1/5/12: Sewing a Wall Curtain and Dog Coat Project Update

It's driving me nuts. My dog coats have been on hold because I'm waiting for the final supplies (aka separating zippers in the right length), and they're taking longer to arrive via UPS than I thought. Sigh. Being without the right zipper length seems to be a constant problem for me. I had to go through this in November when I had zipper replacement orders.

Separating zippers cannot be adjusted to the right length as easily as closed end zippers. With a closed end zipper, you can simply whipstitch the zipper teeth closed a 1/2" below your new length measurement and be good to go. A separating zipper, however, has a box and a slide at its end that cannot be removed. 

I have found on YouTube and some zipper supply company websites, a mention of zipper top stops you can add to the zipper tape with the use of pliers. In other words, you can trim the zipper down from the top instead of the bottom. Now that sounds intriguing! But I never got around to ordering these stops and so when it came time to insert separating zippers into the dog coats, I was out of luck. Stupid! Why did I forget to try these out beforehand?

Shouldn't cry over spilled milk so I guess I have to just wait until my order arrives. But I needn't wait with idle hands. I went and cut out all the necessary fabric pieces for the dog coat uniforms, made the piping (yes, I did it myself!), and all the other components. And I also have been busy with other things. 

Like making curtains for my sisters' bedroom. 

Yeah, it's kind of hard for me to stop crafting. :)

So these curtains are actually covering the south wall of the bedroom instead of a window. Which makes it a wall curtain. . . Hmm, I've seen wall curtains on HGTV many a time and never thought I would do one personally! 

The wall is covered by three separate curtain panels that are hung with buttoned tabs:

I got the idea of buttoned tabs from a post I saw on the sew4home website. Since I never made curtains before I learned that the top of the curtain like this is reinforced with something called header tape or buckrum. (To help prevent the curtain from drooping.) How can I express how dazzled I was when I realized I had this? Uh, yeah. I had buckrum from all things. You see, for twelve years or so there has been this roll of white stiff stuff in my sewing room that I hadn't a clue about. But when I saw a picture of buckrum on the internet this stiff stuff went from big question mark to a-ha! 

So here is the backside of the curtain's top edge:

I used a simple white cotton for the facing of the curtain and stitched the buckrum to this using a zigzag. You can see the white stiff stuff here. Oh sorry, I mean buckrum:

Now let's talk hemming. I used a 2" double hem. Wow, that was a long talk. 

And because I used a fabric that had such a narrow width--43" to be precise--I chose to do a rolled hem edge for the sides of panel to make the panels as wide as possible. This fabric falls into the quilting cotton category. Ah, I love you quilting cottons for your selection but OH! why can't you be 60 width just this one time?