Hey, Connie, How Did You Hang the Drapes in Your Bay Window?

The bay window in our Family Room presented a challenge when it came to hanging drapes.

I wanted stationary gathered panels at the corners of the bay, to coordinate with the way the drapes hang on the other window in the room ... traditional fabric and construction, and a more modern way to use them.  What kind of rod and hardware would accomplish this, tho?

When I was at Ikea buying my drapery rods, I found this handy little accessory.

It's rubbery with some sort of armature inside of it, it's threaded to screw onto the Hugad drapery rods, and it's made to bend around corners!

I combined the black rod with these white brackets.  I wanted the hardware to virtually disappear ... the bracket itself stayed white to match the window framework and trim, and I used black spray paint on the hook that holds the rod.

The side brackets are mounted to the face of the window frame, as far toward the wall as I could get them ...

Took this photo before I added the second screw that holds the bracket.

... and I installed one bracket in the center of the bay to hold the curved part of the rod assembly.

The bracket kit comes with a little slide-on thingie that covers the screws and helps make the bracket that much more subtle.

The rod bridges the space between the bracket and the side wall, so the drapes can be all the way against the wall into the corner of the bay.

I came up with a rather unconventional solution to the challenge of exactly how to get the drapery panels pushed all the way into the corner.  They are rod pocket drapes, and the bracket hook would act as a stop and would keep the drapes from sliding all the way into the corner.  To overcome this, I measured the distance from the hook to the wall, gathered the drapes onto a rod and marked this distance onto the gathered drapes with a pin, and cut an access hole into the back of the rod pocket.

When I put the drapes onto the rod, and the rod onto the bracket hook, I clipped the rod to the hook through this hole and the drapes hang perfectly.  If I hadn't told you what I did, you would never know that this is how I made this work.

I have another fantastic trick to show you, one that I learned in THIS post from Design du Monde ... use a zip tie, the same color as the rod, to hold stationary panels back and keep them from ungathering.  You absolutely can't see the zip tie unless you're craning your neck to see behind the drapes, and the drapes stay exactly where they're supposed to.

(Step-by-step photo tutorial to show you how I made the drapes is HERE.)

With this project complete, I can now move onto other things.  Spring is sending signals that I hope I interpret to mean that it will be here soon.  It seems like it's been a longer-than-normal winter, and I'm really ready to get outside and get my hands dirty.  I have roses to prune, mulch to lay, gardens to plan ... and I can't wait to get to it!

How to Make Custom, Professional-Looking Lined Drapes

If you can use a sewing machine to sew a relatively straight seam, and you can operate an iron, you absolutely CAN make your own custom drapes!  These instructions will show you exactly how I made the drapes for our dining room and family room, step by step.

(This is a long post, and it may be of little interest to those of you who don't sew.  My intent is that these instructions can float around on the 'Web, and may one day help someone, somewhere, who wants to make THEIR own drapes, but doesn't how to do it.)

My drapes have a rod pocket, with a two-inch header, and they hang from ceiling to floor on a curtain rod that's one-inch in diameter.  The fabric I used is Waverly's "Tucker Resist", which is 54 inches wide and has an 18-inch pattern repeat.  Lining is economy drapery lining fabric, also 54 inches wide.

Let's get started:

The 54-inch width of this fabric is more than adequate to have nice full-looking panels on each side of my windows.  Let's do some measuring and some easy math to figure out how long to cut the fabric and lining for each panel.  Using my room and measurements, and rounding up to the nearest inch, we have:

Ceiling Height:  114"
Header and Rod Pocket:  5"
Hem Allowance:  5"
Total:  124 inches

(I allow a few extra inches of fabric, just to be safe.  It's much better for the drapes to be too long, and to be cut down during the hemming process, than to find that I miscalculated and that they're too short.)

Cut the selvage edge off of the drapery fabric.

Cut the lining fabric 4 inches narrower than the drapery fabric ... you'll see why in a minute.

Beginning at the top of the panel, with right sides together, sew the drapery fabric and lining fabric together at the sides.  Stop your seam about 18" from the bottom edge of the fabric.

Press the seam allowance toward the drapery fabric.

The reason you cut the lining narrower than the drapery fabric is because the drapery fabric wraps around to the lining side by about an inch, which gives your drapes a very professional look.

