Curtains - Saturday Miscellanea

I'm making curtains for my dining-room. It's really the room in which the dogs and the snakes are fed but it looks like a dining-room. These curtains or drapes are proper ones. I start with measuring everything and figuring out how much overlap I want to have and how much fullness. Then I buy the material for the curtains and the lining, join widths together with the sewing machine, and then I sew the lining to the curtains by hand, including invisible stitches in the middle so that the linings don't billow out independently. The final step is to sew rings to the top so that the curtains can be hung properly from the metal rods with snake's head finials. (I don't do special headings because I like the simple look.)

Not many people do curtains this way, so there is some advantage for being a weirdo. I estimate that I'm saving at least a thousand dollars by doing the work myself, and the only real cost is developing these very thick leather pads on the fingers of my right hand, from the needle coming and going so many times. Of course, the people who get these types of curtains ready-made are in a rather different income bracket from yours truly. But still. All the stuff at Snakepit Inc. is made with the same care. That's why there isn't very much stuff here.

My computer room has Austrian blinds, made out of some 1950s material I found at a flea market. They are lined and the edges are piped. Normally I don't like frills but these are good to look at when I read something especially blood-curdling on my forays into the Wingnuttia. The other rooms have lined curtains as well, though the guest room has Roman blinds which I made out of muslin and some sheet material cut into stripes. I'm a proper little housewife goddess! Did you know, by the way, that overnight guests and fish both smell after three days? A gentle reminder.

Sheets are excellent material for curtains because they come in large widths. A hint for those of you who don't live near fabric stores or good flea markets. But don't try to make loose covers/slipcovers out of sheets; they don't wear well enough for all the work you need to put into making the covers.

This post has no politics in it. You could go to the American Street for a few of my more political writings, or you could imagine various ways of combining "curtains" and "George Bush" to make a political message.