I finally got a couple of projects done in the sewing/craft room I had been wanting to do for some time.

For a little background first, my original sewing room in our old house looked like this:

Old sewing room

It had been Jason’s room, so, he had chosen the wall color, and I loved the way my pink and white stuff looked against it. When we moved to our new house, all of the walls were beige. They were in fine condition (and we were tired!), so we didn’t want to paint, plus it was a much smaller room, and I thought darker colored walls would make it look even smaller and cave-like. But I liked the color combination of dark blue, pink, and white, and decided to try to incorporate them in the new sewing room.

Last year we got this futon, and I bought the throw somewhere online:

It hasn’t been easy finding that color combination, though, in fabrics.

Pretty much from the first time I saw this idea on Pinterest of using a fitted sheet for a no-sew curtain, I was fairly sure that’s what I wanted to do. The hard thing was deciding on fabric. I couldn’t find any sheets I wanted to use for it, so I figured I’d just buy a length of fabric and put elastic at both ends (the elastic helps it pouf). At first I thought I’d go for something pink and rosy, but just couldn’t decide. Then I thought maybe I could mimic the futon, darker blue with a pink design. I looked for darker blue fabric with roses on it in multitudes of places – to no avail. One day after I finally decided on storage containers for the closet, I went out to the shed to retrieve some fabric I had stored there, and was thrilled to find a piece of blue with pink roses on it that I had forgotten about. The blue wasn’t quite as dark as what I’d had in mind, but when I laid the fabric on the futon, I saw the blues matched almost perfectly. The length wasn’t quite as long as a twin sheet, but it was long enough. I hemmed up each end and then threaded a length of elastic through it, and voila:

I keep fidgeting with it, trying to decide if the ribbons are straight and evenly spaced, but overall I am pleased. I think it would look better on a rod-type curtain rod rather than the regular curved one. There is enough ribbon left for bows but I haven’t decided whether I want them – I don’t want it to look too “sweet” or juvenile.

The other project was a bulletin board. We had had one in my mother-in-law’s room at one place, but during one move we just never got it back up, and at her current place there is no room for it. It was faded and scratched up, but I thought I could paint it and cover it with fabric.

Once again indecision was my biggest enemy in trying to decide whether to paint the wood pink or white and what kind of fabric to use. I finally decided on white for a frame, and after finding the fabric for the curtains, decided to go with dark blue with just a little bit of a pattern on it.

I forgot to take a “before” picture, but here is a “during” – I had painted the back and sides and was getting ready to start the front:

I had seen an idea at Mary Beth’s for covering a bulletin board with fabric and using a butter knife to tuck it in around the edge. That worked great.

I had originally wanted to criss-cross some ribbons over it (like this), but decided it was small enough and the fabric was tight enough across it that it should be ok. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case – when I raised it up, the fabric started to move a bit. So it’s just pinned up there for now til I decide what to do. I know a thin layer of glue, like a glue stick, would probably keep it on, but I don’t know how it would work for pinning through. (I should have looked up Mary Beth’s tutorial again before I started – I see she used hot glue around the edges.)

I also found a rose applique that had been sitting in my sewing desk drawer for years and thought that would be a nice crowning touch, so I glued it on.

So here is that corner of the room updated:

I’m almost ready to show you the whole room – still have a few things to do. 🙂

One of my next projects needs to be a new sewing machine cover: the red here doesn’t go with the pink and blue, and it is stained and old-looking. New decisions to make….