Sew the top edge of the drapes, right sides together with the extra drapery fabric evenly divided on both side edges, as shown in the photos above and below.

Turn your panel right side out, and iron it so the drapery fabric wraps evenly on both side edges.

Top stitch close to the side seam, until you get to where you stopped your stitching at the bottom of the panel.

Now, let's mark and sew the header and rod pocket.  I used my quilt ruler and a pencil, marking a line on the right side of the fabric, four-and-a-half inches from the top edge (2 inches for the header + 2-1/2 inches for the rod pocket)

Fold the panel on the pencil line to the wrong side and iron it smooth.  Sew one line of stitching close to the edge of the folded part to define the bottom of the rod pocket.  Then run a second line of stitching two inches from the top edge to form the header and top edge of the rod pocket.

The piece of tattered masking tape on my sewing machine is my 2" mark.

The sides and top of the drapes are finished!  All that's left is to mark and sew the hem.

I like to mark the hem on my drapes with them hanging from the rod.  I don't want to take a chance of measuring it wrong.  As a bonus, this is the time to step back and admire all of my hard work .... you have to imagine me going oooh and aahhh, because this was the first time that I had a chance to see what the drapes looked like in place in the Family Room bay window.

Having gone to the trouble of installing the rod and hanging the drapes, I was hesitant to take them back down to work on the hem after I marked it ... so I dragged my iron, ironing board, and sewing machine downstairs, set up a folding table, and finished these drapes right where they were.

Alice was supervising.

When hemming the panels, the drapery fabric and the lining each have their own hems.  The photos and directions below explain in detail how to do this.  (sewing the side seams short like I did is part of this process.)  

Let's hem the drapery fabric first.

I used pins to mark where the fabric hit the floor at the bottom of the baseboard, folding and ironing the drapery fabric on a line 1/2" shorter than this.

Pins mark the length at the floor.

I totally forgot to photograph this next part ... bear with me and follow the diagram.  For a four-inch hem, draw a pencil line four inches from the bottom edge where you marked and ironed (this is Line 1), and another line one-inch from Line 1 (this is Line 2).  Cut off any extra fabric at Line 2.

Fold, iron, and sew the hem to the inside, along Line 1.

The lining fabric is marked, cut, and hemmed to be 2 1/2 inches shorter than the drapery fabric.  No photo here either, sorry again.  

Let's finish the sides at the bottom edge, and our drapes will be done.

At the ironing board, fold and press the drapery fabric over the lining, and pin it into place.

Stitch the overlap into place.

Begin your stitching where you left off in an earlier step.

The lining hangs free at the bottom, and is securely attached at the sides.

All finished!!

Why would I go to all this effort to make my own drapes?  Let's do the math.  I made eight drapery panels, four for the dining room and four for the family room.  Each panel is 9-1/2 feet long.  I paid $450 for Drapery Fabric (30 yards at $14.99 per yard, using a 50% off coupon at Hancock Fabrics) and $105 for Lining Fabric (30 yards at $3.49 per yard, using a 50% off coupon at Joann's), which brings the cost to few cents less than $70 for each panel.

Do you want to hang curtains in YOUR bay window, too?  Click HERE to see the nifty hardware that I used and how I did it.

I hope this tutorial has taken a bit of the mystery out of how to make drapes.  The finished product really DOES look professional, and you have the satisfaction of knowing that you did it yourself.  No kidding ... you really CAN do it.

If you are new here, just happening by or visiting from DIY by Design take a minute to look around.  For a brief tour of our Dining Room, click HERE.  To see the before, during, and after of the restoration of our Family Room, click HERE.

Sunday Snapshot: Finished

Here is a peek at the new living room drapes that I finished the other day.  They are made from the same fabric as the ones that I made two years ago for the dining room. The style of these two rooms is very similar, and you can easily see from one to the other, so I wanted the window treatments to match.

Family Room bay window with new drapes!

Dining Room, with matching drapes.

The difference between the drapes in the family room and the ones in the dining room is that the family room drapes are finished.  Really finished ... not mostly, you-can't-really-tell-that-they're-not-hemmed almost-finished like the dining room. 

My goal for 2015 and beyond is to try to stick with projects all the way to the end.  It's been a struggle at times, as I fight the lure of other things that tempt me to start or work on, but I'm getting a lot of satisfaction out of stepping back and basking in the triumphant feeling of FINISHED!

