DINING ROOM: Up-cycling curtains...

When we first moved into our house, back in September 2010, we were faced with the prospect of only one pair of curtains left behind for the whole property! So I went on a bargain hunt mission on eBay; I just search eyelet curtains and bought anything which was half decent as I knew I needed loads. I got some really lovely curtains which I do really like. NB. I found it is much better to go for second hand ones where possible as you tend to get a lot more curtain for your money.

One of the pairs I bought was a lovely pair of white ones from Next, the only snag was that they were very thin....they have been up in our back room at the patio door ever since but they are just tied back and we never use them.

The one pair which the previous owners left behind were these tabard curtains:

...like everything else left they were cigarette stained but they came up fine in the wash, we had a spare long curtain pole from the last house too so we just put them up in the dining room so that we could have something in there until we could afford, or had the inclination to do something else. I am not as keen on tabard curtains and I did want to update.

I am currently off work for one week between finishing at one job and starting and new one, and it was throwing it down with rain yesterday so it was time to do an indoor project (I'm trying to make the most of this week off in the house and get as much done as possible, ideally one project per day!). So I decided to combine the thing eyelet curtains from the back room which we never use with the tabard curtains in the dining room by cutting off the tabards and then using them to line the thin ones.

Of course I wanted to do this on my sewing machine (a beautiful 1940s traditional Singer inherited from my Grandma Jo) but unfortunately it seems to be having issues and stitching for around 4 stitches and then cutting through the thread. I don't quite understand why, and would love to get it fixed but don't really know where to begin so please, if you have any ideas let me know.

So back to the drawing board, or should I say - hand stitching! Fun! I knew it would take me longer, but by this point I was determined in my quest so I decided to just go for it. Plus the great thing about hand stitching is you can take it wherever you go, as I did when I was due to go to dinner and some friends ours house that evening, where I finished it off. 

So I started by cutting off the tabards off the tabard curtains. I then pinned them to the back of the other curtains...

 I then hand stitched, loop stitches (not sure what their official name is), all the way along and then I removed all the pins...

... and voilà! - up-cycled curtains complete!

I am so happy with the result! x