When Good Curtains Go Bad

In my crazy de-brassing and spray painting frenzy--I decided I NEEDED to spray paint the curtain rods in my kitchen. They NEEDED to be black.

This is what they looked like before the re-do:

Well--when I took them down, I realized how dusty they were and decided to wash them. WELL I was not particularly careful when washing them and the lovely red color bled all over all the other colors making it all look sort of pinkish.

Well--I figured I could still live with it...so I ironed them all up and put them back on the rods--only to find out that they had SHRUNK too. They shrunk around 4-5 inches!!!! SO now with the color problem AND the size problem I HAD to get new curtains.

After MANY a shopping trip to select fabric, this is what I settled on. It actually came from Walmart (if you can believe it--pretty cute for Walmart).

So I sewed some new curtains and left a wide 4 inch hem at the bottom (I like a thick hem at the bottom--it makes them hang nicely). Then I added some grosgrain ribbon right on top of the hem line.

I sewed the top with a 3 inch header and then sewed button holes every 4 inches for my NEWLY PAINTED rod to go thru.

Whenever I sew new curtains I always want to train them to fold and hang where I want them to--So I use a little clip to hold them in place for a few days. This kind of creases the bottoms so they naturally fold there--without having to actually press creases into them.

And I must admit--I LOVE how the curtains turned out!!

I am SO glad that I had such a huge laundry disaster with my old ones!