by Surene Esterhuizen
It has been a while now that I am busy sorting things out and trying to complete WIPs that had been hidden in the closets for a few years now. (I have mentioned before that I get bored quickly, didn’t I?) One of the items, although not hidden, was my burnt orange curtains I bought December 2017 – just after I covered my old navy lounge suite with chocolate brown fabric. The curtains hung, but it was normal curtain tapes with hooks and rings and I didn’t like the way it draped and decided that I want to change the top of the curtain to hang on eyelet rings. They (whoever “they” are) said it will be easy and quick!
Well, finally a week ago, I decided to go and buy everything I needed. It was not that easy, rather it was a hunting trip as I could not find it all. Good old faithful Facebook was the solution and I asked the question and got a tip to go to Fabric Centre, Somerset West.
Sunday morning, I took the trip and came home very excited as I will be finishing the curtains on Monday. On Sunday I started with taking the old tape off two curtains and pin the new eyelet tape onto it. Monday morning at 8am everything was ready and I started sewing.
The next step was to cut the holes for the rings.
Then I was ready to insert the rings. I struggled for hours and hours, my hands were hurting, my nail polish didn’t survive the ordeal and by 3pm on Monday, I only managed to put 8 rings onto the first curtain and my hands was aching.
I was very disappointed that I couldn’t finish the curtains. Then I decided to stitch the eyelet tape onto the second curtain, just to get ahead.
Tuesday morning, I started phoning all the fabric stores close to me to find out if any of them makes curtains and if they have the eyelet punch. My need now was someone with the eyelet punch to punch the rings onto the curtains for me. Finally, I got hold of Desiree at Textile City in Northumerland Street, Bellville and she is eager to assist. I jumped into my car to get there before the shop closes for the day. She didn’t have a punch and I was disappointed that she was going to do it by hand and that takes long and my curtains is never going to hang by the end of the last day of 2019.
Desiree is a real friendly lady, and says it is really very easy … and quickly she shows me the technique and there we do a whole curtain’s eyelet rings in less than 15 minutes. They were right … it was easy!! 😊
I am super chuffed … I got home and finished the last three curtains and they are all hanging beautifully on the rings and after yesterday’s almost 7 hours of struggle, I finished all four curtains in a record time!
Now I can start 2020 with my curtains hanging beautifully just as I wanted it right from the start!
May your 2020 be the best year ever!