(Tutorial to teach you how to make your own drapes will be posted in a few days.)

Happy Sunday, Everyone!

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Sunday Snapshots are posts that are devoted to a moment in time that represents a slice of life in Hartwood, or wherever else I happen to be.

Cabbage Rose Fabric and Another Future Project

More snow falling today.  Looks like about three-or-so new inches.  It's beginning to taper off as I'm typing this, so I doubt there will be any more accumulation.  Still can't work on stuff outside ... as a result, my brain keeps scheming new projects, even though I have plenty of current, in-progress stuff to keep me occupied.

I put one of those schemes to rest a few minutes ago.  Years ago, I bought a huge roll of gorgeous cabbage rose fabric, with no particular use for it in mind ... had to have it because I loved it and I knew I would kick myself for all eternity if I didn't buy it.  I don't remember exactly what the price was, but I do remember that it was low enough to barely be a consideration in the decision process.

The selvage on the fabric says, "Cyrus Clark Co., Inc. 'Warrington' MCMXCIX"

Months ago (maybe longer than that), I was in the sewing room working on something else,  and I spotted the roll of fabric leaning against the wall.  I said to myself, "Self, this fabric would be awesome as drapes for the living room!"

That's as far as the idea went until this morning.  I carried the fabric downstairs to the dining room, which is our room with the longest open space when I push the dining table over to the side, and rolled the fabric out to see how much of it is on the roll.

Maggie was helping.

I am excited to tell you that there is more than enough fabric to make the four panels necessary for living room drapes!  I stopped rolling and measuring when I counted16 yards, and I hadn't reached the end of the roll.  That's plenty.

Just like the process I described about decisions for our front porch railing, now that I know I have enough material for this project, I can put this idea to bed until it's time to actually do something about it.  Frees up brain space to dream about other stuff.

Drapes in the Dining Room

This post could also be titled "Following My Heart, and Being Myself No Matter What Others May Think".  You see, the journey from a 'lightbulb moment' in a fabric store to beautiful drapes that are perfect for our house was an emotionally difficult one.

In September, I was in Hancock Fabrics and I saw the most perfect potential drapery fabric.  I knew instantly that it would be totally wonderful in our house.  I snapped this photo, and I brought home a couple of their tiny sample swatches.

The little swatches hung on the windows in our dining room and family room, and the colors in the fabric were even more perfect in our house than they were in the fabric store.  I knew that I had found THE ONE!

I visited Janet at her shop a few weeks later, and I saw a roll of MY fabric in her work area.  I told her how much I loved it, and mentioned that I was planning to use it to make drapes in our dining room and family room.  Janet said, "That's the fabric Miss Mustard Seed used for her drapes."

When she said that, I felt like I had been punched in the stomach.  MY fabric was actually someone ELSE'S fabric ... I knew I would feel like a shameful copycat if I used it ... especially since the simple drapes I had in my imagination were very similar to what MMS has.  (I googled them as soon as I got home.) 

It wasn't that I minded that someone else had used the fabric and published it online ... I'd be silly to believe that no one had EVER made drapes like the ones I was imagining.  I got myself pretty deep in a feeling of insecurity, worrying that other people would THINK I was a copycat.  It's totally unlike me to even consider stuff like this ... what was I to do?

It was my friend Kat (dear, sweet Kat) who set me straight.  When I wrote to her about maybe not using the fabric, even though I loved it, she replied, "I say use that fabric and enjoy those drapes.  We can't decorate our houses for the internet, nor should we deny ourselves something we like because someone else has already used it..."

Thank you, Kat!!  Your words of wisdom helped more than you know, and I am very, VERY grateful that I took your advice, and followed my heart.

Without further delay, allow me to introduce ... our new dining room drapes.  (I snapped a few quickly-styled photos for you with my iPad this morning.)

The ceilings on the main level of our house are nine-and-a-half feet high, and these drapes emphasize that height and add definition to the room.  I am over-the-moon delighted with how they look.

Since the drapes are wonderful, I decided to do what I could to pull the rest of the dining room together.  I hung this gallery of The Husband's paintings on the wall above the blue buffet, and I love how it looks ... I need to find something to put on the top of the buffet, tho.

