Thursday, January 30, 2014

DIY Ruffled Curtains


It isn't very often that the university closes on a snow day, let alone close for the cold weather. Imagine my surprise to discover 10+ texts from classmates and friends while briefly glancing at my phone on Monday afternoon stating that school had been cancelled for Tuesday (I believe a lot of exclamation marks were involved). Anyways, a day free of school, homework, AND work... what's a girl to do!? 
Well, I finally convinced myself that it was time to finish a project I had started weeks ago. 

If you follow me on instagram, you probably saw this picture quite some time ago.


And if you follow me on twitter, you probably saw a tweet that went something like this around that same time: "I have a love-hate relationship with my sewing machine"

Well, yesterday I was finally able to post this picture:



It would be safe to say that it was a DIY project gone wrong, and you would be absolutely right! I found this tutorial from the Jedi Craft Girl a while back, and I followed it pretty much to a tee. I was so excited to lighten up the living room and ditch the plain dark brown curtains that have been hanging for so long. The problem... I am not an expert sewer! After hours, I finally realized that I needed to bump my tension down to zero and my stitch spacing all the way up in order to create the perfect ruffle. Well, the perfect ruffle never happened... for ALL SIX ruffles. By the time I got my ruffles figured out and pinned into place, the bobbin knotted up countless amount of times, to the point where I was swearing under my breath and grunting. The dog thought she did something wrong, and the hubs came in to check on me a number of times. CRAFT PROJECT GONE VERY WRONG!

By the time I finished my one curtain, I was so sick of the process that I didn't touch my sewing machine for two weeks. My living room window was decorated with one new beautiful curtain, while the other was still the dark brown old curtain. Every time I even thought about working on that second curtain, I cringed. 



I finally got sick of looking at the half and half curtains, so yesterday afternoon, I got to work.
The second curtain was put together flawlessly! There was not a single hiccup involved in the making and hanging of the second curtain and I could not be happier. What first took my hours upon hours each night only took me one and a half hours the second time around... talk about a dream come true!!

SO ladies and gentleman, I now present to you my brand new ruffled curtains!





Aren't they beautiful?! Now that all is said and done, they really were worth all the trouble. Sometimes projects turn out to be just as easy as you thought, and sometimes they don't! 
On the bright side though, I can now sew one mean ruffle!

Have you ever had a project go horribly wrong?
I still get worked up thinking about the sewing machine every time I look at those curtains. Too bad a lot of my upcoming projects will require me to use it... I need a vacation!

Would you like to see what else I did on my "cold day"? 
I did a whole lot of HTML-ing to better organize my project page! Check it out here: http://melaniegetsmarried.blogspot.com/p/projects_9.html

Happy Thursday!


10 comments:

  1. Love they way the curtains turned out! I have never used a sewing machine, but have so many sewing projects I want to try. I'm hoping to learn to sew soon and I'd love to make some cute curtains like this for our bedroom!

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    1. These would be great in a bedroom! I'm still learning the ins and outs of sewing... slowly but surely I'm getting the hang of it.

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  2. Love those ruffled curtains! Thank you for linking up to the Weekend re-Treat Link Party!
    xo,
    Shannon
    www.akadesign.ca
    www.bloggersandbrands.net

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  3. Cute curtains. And by the way, I love the chevron pillows.

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    1. Thanks, I am so happy with how they turned out! And I am a bit obsessed with chevron haha.

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  4. I'm so glad you shared these at our party, Melanie! I'm trying to get inspired to change the curtains I've had in my living room for.ev.er.! I love these! Sewing often causes random bad words to fly out of my mouth too, but there's so much you can do if you try :)

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  5. Your curtains are darling! I had to do a double-take at your to-do list...your handwriting is identical to my sister's!!! Crazy! :) Thanks for linking up at the "Get Your DIY On" link up party! Don't forget to come back on March 2nd with your trash to treasure projects! :)

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  6. Melanie, I LOVE LOVE LOVE your curtains! They are adorable :) I also love all your M's on the wall but I doubt I could get my husband to ok a shrine to myself :) I am featuring the curtains today on my blog from the Get Your DIY On Link Party. Thank you so much for linking up with us in Feb and I hope you'll join us March 2nd to link up your Trash to Treasure!

    Mandy @ The Hankful House

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    1. Thanks for the feature! I'm glad you like them so much! I love M's too, and it only worked out perfectly that my new last name starts with an M, which is the only reason my hubs was okay with the M collage haha.

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