One of the things I absolutely love about my new apartment is the gorgeous corner windows. My bedroom is always incredibly bright, I have a great view of University Avenue and the beautiful pink Emma’s building and I never have to turn my obnoxious tube lights on.
But- my windows came with blinds. Horrible, terrible, yellowing, hard to maneuver, tacky and gaudy blinds. Have I mentioned how much I hate blinds?
Luckily, the previous tenant had left a ton of curtain rods stashed in my closet, and the mounts already stuck into the cement walls around my windows.
I’m trying to keep a theme of vintage industrialized rustic (aka: Pinterest) going in my apartment, and I knew I wanted to throw in a touch of burlap. Ceiling-to-floor burlap curtains sounded wonderful, not to mention easy.
The photos for this are pretty self-explanatory. I got quite a bit of burlap by the yard from WalMart and sized it to my windows. I folded over a hem, stitched it with a quilting needle and some black ribbon, and voila. Done. The hardest part was the stitching. I’m so particular about my projects that I actually counted out the threads- 10 between each stitch. All of that counting took about an hour and a half per curtain panel. This was a project I undertook on my day off.
(Have I mentioned how hideous the carpeting is in my apartment?)
Count ‘em out. Each stitch is exactly 10 threads apart. Anal much? Yes.
And finished! I didn’t worry about working the creases out- my air conditioning-less loft gets pretty humid, so they’ll iron themselves out in a short period of time. (I warned you about the horrible tube light.)
And (again) here’s the finished set. I had thought about using a thick linen backing for the curtains, but didn’t for two reasons. First, I love the light. My basement bedroom growing up didn’t have a window, so I’ve always made it a point to take the bedroom with the biggest window in every dorm or apartment I’ve had since. The wide stitching of burlap made it suitable because not only does it fit my theme, but it also lets in an ample amount of light while still hiding me from the curious wandering eyes who walk up and down my street. And second, I wasn’t exactly sure how sturdy those curtain rods or mounts were, and I was afraid of breaking something with the added weight of the linen. I closed the blinds over the window directly behind my bed, since my headboard will cover up most of that area anyway, and left an extra few inches of material at the bottom of my curtains in case I one day do decide to add a linen backing. That way, I can just stitch it on without ending up with curtains that are too short.
Also- you can eye some sneak-peeks in this photo! (And my mid-morning snack of wheat bread, peanut butter and flax seeds.) My old glittery purple comfortable is in the way (yuck), but you can see my new color scheme and chevron pattern trying to say hello. Expect that project post soon!
