Curtains!

The Well Dressed Bed....

I was Procrastinating, Dear Readers, so what I have to show you this week is not at all what I had Intended to be working on! But since the results of my Procrastination were SO pleasing to me...... I couldn't wait to share them with you! Some of you may have noticed that I have not mastered the art of making Curtains for my dollhouses.... and this is in part because I love the way windows look with no curtains... and so my attempts are mostly just lace scraps pinned over the windows! And while I like my windows to have no curtains.... I think all beds should have them! I can blame it on my Medieval Tendencies.... because when you think about it, Historically they put curtains on the beds Long before they started putting curtains at the windows!So it is that I have from the very beginning envisioned the bed in The Folly tucked into that nook and draped with sumptuous curtains! I even knew exactly which Fabric I wanted to use.... and I was pretty sure that somewhere in all my "supplies" I had a beaded fringe that might be perfect for the trim!

And because I was procrastinating, I thought I needed to find that beaded fringe.... 

just to see what it would look like with the fabric... 

It took a while, but I DID find it!

 

 Here I am "Testing" the fit of the fringe 

on the quickly thrown together "Test" sample of the fabric,

and because I was just testing things, I didn't take many pictures of the process.... 

It was just slow and careful stitching of slippery fabric to wiggly beaded fringe, 

after all... just "Test" stitching... 

to see if it would work the way I hoped... 

The stitching was very slow and took much of the afternoon....

(This is that glitter strewn gauze that I use so often for my "Smoke effects" in my fireplaces...

 and the glitter pieces for candle flames....)

You can imagine my surprise when the beaded fringe turned out to be EXACTLY the right length!!

So then I had to do a "Test" of how it fitted in the opening for the Bed Nook......

Just thumb-tacked in place temporarily....  

And, of course I just Had to see how it would look pulled back to either side....

So I quickly wrapped a fine piece of gold thread around the curtains 

and attached it to the thumb tacks...

And then I thought we should see it with the lights on... 

even though it is the middle of the afternoon.....

Aaah..... that is Really looking Just the way I had Imagined it would!!!

Even though it is just Temporarily pinned in place...... 

because the bed still isn't even made up....

Can you imagine sleeping there?

And I had to take more pictures the next morning.... 

because the sun was shining into the room.....

Would you close the curtains when you slept...?

And let me bore you with some more pictures.....

I was procrastinating.... so I had to play for a while.....

and added some trinkets to the mantle...

(the books are some of Dark Squirrel Victoria's Divine creations...!)

And then Joanna heard there was work being done on The Folly.....

So she had to come and have a look....

She noticed the decorations right away.....

I has been such a long time since she visited at The Folly....

She really couldn't remember whether the curtains had been there before.....

But she was fairly certain she would have remembered such a Gorgeous Fringe...!

And the mattress.... as old as it looked... 

she was sure it hadn't been there when she last stopped by...

It was surprisingly soft for such an old mattress!

But after so MUCH Procrastination, Dear Readers, 

I Did finally get started on the project I had been intending to work on! 

And what was that, you ask?

Curtains, of course! 

Tiny Bed curtains for the Pagoda bed in the Tree House! 

But it already has curtains, I hear you say.....! 

Alas, those are just the lace Under-curtains.....

I really wanted it to have embroidered silk curtains... 

And I wanted to use that green silk.... 

in particular I wanted to have the gold fringe edging of the silk be the edging for the curtains!

Which meant carefully figuring out How I was going to embroider the silk!

Here you can see I have basted the green silk to a piece of muslin.... 

so the whole piece can go into an embroidery hoop.....

And if you look very carefully you can see that I have added some stitched guide lines.... 

so I know the area I am to embroider within....

And then I dug out my Treasure worth almost more than Gold itself.....

I inherited some of my Grandmother's sewing things....

These are Antique Wooden spools of Silk Sewing Thread!!!

In a lovely assortment of Rainbow colors.....

And because I have not Embroidered anything in Quite a few years....

I am just Testing....

(Which really means making it up as I go...)

Starting with a vine in green silk... using a simple back stitch....

 

I started with the curtain that will face the back wall.... 

so I have room to make mistakes...

And I added the flower "branches".....

And started on the flower blossoms.... 

in red, mauve and coral.....

Using a simple satin stitch....

It is supposed to end up looking like "Crewel" Embroidery... 

a style often worked in wool and having varied and exotic flower and plant forms...

So I am just making the shapes up as I go.....

One flower after another.....

Although I did make myself a rough sketch as guide....

To keep the stitching at the right scale.....

Each curtain will be two and a quarter inches long....

But because I Procrastinated so long in starting... 

It is a long way from done!

But I am really NOT sorry that I was procrastinating.... 

especially when at the end of the afternoon as the sun was setting, 

It reached all the way across my house and shone into The Folly.....

A slice of sunlight just hitting the Window Perfectly.....

Casting the beaded Fringe Aglow....

Oh, I LOVE that magical light!!

And even though they are not Finished....

Neither the Tiny Embroidered ones, nor the Sparkly Beaded ones....

Yes, I  do think Every well Dressed bed should have Curtains!