This corner cupboard holds a little flat-screen TV, so I can watch the news while I cook.  The top of the cupboard looked like a good place for a graduated stack containing two of my primitive painted tool boxes and a child's toy trunk.  The wall clock is an 1840's ogee clock from Connecticut, and the antlers are the same ones that I originally hung over the door in our office ... they look way better here in the dining room.

From the moment I hung the first of the two sets of drapes in this room, I knew that I had done the right thing.  These simple drapes, gathered on a rod, hanging from ceiling to floor, are the perfect choice for this room ... I am so happy about this!!  

The moral of this story is .... I followed my heart, and I am delighted with the results.  Kat, my friend, I am ABSOLUTELY enjoying these drapes!

All the Help I Can Handle

Yesterday started as a chilly, rainy day ... perfect to put me in the mood to begin to sew my dining room (and family room) drapes.  Whenever I'm doing anything important, I can count on having animals to help with the process.

Dorothy held the fabric down so I could cut it ... actually she was wild-eyed and spunky and was wadding it into bunches as she scampered back and forth.

 

 

Alice settled comfortably as I was ironing.

 

 

 

Ruby wasn't about to be left out.   She came in to hold the layers together while I pinned the lining.

 

 

 

I have two panels finished, and a lot of photos taken for the tutorial I promised.  All I have left to do is to install the hardware on the walls to hang the drapes and get those dramatic 'after' photos ... and sew six more panels, of course ... but these don't affect the tutorial.   

 

(Just to let you know ... these drapes are SO easy!!  Anyone who can sew a relatively straight line, and operate an iron, can ABSOLUTELY do this!  I can't wait to show you how it's done.)

Drapery Design Dilemma

As if I don't already have enough going on right now, with planning for our Greyhounds Rock benefit in November, sewing martingale collars for our booth at three shows over the next two weekends, and all of the other normal everyday stuff that happens ... I'm working on a plan to make drapes for our dining room and family room. 

Up until now, I have been satisfied with our undressed windows.  I'm getting the urge to cozy things up a bit, though, and I want to add some color at the same time.  (I will show you the fabric I chose later ... that's not part of my dilemma.)  I have simple panels in mind, gathered on a large rod ... floor to ceiling, pulled back beyond the window glass so we still get maximum light.  This plan falls apart when I try to figure out how to accomplish this in the family room bay.

This is a photo taken at the end of our renovation of this room in 2007 ... right after the heartpine floors were refinished.

 

 

To give you an idea of the scale of this room, the windows are 5 feet, 7 inches high, they are 3 feet from the floor, and the ceiling is 9 1/2 feet high.  Little cute curtains will not do in a space like this ... it's going to take something with presence ... Here is my inspiration photo:

 

source:  The Gardener's Cottage 

 

 

The 4-sided bay windows in our house are a very distinctive Gothic Revival design feature, both inside and outside.  The previous owners of our house made very traditional, old-fashioned choices with window treatments ... attractive, but not my style.

 

 

 

Here is a floorplan, to give you a visual on the space I'm talking about.

 

 

 

 

There is a mere two inches between the edge of the window and the side wall.  I would love to treat the two windows as one unit and put a long panel on either side, on the same plane as the windows, but there is so little room in which to do this.  Panels hung this way would cover the window more than I want. 

 

 

 

I thought about putting a panel in the center, to perhaps help with the balance, but that still doesn't solve my problem. How do I design and hang panels in this space with its odd angles and close clearances?

 

 

 

The other three windows in my plan will be very straight-forward to deal with ... rod across the top above the molding with panels hanging on each side.  Easy peasy.

 

 

 

The bay window has me in fits, so I'm asking everyone for suggestions.  Any ideas you have on how to do this will be extremely appreciated.  In my mind's eye, I see this requiring a weird multi-angled rod system in the bay, but there has to be a simpler way to do this that I am overlooking.

 

Thanks in advance for any ideas that you have to contribute.

 

Now I'm off to work outside.  I have a special visitor coming this afternoon and I have to finish getting things ready.

 

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Edited to add:  We have little need for privacy here, being out in the country the way we are, and these drapes will never, ever be closed.  They will be gathered dummy panels, for decoration only, so function is not part of the dilemma. 

 

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11/26/12.  Edited again.  Still haven't made the drapes for the family room, but at least I know where I'm going with them now.  The ones in the dining room are finished, and they are beautiful.  Click HERE to see them.