Curtain Call

Today I knocked one more thing off the great to-do list.  That’s the wonderful thing about blogging… it keeps me accountable.  I’m sure you were all sitting by out there waiting for my follow-up post about the Great Shower Curtain Hunt of 2010.  Without that thought, I’m sure the plastic liner would have stayed crumpled up in the shower for a few more weeks while I procrastinated on finishing the shower curtain for the guest bath.  After the makeover in there, we all knew it was time to retire the patchwork shower curtain that I made in college.  You may remember it… 

(I gave it to my Mama to use in her guest bathroom.  It’s pretty cute there, I must admit.)

Well, after two failed attempts to purchase a new shower curtain (one was too green, one shrunk when I washed it… puh!) and three failed attempts to buy fabric to make one (fabric too expensive and too narrow) I finally found something online that I could work with.  Not before I wasted four more dollars on a sample from Fabric.com (too blue).  The winning option came from here.  Although, unless you feel like a sewing project, I wouldn’t recommend you rush right over there and buy one.  That’s because when I washed this one (according to the package directions) it, too, shrunk about 6 inches in length!  What is with these things?  And why do they only shrink in length? 

How high’s the water, Papa?

Obviously, I couldn’t just leave it like that.  So, that brings me to the “custom” bit of the project.  I decided to add a contrasting fabric to the hem to lengthen the curtain to normal size again.  And once again, my local fabric store failed me.  I had a lovely piece of fabric picked out, even had a swatch leftover from another project.  Off I went, armed with swatch, to the fabric store.  Then I spent ten minutes wandering around holding my swatch up to various look-a-likes, only to find that they didn’t have any of the original fabric in stock.  Of. Course.  So I settled (like always) for the next best thing.  A brighter version of my dusty teal blue swatch. 

Home I came, to preshrink it.  (Come on, people!)  Then I simply cut off a few extra inches from the curtain (saving the butterflies for appliqués on another project) and sewed on a 12” strip of my contrasting fabric.  Voila!

I promise that dark blue color is in the print on the shower curtain.  It’s just very hard to tell. :)  With my curtain finished, I was left with a few scraps of fabric with printed butterflies.  I carefully cut out the butterflies, then sized them down to appliqué onto my new guest towels!  I just ironed a bit of fusible webbing on the back then ironed them on the towels and satin stitched to secure.  No antenna, though… you think they’ll miss those?

       

Cute.  Can you tell I have a thing for butterflies? 

Just don’t tell Michael, because he hasn’t noticed the infestation yet. ;)

Even though this shower curtain purchase was a long shot, and even though the green color I was hoping to match to my wall color isn’t even in the print, I love the colors in here.  The dark purplish brown looks so nice with the dark mahogany stained vanity (which has a lot of red undertones).  And while I didn’t plan to use teal or blue, it was a happy accident how it all worked out.  I’m even kind of glad that this one shrunk because it gave me the opportunity to customize it.  And I got some matching towels out of it, too.  Score. 

So serene… and so nice to finally have a room finished!  For now. :)

Now I’m just waiting for guests to come use my new towels! And the super clean shower!

;)