Saturday, May 21, 2011

My new Curtains

I know that most of us make do with what we have, I am no exception.  Our home is a 1976 4 bedroom, 2 1/2 bath, nothing special house.  We have made many changes in the 10 years we've lived here - it still screamed 1976 in 2000.  
The living room windows are a challenge for me.  The three large windows take up almost the whole wall, which IS nice because it lets in lots of light, which is also NOT nice because it lets in lots of light! The windows certainly aren't country/prim at all. If you look closely at the right hand side, you can see that the windows are recessed back into a jut-out (is that a word?) which is kind of interesting.
These dark brown curtains are my second attempt to figure something out for these windows.  I made them a few years ago and have never really been happy with them.  Previous to these, I had made valances I copied out of  Country Curtains.  Those went bye-bye to be replaced with these dark brown ones.  

In an effort to go simple, I bought a bolt of osnaburg and tore pieces for these curtains.  I stitched a rod pocket at the top and tied them back with string.  While I would like to string these across my windows on jute, instead of having the rod, that isn't possible. 

The new curtains...... 

These windows face South and I have to have the roman shades on the windows for blocking the sun in the summer - just to cool down our living room.  Because of the shades I can't hang the curtains on jute - like I would like to, but I will make do! 

Oh, and by the way, I didn't throw out the cats with the dark brown curtains - I have no idea where they disappeared to for the final picture!  
~Ann


Tuesday, May 17, 2011

A blogging Win

I recently won a giveaway from Becky at Primitives n Stitchin.  My goodies arrived wrapped up so nicely.

The 2 items where a doll needle case and doll quilt.  

 Becky's work is wonderful and her stitching is just perfect.  The needle case is hidden under the dolls dress.  Becky included a thread on the side that wraps around the top button to close the case when not in use.  
 For now, the doll quilt is hanging on the front of this cupboard.  I'm not sure that I'm going to keep it in this spot, but for now it looks great on the front. 

 The doll needle case found a home on my bathroom shelf - No I don't stitch in there, but I needed something new on this shelf and she's the perfect size.  I need to make a stitching area in our basement family room and include her in my display on my side table.  
 I also have to share "The Prom Dress".  Our daughter ended up picking out a pink dress - very funny as this is the color she said she was NOT going to get!  
I've missed a lot of blogging lately and missed all of you, but believe me I haven't been missing any action - both our boys are playing on travel baseball teams (different ones of course!) and our older son ran track this spring and is also playing on a basketball team on the weekends.  I've been trying my best just to keep up with all my laundry!  Track is now over and only one more weekend of basketball so I hope to be around more.  Plus I only have 15 more days of school! YEAH!  I love summer break.

Have a great week.  ~Ann