Here is an old post . . . I have infact finished one curtain, but lack of hot pink thread and moving to Vermont has prevented me from finishing the second one.
When we moved to Sacramento, I knew it was time to make a new pair of curtains for Cliona. Her room there was a bit dark and the dark blue curtains I made her when she was a baby just didn't seem to fit. I have been wanting the make the heart applique curtains from Make it Yourself, volume 7.
I started them back in February, and was enjoying cutting our little fabric heart during Valentine season, but deep down I knew it would be sometime before a finish product emerged. Well I was right. I did finish one just in time for daylight savings time. BUT, the Brother sewing machine I had was giving me a terrible time. I discovered that it can't actually sew a proper zigzag stitch!! Oh, now I know why I was having so much trouble sewing the elastic on all those wool diaper covers I made while I was pregnant. I am very grateful to the women of my husbands family for my "new" Singer. Thank you so much to Germa for the machine and another big thanks to Nana for it sending all the way from Vermont to California.
I never tend to follow patterns or directions exactly. I just invariably change things, in part because I am usually improvising on the materials needed, but more so because I just find myself in the flow of the creative process and my own contributions emerge.
But, this project ended up full circle. I'll tell you how. I sat down to cut out my hearts with 4 different plastic play-dough HEART shaped cookie cutters. I was thankful to be a mother - otherwise I would never have such things in my possession! I decided that it would be really interesting to have many different sized hearts and make a random design on the curtains, as opposed to the more uniform pattern displayed in the book. So I cut up just about as many little hearts as I could using the Fancy little scraps from Aunt Sophie. Then I set about to organize the hearts and discovered that I cut out alot! Oh my. Random was not working, my freewheeling multi sized heart cutting just didn't really work. So I tried the uniform alternate spacing with the two larger sized hearts and YES. And then there was baby Ginger to contend with as well. I really couldn't even get a picture with her out of the frame if I tried. So I safely pined all the hearts in place, and one curtain has been hanging above Cliona's bed while the other one waited for the new machine.
Anyway, here are a few pictures of the process. I really love the curtains. The white fabric is and old flat sheet from Thrift Town, with a very convenient lace edge! And all the pink and purple scraps came fabric all came form PurlSoho, via Aunt Sophie's scrap box. Now those are some fancy scraps!!! In fact it was back in February, when I started this heart project that a dreamed up the name for this blog. It takes me a while to germinate ideas . . . I've got lots in the works to share with you in the future.
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