Apartment ReDress::A new Start+Curtains for my Studio

Since getting back from San Francisco I have slowly been catching up and getting things back on track. It is so annoying how 2 weeks away = 2 months of catching up. I feel like my schedule is getting under control again and my calendar is starting to get fully used and up to date. The apartment is slowly getting back to a clean and organized state too.

And now that my big deadline that’s been over me for the last month is past I am happy to jump feet first back into domestic bliss. I think I’ve mentioned it before, but I tried out the Fly Lady program as an experiment because I suck at cleaning on a regular basis and it seems to work well for me. I’m going to get back into it starting with the baby steps this week (Thursday is officially my first “non working towards crazy deadline day” so that will be my first de-clutter day). I’m excited, which is funny – me, excited about cleaning? You bet! I feel strongly that a clean studio helps to promote creativity. If you know what you have and have space to make things, then you tend to use what you have and make things more often.

The other thing that I’m also restarting is the Apartment ReDress series of posts. Last summer as part of my moving into a new place and making it “home” was to refinish/fix up/jazz up things in my apartment. Kind of like how cleaning and keeping things organized helps with creativity, I feel that being surrounded by beauty and inspiring things is important to. You can see the previous ReDress projects here in the flickr collection. So far I’ve reupholstered my sewing chair:

Re covered and painted my lamp:

Remade my sewing basket:

Refurbished my dresser:

And made a hamper out of canvas/pvc pipe/and spray paint stencils:

The next ReDress project I’m going to make are curtains for my studio. You see I have this huge window that is great, but at night, with the window open (when it’s finally cool enough) it’s a little creepy because people can see in and see, me! I don’t like that. So some half curtains are in order.

I love the view from my studio and in particular sitting at my desk like I am right now and gazing off into the sun set. So wonderful. I couldn’t ask for a better view to write and make and create by.

I dug around in my fabric stash and found this fun light blue plaid fabric:

I will mix it up with some unbleached muslin so it doesn’t look like I’m just hanging some sheets in the window. I have these latching rings somewhere around here and I was thinking I could put grommets along the top, put the latching rings through the grommets, and then use a doll rod or curtain rod (if it’s not too much) to hang it up with.

I want to put the panel of muslin about 4 inches from the bottom so I can see it over the edge of my desk. Not immediately, but eventually, I want to embroider some kind of something or other in the panel of plain fabric.

Now that I saw these though, I’m kind of thinking maybe muslin for the main part and plaid for the panel. Hmmmmm….These curtains are from kirstencan’s photostream on flickr. I like how airy they are.

I’ll have to play around a bit and see what I like better. What do you think? Plaid for the main part or the panel? I’ll make and post about them on Thursday. Maybe not finished, but at least started :)

Happy Crafting!
Kristin