Bathroom curtain is finished!

Now, before I start talking about the momentus bathroom curtain that I've been rambling on about for months, let me show you how our bathroom looked.

I bought the house 6 years ago, it had been a student house for years and so was badly decorated and grimy.  We've started doing it up, but it's expensive and we have no money, so it's going slowly.  Check out the brown suite.  Seriously, who buys a brown suite??  Also note the grimy cabinet with chipped glass doors.  The bottom of the mirror was at the correct height to reflect my forehead!

Yucky stained ceiling (we did use to clean it often!) and horrible light fixture.

Grimy grouting and tiles that always look dirty, even when they're not, due to the horrible pattern.  You can also make out the mis-matched trim on the bath.

I bought this blind for a fiver from IKEA when I first moved in, just to give us some privacy.  It's horrible and dirty and marked.

The bathroom is tiny, the door opens directly onto the boiler-housing cupboard so you have to squeeze past.  The yellowish walls don't help matters.

Mr CA started by replacing the boiler cabinet doors which were ancient and chipped to show the green paint underneath.  Everywhere we've decorated in our house we've found layers of white gloss, then a layer or two of green.  Clearly at some stage in its 130-year old history, the entire house was painted green.

A couple of months ago we painted.  We painted the walls and ceiling white and the tiles white too.  How much cleaner does that look, even with the gross brown suite?  I removed the horrible cabinet and put this little one in its place.  There are to be shelves next to it.  One day, when Mr CA gets round to it.

I even Mod Podged some bathroom-themed fabric inside the cupboard!

 

The door could do with a coat of paint, but it does look a lot better.  I also want to get some new shower and light pulls and fixtures, I just keep forgetting.

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Oh, I wanted to show you that the tile paint isn't brilliant - it does come off in patches at some points, and I'd advise you not to scrub it!

A new clock, clean white walls and a book on Photography for Crafters!  Remember I added the crochet sail boats?

 

You can read about them here if you are so inclined.

That just left the window undressed.  For months.  And months.  Enter WIP 15

So, remember back in June when I started the granny square blocks for a bathroom curtain?

Then I showed you the otherday that I'd got this far?

I added some sashing.  Wider at the sides as the dimensions were a bit odd.  I then had to piece a backing as the piece of white fabric I had left was just not quite big enough!

I sewed it all together and then noticed this.  Ooops.  But, finally, it was finished.

Excuse the dark photo, it's very hard to take a photo of a dark room in Winter when the thing you are taking a photo of covers the window!

I love it!  Yes, that is the backing you can see through the curtain.  I also noticed that when the sun is very bright, you can see the threads and bits of lint trapped inside the two layers.

 

I had the brilliant idea of interfacing the front to make it less see-through.  Didn't work.

This is the back, I forgot to take a photo before I hung it but as it's visible through the front, I think you get the idea!

Spot the mistake?  Yep, I put the front on upside down.  Those birds are the only directional prints and I got them upside down.

To make the curtain I made the back and the front, interfaced the front and sewed them right sides together, trapping some tabs in the top.  I then turned it through and top stitched the gap closed.

As I finished, I realised that's not how you make curtains.  Ooops.

zakka Style Sew Along week 23 - message board

It's the penultimate week for the Zakka Style Sew Along.  I can't believe I'm keeping up!  I've completed all but 7 of the projects, and I'll complete one of them this weekend.  18 / 24 is not a bad score!

You will be glad to hear, Fiona, there is no mention of unmentionables in this post, so feel free to eat your lunch!

This week we were to make a message board in an embroidery hoop.  The linky for this week's projects can be found here, and go and visit this week's host, the wonderful Maureen Cracknell.

I have quite a collection of embroidery hoops, but the largest I could find was 6", so 6" it was.  The book calls for a 10" hoop - probably more practical but never mind.  We were to cut 17 of the pennants for the bunting.  I cut more than that, but didn't need them, of course!  I also changed the shape as I didn't like the way they came out to the book's measurements.

Here it is after I'd machine stitched the bunting on.  That's a piece of grey linen, one of my last bits of that shade.  Photographing linen is REALLY hard, it always comes out wierd and liney.  Yes, I just made that word up.

There wasn't much sewing involved.  After sewing on the bunting, I had to glue it to the back of the hoop.  I usually do the gathering-stitch finish then hand stitch a felt backing to my hoops, but thought I'd try this way.  I still can't find my fabric glue, so out came the mod podge.  I had to stick pins in to keep it in place while it dried.

As I had the mod podge out, I thought I'd see if you can mend ripped ballet shoes with it.  I have a large collection of cheap ballet shoes and most of them have the sole coming away at the front.  I put some mod podge in the gap and held it shut with a bull dog clip.

I left the glue on overnight, the next night I glued the backing in place.  I don't appear to have taken a photo of that.  It's grey felt, cut in a rough circle.  And glued.  Not very exciting so you're not missing out.

I saw everyone was displaying their message boards with little notes on them.  I turned around to find a piece of paper and saw this felt fox I made yonks ago so I pegged him to my board.  Well, why not? 

I didn't add the machine embroidered bow of the tied bow as suggested in the book as, let's face it, there's not exactly enough room on there!  I wish I'd put two "washing lines" on though, then I could have pinned a panda too.

Oh, and yes, you can fix ballet shoes with mod podge.  I'd better buy some more bull dog clips as I have about 15 pairs in need of repair.

Christmas roundup

It's time to show you what I've done for the Christmas Countdown.  It's not much I'm afraid!

I think I mentioned that I've finally set up my computer desk?  Well, the only mousemat I had was an old one of my dad's with a picture of Meadow Lane (the ground where Notts County play) on it.  Clearly, that wasn't the mousemat for me!  Instead of buying one, I decided to have a go at making one.  After reading through several different tutorials, I knew I was going to give the Mod Podge versions a go.  I've haven't linked up a tute as I didn't really follow one, I read a few and made up my own version.

I thought I might as well make one each for my mum and dad whilst at it. I cut a bit of Lily and Will fabric for mine, some piggy fabric for my mum and black and white stripes (Notts County again!) for my dad.  I used dad's old mouse mat for mine and cut rectangles of funky foam for mum and dad's.  I smothered the back of each piece of fabric and the foam with Mod Podge.

Then I put the fabric on right side up and spent ages smoothing out any creases, bubbles and wrinkles.  I left it to dry for about 3 days, then cut to size.

Not an unmitigated success, but they're alright.  The tops are rough and bumpy and I thought that might be a problem, but I'm using mine now and it's not a problem at all. 

The blue foam I used for dad's shows through the white stripes a bit and I'm not sure the funky foam versions are thick enough.  I think they'll do for a stocking filler!

I really will get more Christmas gifts done in August, I will!!  I know, I've said that before...

By the way, I still need another 5 people to sign up for Pay It Forward otherwise my one poor PIFfer will end up with sackloads of handmade stuff from me!  Does anyone else want to receive something handmade in the post?  All you have to do is blog about it (or Flickr or Facebook or whatever) and find 3 people you can PIF to...  Come on people, you know you want to!