Whilst revamping my website I've been reminded of some of the wonderful jobs I've done since starting back in 2013. In 2015 Sarah Hardaker approached me to make some curtains for a beautiful Cotswold home overlooking Rodborough Common, I obviously jumped at the chance of creating something out of Sarah's gorgeous designs.
This was no mean feat as the house was of very generous proportions which made me feel like a borrower, but with such stunning views it would have been a crime to put tiny windows here!
Cameron Fuller supplied a beautiful reeded oak pole, measuring almost 6m in length. A 63mm diameter was required to take the weight of these interlined and puddled curtains. The drop was just shy of 3m which made the materials list 31m of fabric, 31m of interlining and 31m of lining. Sarah is incredibly clever and helpful though so printed the fabric in the required drops so there was no fabric wastage due to the pattern repeat...which also made my life much easier when cutting the fabric, thank you Sarah!
Once the fabric had arrived in the workshop, I cut all the drops out, 10 drops of each material. Each curtain required 5 drops, which as we started joining together grew larger and heavier, I imagine it was on par with making a very heavy parachute as we were drowning in fabric and rummaging for seams! Most of the projects I make fit on to my table however this was an exception. It is always much easier to lay everything flat and build the layers up to stitch; in order to do this I hired my local Village Hall and spent the next fews days crawling around on toddler mats until I could pin the pleats in place. At this stage we lugged the curtains back to the workroom to stitch the pleats in, it was now all taking shape, phew!
On this occasion we waited til we were on site to dress the curtains as they were just to large and heavy for the workroom. I roped in my number one workshop fairy (aka Mum!) to help fit these as there was no way I'd have hung these on my own. Long story short we were in tears of laughter throughout as they were just so heavy and we couldn't navigate the hooks in to the rings which just made us helplessly hysterical! (The client was not home at the time, that would have been terribly unprofessional!)
We got there in the end though and they looked fabulous, and most importantly the client was thrilled with the result.
Fabric: Sarah Hardaker, Chinoiserie, Pink and Nautral http://www.sarahhardaker.co.uk/chinoiserie
Pole: Cameron Fuller https://www.cameronfuller.co.uk/index.html
