Tuesday, April 2, 2013

Curtains to Rug

I usually don't have a hard time letting material things go.  It's just stuff, after all.  So when it came time to replace my daughter's bedroom curtains, I didn't hesitate.  My mom was here, and volunteered to make new ones.  Done. 

The old curtains were ones that I had made during my "nesting" phase while pregnant, 8 years ago, which feels like another lifetime.  Cute bright green with hot pink, topped with ribbon.  I even made floor pillows to match.  The curtains hung in her nursery in San Francisco, made the move to Utah with us, and eventually were hung in her bedroom here in Cozumel.  The tropical sun had faded the material pretty badly, so it was time.  But once the curtains were down, I couldn't bring myself to just throw them out.

Faded panel #1
 I had 2 of the curtains above.  I took off the ribbon, as it was still in pretty good shape, and I have a ribbon addiction problem, so into the stash it went.
Ripped up curtains
 I cut 1"-2" snips into the bottom of the curtains and started to rip them into a huge pile of strips.

And started to braid...
 I took 3 strips of material and started to braid, simply running a couple of stitches through the ends.  I soon realized that this project was going to take awhile to complete...

The finished pile.
 I estimate it took about a week to get all of the strips braided together.  I mainly worked on it at night while watching TV.

Leo Cat loves helping with projects...
 I began the spiral and hand sewed a couple of stitches to get things started.

 I then moved things over to the machine and started sewing.  I used a large zig zag stitch, and just kept sewing and sewing and sewing...

DONE!
 The edges kind of curled up on me, not sure why, but maybe I was stretching the material while sewing?  Who knows.  I tried ironing the edges down, and I washed it, but still curly.  Oh well.

New little rug for the reading corner. with matching pillows!
Overall, pretty pleased with my reuse of the old curtains.  I wish the rug would have turned out a little flatter, but the princess didn't seem to care.  She told me it looked like a flower.

Until next time, thanks for stopping by!

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