Bed Curtains, Cords and Tassles...

Tessie made me do it.   I am finishing the bed today.

She seems to think that, if I finish the bed, she can close the curtains, make it dark and Nellie will keep on sleeping...Great theory....

Can you tell that she is not happy with the new tenant?  She made me close the front of the house, so that it would stay comparatively dark inside.  Again, the theory that Nellie will stay asleep.

Who knows?  Maybe she is right.  I found her circulating a petition to all of the other people that live here this morning, including the cats.  She wants to evict the crooked house tenant if she ever wakes up....Her only signatures so far are Zar and a couple of questionable paw prints.  There may have been coercion or bribery involved....

The rest of the community has not interacted with Parnell yet.  They haven't had the pleasure...?

Anyway, I took the clip board away from Tessie and made her help with the curtains and trims.

You have seen me make curtains elsewhere on the blog, so I won't go into the directions.  Look under curtains in the label section if you want to see.

Anyway, whilst the curtains are drying, I decided to make rope tiebacks for them.  I imagine that a lot of you already know how to make twisted cording, but for those of you that don't, I will show you.  It is a valuable skill to have when you need cording and don't have the right color.

I used #5 Perle cotton to do these three.  The bottom one is simply one thread.  I made sure which way the twist went and then simply kept twisting it in the same direction as tight as I could until it twisted back on itself.

I put a pin in the pin board on the right side and did a slip knot around the end of it.  I used a piece about three feet long.  I held the center point loosely in my left hand and rolled the other end on my leg until the twist was very tight.  Then I slowly eased the tension on the left hand(center point).  That let the thread twist around itself and the result is the bottom cord.  It will stay like that if you twisted it tight enough. Glue the cord where you want to cut it, to keep it twisted.

The next one up is simply the first piece twisted back on itself in the same way.

For the first one, I cut twice as much thread as I wanted for the finished length, plus a bit more for the twist.  For the second one, I needed a piece four times as long +.

The top one is the fun one.  I took two different colors and tied them together with an overhand knot. making sure that the twist ran in the same direction on both pieces when I stretched them out.  Then I simply treated it as one long piece.  I held the knot in my left hand and just keep twisting.  It automatically turns into a two color rope.

I have done tassels on the blog before, but here is a fast refresher course for those of you that don't know how.  I made it larger than life so that you can see it plainly.

First I wrapped it around my fingers until I thought it was full enough.  I usually make these out of embroidery thread or un spun rayon.  This makes for a more in scale tassel.

This was with #5, so that You could see it.

I tied another piece of thread around the top of the tassel.  Then I cut the bottom in half.

I made another slip knot and pulled the loop over the top and down about an eighth of an inch.

I then pulled it up tight to make the head of the tassel and tied a single knot over the slip knot so that it wouldn't move. 

When I am making these with embroidery thread, I use regular one strand of embroidery floss or sewing thread in the same color to do the knots.  Again, more in scale.

After I have it arranged the way I want it, I trim the bottom.

Here's the finished tassel.

Now I have to back and make the real ones.

We have to get this done before Nellie awakens.  Back to work!

See you tomorrow.