Kitchen Cafe Curtains

Since we're not planning to move anytime soon, we've started to make little improvements to the house here and there.  Replacing the old (and broken) mini-blinds with cafe curtains was our first step.

We bought a nice warm wood colored curtain rod and some cotton fabric from our favorite fabric store. Admittedly, this project took us two attempts.  The cutting board we have wasn't big enough to easily measure the fabric and we had to do all the cutting on the floor (not the easiest place to measure things well).

We followed some basic instructions on making the 3 different kinds of edges you need for a curtain of this type and learned that ironing folds before sewing them makes such a difference!

Next up, curtains for our big living room window.

Birthday Banner

We celebrated Zeke's birthday yesterday and I made another banner out of the burlap & jute bunting that we originally made for the wedding. I followed pretty much the same instructions as I did for the holiday banner except I used navy blue cotton fabric with cream colored thread.

Since we still have a lot of bunting left to use, perhaps I'll put some time in to actually making a tutorial one of these days...

2010 Holiday Napkins & Tablecloth

Since this was our first Thanksgiving in Seattle and our first Thanksgiving as a married couple, I wanted to make something special for it.

So I used the this pattern from the Purl Bee as inspiration and bought 4 yards of a cotton plaid fabric and 4 more yards of a cream muslin fabric. This is my first try ever making napkins or a table cloth and I think they turned out pretty okay for a first attempt.

A Holiday Banner

I've been trying to think of ideas of what to do with the 200 feet of burlap bunting we made for the wedding and one idea I came up with was to do a little holiday banner to hang in our living room window.  My favorite holiday items are of course the ones that say "peace", so I decided to use that.

First, I cut out the letters from a tomato cotton fabric by hand. Second, I cut the jute twine in between each  burlap triangle, because they were over a foot apart and it wouldn't have looked too good that way.  Third, I sewed the letters onto the each burlap triangle with a fairly wide zig zag stitch with a tomato colored cotton thread.  Fourth, I tied the flags together and cut the ends short.  Fifth, I made little slip knots on each end to hang it!

The banner fit perfectly in our living window and I'm thinking of making a smaller one for our kitchen on the left.  I think "joy" might be the appropriate holiday word!

Makeup Brush Roll

After taking a wedding makeup lesson and purchasing some brushed, I decided I needed a brush roll rather than just using the little plastic cases that came with the brushes.  So I just sort of jumped in and made one.

Since it turned out so successfully, I may try to re-create it, and perhaps, GASP! create a pattern and instructions!