Mum's new window treatments

Well, I should say Mum and Papa's new window treatments since she chose the fabric, and he invested in it. When their former living room window treatments were irreparably and unevenly bleached by the sun, they decided to let me make them some new curtains.

I was thrilled. After all, I love to design and sew curtains, and as usual, I had a dozen ideas for how their new curtains should look. I tried and hopelessly failed at coming up with a good way of combining them all into a complex master plan, and settled for something much simpler. It is a perfect compromise between my mom's lovely sense of elegant simplicity and desire for everything to be as efficient and easy as possible and my sense of making everything into an intricate piece of art. (Would you say that's accurate, Mum?)

The sheers are are a lovely, oh, so subtle plaid, which was a joy to work with. They help cut down the blinding afternoon glare. (Even with the help of the sheers, the glare made it almost impossible for me to get good photos).

The tab-top valance is made of exquisite damask fabric. The flower and leaf designs were all so pretty that I carefully cut the fabric into squares and rectangles that would showcase each of the designs and pieced them together in a string of perfect, carefully random prints (that's my artsy side coming out). There were, however, no loop-de-loops or buttons or ties (that's my mom's simple elegance influence coming out).

The whole? Well, I think it's classy and elegant and ties all the elements of their living room together. There's another window with the same style of curtains, but the above-mentioned glare made photos too impossible.

The sheers can be tied back on cloudy days to let in more light with simple ties made from the same material as the valances.