Curtains for the little one

A few weeks ago (maybe a month now actually) we moved the little lady into her crib in her room. Our nights are still pretty rough, but they are really no worse than when she was sleeping with us and now we have the added bonus of better sleep when we get it. Anyway, I thought that maybe if we blocked more of the light from outside, it would help her sleep, and so the search for light-blocking curtains began. Do you know how freaking expensive blackout curtains are?!?!? Maybe some would disagree, but I was not prepared to spend $30 per panel for boring, plain curtains. So I checked Joanns and found that insulating blackout lining is only $6/yard and I had a 50% off coupon. Thus it was decided; I was making some curtains.

Of course then followed the dilemma of what fabric to use. We tossed around a lot of ideas and finally decided that if we could find an inexpensive sheet set, that would be the way to go. I looked through many sites sale bedding section and finally found Pottery Barn Teen. They have such cute, colorful things! As luck would have it, they had a beautiful bold floral sheet set on sale. I was able to get 2 twin sets for $22 each which gave me enough fabric not only for the 4 curtain panels, but I still have a flat sheet left over to use as a quilt back! And some pillow cases!


I made them pretty simple, and just did some tabs across the top. I added a strip of solid color at the top and bottom to....I guess ground the large pattern better. They are definitely more girly than I usually go, but I really like them. I made the front a couple inches bigger around and then folded it over to meet the back and then over again and topstitched around. It keeps they laying nice and I didn't have to worry about flipping the lining right side out and trying to get it to behave.



They are not perfect, but they work and they look nice. Somehow they consumed the better part of my weekend even though they were a pretty simple project, but they are done and I am so glad to have that one off the to-do list. It was definitely one of those projects that needed to be done but was not on the list of things I really wanted to be working on. So there you have it, much cheaper and cuter than what I could have bought and so far the darkness seems to be helping with sleep.


And now, I'm off to play in the mountains of snow (or, ya know, large piles) that got dumped upon us last night and then curl up in a blanket with some hot chocolate. Amazingly enough, it is our first big snow storm in a long time, state of emergency and all. We'll see how the little one feels about snow :)