Recently we had a party and I had to hide some “in construction” things with our windows. We had replaced our windows and had not finished the wood working on the inside of the house.
With 50 plus people coming over, I had to hide and hide quickly. For those of you, who do not have a stash of fabric hidden in the office that your husband knows little about; tell you might need to make a quick run to a fabric store. I had horded some cotton with pretty flowers on it. I had purchased this with some idea in mind about 6 years ago, but it stood in the corner of the closet in the office for this long, using it in a pinch was not going to hurt anything.
I threw it into the washing machine, I was not careful about shrinking as I wanted the fabric to shrink and bind up. I then threw it in the dryer. Again, I wanted the crumpled up look that I knew I was going to get. If I wanted crisp and clear I would have washed it in cold and hung to dry.
Taking it out of the dryer and starting at one end (picture a very long wadded up piece of paper or banner, this is what this piece of fabric looked like. I needed about 7 yards for the cover-up. I had about 8 yards, so I had a little extra to play with. That meant no need for cutting fabric; I could loop it from window to window.
Starting at one end of the bay window I pull and poofed the fabric thru the curtain rod. As I went I poofed the fabric out a bit trying to make it as even as possible. From window to window again I Poofed the fabric out and carefully hid the lack of wood trim. The curtains that I was "poofing around" were a light purple. The floral fabric with yellow red, blue and periwinkle looked nice with the solid curtains. The way the fabric was laying out you would not be able to tell what the pattern was, so any fabric could have worked as long as one of the colors in the main curtains matched or came close. After about 15 minutes of standing on a ladder and listening to my 6 year old say, “Mommy can you tie my shoe?” I finished poofing and preening the windows.
So when people started arriving 30 minutes later and looked at the windows and all the new things that we had do in the house, I heard “Love the curtains”. Wow how did you sew those? Did that take long? Of course I said they did not take long and thank you for the compliment.
If you are ever in a decorating pinch, remember a few things: found object can be good; Ironing is not always the best look, or the look for which are you aiming; and you can decorate quickly and still tie your 6 year old’s shoe.
