The Nicest Surprise

My window covering project for my photography studio is coming along, though somewhat slowly.  It's amazing how long it takes to blind stitch one hem for drapery.  This was my first attempt at the blind stitch and I made a lot of mistakes on the first round.  I started out placing the guide right smack on the edge of the fold of the fabric, and the needle didn't pick up the fold in several sections.  I corrected that by placing the guide onto the fold.

I managed to break two needles while sewing the blackout liner at the corner where several layers of the fabric were folded.  Once all the blackout liners were sewn and hung, I started on the sheer white fabric curtains.  Normally, you sew the liner into the drapery fabric, but I wanted to have the option of either blocking the light all together with the blackout liner or giving the room a softbox effect by just hanging the sheer white fabric over the windows.  In the picture below, I have both the sheer fabric and the blackout liner hanging together.

The curtains seemed easy enough since they were short, but the draperies for the sliding glass doors were awkward and bulky to handle.

During this project I must have cursed more times than usual, because yesterday I found this big box on my doorstep.  Inside was a gift from my husband:  A Singer Heavy Duty 4411 sewing machine.

He said he wanted me to have a simple mechanical machine with no bells and whistles that is less likely to break down and give me headaches.  I must have oiled, adjusted the tension, and re-threaded my old machine dozens of times during this project because the thread kept getting tangled.  Looking at the new Singer machine, the first thing I noticed was that the spindle for the thread was horizontal instead of vertical.

I instantly knew this would solve the number one problem I have with my old machine, and that is the thread getting wrapped around the spindle underneath the spool, and then breaking.  This horizontal spindle allows for the thread to be pulled off the spool without getting hung up on the spindle.  The next thing I noticed were all the diagram markings directly on the machine showing you how to thread it.  I thought this was brilliant, because with my old machine, I always had to consult the manual when too much time passed between me using it. 

The next thing I noticed was the top loading bobbin case.  No more removing the toolbox to get underneath the machine each time I need to adjust the bobbin.

Sewing machines have come a long way in solving some of their inherent problems.  If you have an old machine that gives you trouble, I suggest looking into getting a new one.  I was worried about the cost, but it turns out that sewing machines are very affordable at the moment.  I even found a portable mini machine for $20 on the Internet.  Many basic sewing machines are around $100.  I also found this new step stool in the market on sale for $6 today.  No more tripping over the bars on the chair I'd been standing on to hang the curtains.  Yippee!

Lessons Learned Installing Curtain and Drapery Rods

I have begun a project that involves hanging curtains over two windows and drapes over two sliding glass doors in my photography studio.  I bought some Levlor rods at JoAnn Fabrics.  The instructions on the box were very simple and any instructions you may find on the Internet appear to be simple as well, but don't let it fool you.  There is nothing easy about installing curtain and drapery rods.

It looks like you might be able to get them all installed in an hour, but this project took me all day.  It took all morning to install the rods over the two windows, and all afternoon to install the rods over the two sliding glass doors.  Believe me when I tell you that I made every mistake in the book, and if anything at all could go wrong, it did.  When all was said and done, I had a bad case of tennis elbow.

First off, if you install them into wood, you just use the screws.  If you install them into drywall, you use the plastic anchors and the screws.  You are supposed to drill a hole the size of the anchor, hammer the anchor into the wall, place the bracket over the anchor, and drill in the screw.  However, that didn't work for me.  It turned out the majority of the wall was drywall, but the last quarter inch was solid wood.  It's impossible to hammer a plastic anchor into hard wood. 

So, I had to improvise.  I placed the bracket against the wall first, hammered in the plastic anchor as far as it would go, and then drilled in the screw.  The brackets ended up being a bit unstable, but if worse comes to worse, there's always Super Glue.  You can see in the picture below, how the plastic anchor refused to push past the wood, and the screw wouldn't go in all the way either, because the drill stripped the head before I could get it in further.

My biggest mistake was that one window required that I install the brackets into wood.  I had been so intent on installing the plastic anchors into the drywall, that I drilled for the size of the plastic anchors into the wood.  The anchors are much larger than the screws, so by the time I realized my mistake, the holes were too big for the screws and there was no room on either side of the strip of wood to drill new holes.  I was essentially drilling into a trellis. 

I ended up having to force the plastic anchors into those bigger holes, which isn't easy, and I almost split the wood.  I recommend planning everything out on paper before laying a hand on your tools.

My next big mystery was that despite measuring exactly three inches above the window and one inch above the window frame, the rods were uneven.  I could clearly see that they were lower on one side than the other.  In the picture below, the rod is lower on the left than on the right.

After paying closer attention to the rod itself, I realized that had I studied the rod ahead of time, I might I have noticed that one side of the rod is thinner than the other side.  That's how they get one side to slide inside of the other side with metal rods.  So, if you are installing metal rods, I recommend that you install one bracket an eighth of an inch higher than the bracket on the far end.  Better yet, get solid wood rods.

Lastly, for some reason, I was provided with four brackets. I wondered why, because you can't slide the rings past the brackets. I only installed three of the brackets, one on each end and one in the middle where the curtains and draperies meet, but had I mindlessly installed all four brackets spaced out evenly for the sake of stability, I would have regretted it. I suppose I could have placed two brackets side-by-side in the middle, but what's the point?

As you can tell, I'm not a carpenter. In upcoming posts, I'll share my experiences in constructing homemade curtains and drapes.