used the lace trim that I purchased in Haworth, England, home of the Bronte Sisters. At that time, there was a wonderful second hand store or antique store that had an entire bolt of this vintage edging. At the time, I was looking for English lace that we could add to the christening gown for a soon to be born granddaughter. I've used it only for special projects over the years and I decided that these little pillow cases were special.

You will find my tutorials on making fitted sheets here, along with the link to the original tutorial that taught me how to make bedding: "Nothing Like a Good Night's Sleep. It was the first bed that I made. 

I also learned a lot about dressing beds from Julie Warren's Youtube tutorial on how to make bedding. She does glue the sides of the bedding to sides of the bed to hold it in place. I'm thinking that I'll use a dot of double stick adhesive or Velcro to secure the bedding in place.

So now the big sewing project are done, butI still need 4 more sets of curtains for the remaining windows. I may opt for simple window shades. We'll see.

Now that the mood to sew has passed, I must discipline myself to get some wood trim stained to finish the living room so that I can move on to the dining room, which will require installing the stairs, window trim, staining and installing the floor and trimming the opening to the living room and installing the chandelier. We'll see how far I get this week.

Nathan is spending his spring break with us this week, so I won't get much done on these tasks. We decided to make a personalized a T-shirt on the Maker for him, using vinyl, so the Manchester projects will have to wait. My little grandson is growing up. He'll be 13 in two weeks and making T-shirts with granny won't be so much fun in the months to come. 

Thanks for stopping by.