I’ve been watching several videos on YouTube about Swedish Death Cleaning. I guess with the passing of my sis I’ve been thinking a lot about all of the stuff I have that I never use. I feel it’s time to either use it or let someone else enjoy it. So I was looking at fabric I’ve stored in the garage. One of the boxes contained some of mom’s fabric I’ve held on to. She died in 1972 and I’ve had it for almost that long! Here is the box.
In the container are pieces of fabric from clothes she made and also all the ties she made for Dad just before they went on their trip to Hawaii. She made him ties to match all of her skirts. On a sad note, she died three weeks after they came home. Anyway, I’ve kept them all – just a few things I have left from her. I loved the two pieces of eyelet but put everything back in the box and moved on.
Something I wanted to do once our bathroom renovation was completed was to contact a blinds company and have them come out and measure blinds for several windows, including the new bathroom and the foyer. But since it was going to be awhile I thought I’d put up a couple rods and just make a couple curtains to give us some privacy. I thought about those two pieces of eyelet. They are both white even though the pictures show one is a little off white.
However, there wasn’t enough fabric in either piece to make two curtains, so I pieced them. I couldn’t believe when I made the bathroom one, I just fell in love with it. It really soften all the hard edges, and also gave us privacy while letting some light in. I loved how the second eyelet made a great bottom.
This is the foyer which is just off the bedroom. I wanted to let the sun come in and the way the window is situated no one could see in that high.
And for this job I got to use my brand new Baby Lock Lyric sewing machine!
It was amazing how I felt when I was making these curtains. I felt my mom was there cheering me on. So sweet.
Now I want to make curtains for all of the windows!! Oh, I cancelled my appointment with the Blinds company. Now to look for fabric to use for a couple other windows.
Lynda, I love your curtains, and the fact you were able to repurpose the fabric from what you had of your Mom’s. That’s wonderful! I have been tapping into my mom’s stash for over 26 years now… still have some! Hope you find more ways to use the other fabrics too.
Judy, Thanks!
Loving this post and the sentiment behind it.
Kathleen, Thanks!
I too love eyelet … it isn’t easy to find good quality fabric. So – lucky you that you held onto your Mom’s fabrics for so long. Question – I have heard a lot about Baby Lock machines. I have a Janome which has way more bells and whistles than I need. All I really wanted was a machine with a decent sized throat as I quilt. Though admittedly moving a queen sized quilt around makes my shoulders unhappy. What is it you like/love about your Baby Lock? (if you don’t mind sharing)
Liz, Yes, just being curious I looked for eyelet in the local Joann’s and it wasn’t nice at all – real cheap looking. I got the Babylock Lyric. It does NOT have a large throat. I bought it because my old Elna is having issues and my other machine is straight stitch only and I wanted some fancy stitches. So not recommended for big quilt. However, my Juki TL2200QVP is a nice machine to quilt although only straight stitch and a lot of people like it for quilting but the throat is not that big. There was another BabyLock that had some stitches and had a large throat called Allegro that I had really looked at but this machine was a step up and on sale. I don’t make large quilts so it served my purpose. But you might check out the Allegro. I do love the support with Babylock when you buy locally. I can bring it in any time for a lesson, which just sitting with her for an hour I learned so much. And they will do the first year check up free. But it’s a little more expensive than buying online.