Monday Madness....

Actually, a lot of this was Sunday afternoon madness...

When we last parted, I had the life sized drawings of the  curtains on graph paper.

After you left, I got to work with card stock and cut out a "pattern for each piece.  You can't really call these pieces patterns.  They are really only layouts of the shapes needed when I finish pleating.  I have to know that everything is going to fit together nicely....Fingers crossed a lot during this period.

I marked each piece with part, where the go and overlaps.  So far, so good.

The hardest part of this whole thing is going to be picking fabrics that work....they have to not match, but I don't want them to turn my stomach either.  A happy medium is a mixture that clashes well together....

I used my usual method of pinning the pleats in and spraying them with unscented, extra hold hair spray.  I won't go into details.  There are several tutorials elsewhere on the blog using this method.

I started with the inside back left curtain.  I used two of the pattern pieces in black and off white, tiny, checkerboard. 

Then I decided to break it up with a swag that would wrap around and tuck under the edge of the top.

Starting at the curved edge of the pattern, I pinned the fabric around.  I just kept going, pleat after pleat, until I covered the pattern.  It gets trimmed afterwards in this case.

It was a little tough, because two of the pieces had to fit in the curve at the ceiling.  But Tessie held her tongue in the corner of her mouth just right and it worked. 

I trimmed the top of the green piece and folded it over the checked one at the top.  Then I wrapped it around the checked piece and pinned it at the bottom under that piece. 

I found that the piece that I cut off of the top of the green looked like the tail of a swag.  I tucked that under the checked piece and will marry the two with some of the ropes or other trims.

Three pieces down.  About ten more to go....maybe more.

The white fabric that I hung on the back wall is a piece of reallllly old pulled thread work.  someone went to all the work of cutting little slits in the fabric in rows.  Then they tied tiny loops around each piece of fabric between the slits, connecting the whole width of the fabric from one edge to the other. 

I am not sure what it was to begin with.  It has a hem and a seam in one spot.  Whatever it was, someone thought enough of the hand work to save a large piece of it.  I got lucky and found it at the bottom of a bag of old lace that I bought at an antique fair.

Lastly, here is a photo of the top half of one of the outer curtains....See?  It's not going to be so dull after all!

Between this and laundry, I will manage to keep occupied for the rest of the day.  It goes pretty fast with Tessie handing me the pins. Head first. One at a time.  She is anxious to get this done so that she can go into yet another business....

By the way!  I didn't find my pin board yet....Or the rope to tie around my ankle, for getting out of the workroom safely.  I did find a small cork bulletin board close to the door...Hey! It was within reaching distance.  I wasn't going to take a chance and go in any further.

I am happy to report that the cheap-o bulletin boards from Walmart make excellent pin boards.  There is a frame around them....Less chance of losing pins.  They hold the pins nicely.

If I were really brave, I know that there is another larger one behind the closet door.  I will have to think about the journey into the darkest depths of the dreaded workroom to find it....Am I that brave?  Not sure...

See you tomorrow.