Shower Curtains With Flair

I have a love/hate relationship with my sewing machine.  I love the idea of sewing, and really want to learn how to be more proficient at it.  My mom is an amazing sewer, er, seamstress, but suffice to say, sewing is, in no way, a relaxing activity for me.

Quite the contrary.

I started working on some shower curtains for one of the kids' bathrooms, since their shower curtain was looking pitiful and sad.   (FYI, the black shower curtain was already in the bathroom when we bought it - I left it there since I knew I had plans to change it).

I found some linen-esque curtains at Goodwill that were extra-long and perfect, since there is a tall ceiling in their bathroom.  But, they were lacking pizazz, and needed a little "somethin'-somethin'", wouldn't you agree?

I thought I would add "simple bands of fabric" to embellish them. Straight lines. Simple, right?

Alas, no, not so simple (for me anyway).

I'll sum it up by saying that I had countless bent needles, and even a couple of broken ones.   Yes, perhaps I'm a little slow on the uptake in that I kept trying to sew this thing without changing much in the way I was doing things. 

This whole experience left me feeling like this:



The bent/broken needles were a first for me. It's not like I was sewing denim or something crazy like that.  But hindsight, I think I needed a heavier gauge needle (you Sewing Yodas out there must be thinking "Yeah, duh!").  I did adjust the thread tension (is that the right term?), which helped a little bit (meaning I had longer periods of time to work before the needle bent/broke/jammed my machine).

I decided to cut my losses and finished it off with some black grosgrain ribbon that I added with my beloved hemming tape.

Did I mention that all of this was just for the FIRST panel? 

I'll save you the details on creating the second panel - here are the highlights :

• Searched high and low for other band of fabric, only to find it under the couch cushion.  Yeah, I'm organized like that.
• To alleviate any additional aggravation and another sewing debacle, I used hemming tape for second panel.
• Ran out of hemming tape.  Enter trusty glue gun.

But, they're DONE.  Finally. 

Thanks for stopping by!

Jenny

Linking to:
The Shabby Nest's Frugal Friday
Fingerprints on the Fridge - Feature Yourself Friday
Frugal and Fabulous Design - Fab Friday
Remodelaholic's Anonymous

Thrifty Decor Chick's February Before & After Party