By the second year we where living there, the owner had been talking about selling it to us; however, the timing was not right for either of us until this year. Throughout the past few years, the owner made some improvements to the house (such as updated windows, a new paint job, some updated plumbing, etc) to have it ready for when we were all in agreement for the sale. During that time, I also got brave enough to plant a few cherished grapevines and trees in the ground to prove to myself that I had all faith in God that this house would one day be ours.
Now that it is finally ours, I can do all of the changes and improvements I had been wanting to do to my heart's content!! I had been hoarding numerous plans, ideas, and pictures through searches on the internet in my phone's memory and now I can finally get started on them and delete them once my mission is accomplished!
This week, my mini blinds had finally gotten on my last nerve, so we picked out some inexpensive curtains from my favorite one stop shop: WALMART!! LOL!! Simple pure white two panel curtains for around $10.00! Can't beat that!!
I like being able to see out of all of my windows, and these curtains did not come with anything to tie them back. I'm not a fan of twisting the curtain up, or making a knot in the panels, or even using some sort of temporary string, yarn, or rope to tie them back. Some people (ahem....me) have even used those claw hair clips as tie backs!! (That was during my "I don't care" phase).
Now, I'm supposed to be more mature and set a good housekeeping example for my two boys by having a grown up house! I am also getting to be very picky about my interior decorating...especially in the kitchen, where I seem to have been spending the majority of my life the past few years. It's currently my all-in-one room for sewing, crafting, teaching, entertainment, and sometimes cooking!
During the week the owner chose to have our kitchen repainted, that was when the revamping, on my end, started! Thankfully, he took into consideration the fact that I would be the new owner and he asked me if I had a color preference; which I did. Years ago, I had purchased a lovely set of dishes with a delicate wisteria pattern. From then, I decided my kitchen had to match those dishes! So, a light lavender shade was picked out and applied to the walls along with a brand new ceiling fan installed! Roughly, a week after that, I painted my ceiling fan blade arms in an accenting concord grape color.
Now that I had a theme going, I was able to work on my window treatment.
Supplies needed include a sewing machine, thread in matching color of your solid color fabric, rotary cutter or scissors, see through quilter's ruler would be VERY helpful, cutting mat, solid fabric of your choice and a printed fabric of your choice. Depending on how many tie backs you want to make, about half a yard of each should be enough for front and back of two sets of tie backs. I had leftover fabric from another project on hand, so I don't really know how much fabric was left over.
The first thing I did was to cut my strips of purple fabric. I measured the width of my fabric to exactly the width of my ruler (5" ) and cut two strips.
As you can see in the picture above, there are two panels, both measuring 5" x 45" . The fabric is still folded in half in these pictures. Also, this is a REALLY awesome see through ruler! I use it every single time I have to cut and measure. I've even used it during the time I designed my catwalks (which will be in a future blog).
The next step is to cut your 5" printed panel. You only need one panel for the set. Then, cut your panels in half lengthwise. I measured 2 1/2" as shown in above picture.
This is what you should have. The next step involves pinning the printed panel to one solid panel. Make sure you face the right side down toward your solid panel, pin, and sew.
Once you have it sewn, it's easier to work with if you iron the seam down first before pinning the other solid panel in place.
As you can see, this picture shows my first seam neatly ironed in place and I am sewing the second solid color on.
After ironing, you want to cut your back panel. What I did was to simply lay my ironed panel across the extra purple fabric I still had leftover and cut lengthwise, using my ruler and my rotary cutter. If you do not have a rotary cutter, you can mark your cut with a pencil, pen, whatever. But, I would suggest picking up a good rotary cutter. I recently purchased my third cutter from a store called "Tuesday Morning" for around $5.00!! Don't invest in just any rotary cutter. My last two were some other brand names and I had problems with both of them. My first one skipped cutting the fabric in some areas, so, I would have to go over the cuts two more times. The second one did not hold the blade securely in place and after a while, the blade would not turn easily...even after taking it apart to clean and oil. This time, I went with Fiskers and it works wonderfully!! It cut through four layers of fabric with barely any pressure, the cuts were clean and it rolled easily!!
As you can see in the above picture, I have pinned my back panel to the finished printed panel. Again, right side facing toward other fabric.At this point, I had excess fabric, So, I cut it straight across and used the extra fabric for the tie back loops.
I forgot to take a couple of pictures, but, you should be able to see what needs to be cut off.
For the loops, I measured about an inch wide, folded it in half lengthwise, ironed and sewed it using the measurement on my sewing machine plate as a guide.
I lined my fold on the 10 (3/8) mark and just guided my fabric all the way down.
This is the picture after I pulled the pin all the way through.
As you can see, I cut 4 even loops. I usually do a fold and cut.
Look at this cute little loop!!
At this point, you can use your ruler to find the exact middle for your loop to go...
...or, you can do what I did and fold the printed fabric in half with the seams meeting each other, then make a slight indentation by pressing down.
Just slip your loop in place with the ends lined up to the edge of your fabric, then pin in place.
The next thing I did was fold my panel in half over my trusty ruler, so they would be the same length.
Cut into two separate panels.
Mark the other ends for your remaining loops.
I knew my tie back would be wide, and one loop would not hold the form, so I chose to fold in my corners as pictured. You can see, I only sewed one side of my front and back panel and left the other side open. There is a method to my madness!
Once your panels are folded and pinned, you can start sewing. Begin sewing along the creased corner, exactly on the folded line.
As a rule, I always measure my edge of the fabric to the outer edge of the sewing foot. Do a reverse stitch along the loop areas to ensure secureness and continue sewing along the other corner and down the side to about the middle.
If you look closely, you can see where I left an opening along the side to turn my fabric right side out. Leave an opening about 3" wide and sew the other end of your panel. It should look like the picture above once you are done sewing.
Trim off your corners, being careful to not cut your sewn area.
Now, you can turn your fabric, paying attention to each corner.
Once it is turned, work on the seams by flattening the edges and ironing before sewing. You will sew along the outer edge for a more professional and clean look.
I measured mine to the inside line of sewing machine foot attachment.
And, voila, a beautiful pair of tiebacks for a personalized and stylish look!!
No pics of my cats helping out, they chose to sleep through the whole thing...even with "Newsboys" blasting throughout the house!!
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