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SOS: Curtains.

November 4, 2010
The saga of the apartment revamp goes on.  Yesterday, it was happening in the nursery/office.  Although we live in a basement, it is a nice basement, with large windows that make it feel like it's not a basement...larger windows than I thought.  Larger than 2 1/2 yards of fabric would cover.  *Sigh*  It was only my second time buying fabric.  The first time I just went to the clearance section and bought what was left on a bolt, which ended up being way too much fabric.  I think I need a lesson on buying fabric.  
So, yesterday, I mentioned that Greta and I took a trip to Ikea.  (Being only 15 minutes away from Ikea is bliss.)  Greta's room needed some curtains.  Fun ones.  Colorful ones.  Chris and I both agreed that the brown, sage and white was getting yawn-inspiring. I mean, we already had to take down the cutesy mobile and remove the crib skirt.  Now, I am considering just painting over my little deer and refreshing the whole look.  
Reference photo

See that piece of a window?  It's actually about 60" wide and there is another window the same size across the room.  Windows without curtains look cold and yesterday, I set out to remedy that.  I found really cute fabric:

Adorable, right?  I thought it would add color and whimsey and could still work with her bedding, plus open up a lot more options for colorful frames and art.  I brought the measurements for the windows in the room with me.  I looked at the fabric.  Measured it.  Looked at it some more.  Picked up the scissors, put them down.  Unrolled it some more.  Finally, I found a girl in a yellow Ikea shirt and asked for some assistance.  She looked at my measurements and told me that the 2.5 yards should be plenty.  Oh my gosh!  She was so wrong!  I can't even cover one window!  The only explanation I can come up with is she thought I could use the fabric horizontally??:
Okay, clearly that doesn't look right.  Even Chris said that that doesn't look right (yes, I tried it).  I could not go to sleep last night because I was SURE there has to be a way that I could make this work.  Ikea doesn't accept returns of already cut fabric.  I paid $20, so now I really have to make this work.  I don't have a sewing machine (DIY no-sew curtains here) and I would love to not have to fork out $40 for fabric.  Tell me there is another way!
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  1. Are you trying to do two panels instead of a curtain like at the top 1/3rd all the way across?? Know what I mean? I call it a tube curtain where you make a tube (naturally) and then just shove it all on the rod so it has a bunching and overlapping effect....buuuut you need a sewing machine for that one. That's about as skilled as I get when it comes to curtains!

  2. Once I had a piece of fabric that I found on the remnants table. I LOVED it but it was too small to use for anything. So I went to Walmart and bought a cheap coordinating plain color (in this case beige) and put strips of it all around the piece that I liked. That way it framed the colorful fabric in the plain fabric. It wasn't expensive and I think it made it more dramatic. You could try that with white or black or even the green or red that is in this fabric.

    And that salesperson was a moron. You always have to figure in EXTRA with curtains and drapes.

    Where you don't have a sewing machine you may be able to use that iron-on tape stuff and kind of glue the pieces together. I'm most certainly NOT a sewing expert though!

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