Hello, hello! How goes it? ‘Shubho Mahalaya’ to all of you reading me here and a bit of fall decor and drapes made from an old saree (yup, that’s right) is what we are going to be talking in here this evening! It’s actually 10:48 at night and I am sipping my chamomile and blogging: a few of my favorite things to do.
God knows I have been meaning to blog for a while now. But can I tell you, everyday is a broomstick day with so damn much to do. Like Marco Pierre White would tell ya,”Time’s not your friend”. I just wake up and kaboom, the day’s gone. What a struggle it is, these weekdays. I am so time starved, leisure starved-oh I want to say this again, I am so time starved- that I can barely get around to blog. But I guess it’s good to keep everything aside once in a while and do what you love to do. Everything else can wait!
This is my favorite corner of the house! I drink tea here, I work here, I laze here: This is where I spend 75% of the day. I also let people I like sit in this corner but only people I like. People I don’t like, I strategically place myself there like a concrete so they can’t sit in here. Does that make me mean? Can a girl have no place of her own? Melodrama aside, the pretty orange drapes you see here was once in her life a saree. As I hear, she was not so beautiful a saree- she had an ugly shine, felt like resin and kept inside my mom-in-law’s bed forever now- and, so we decided to turn her into a plush drape for the wannabe beach house. I am loving the autumn glow its throwing over my room. She is so much better as a drape than a saree.
I am totally loving this pop of color in this white space. To go with tangerine/orange I got the money plant indoors in a refurbished sweets-basket which was crying for help in an empty flat which we wanted to rent. Yes, you should surely talk about my disgusting behaviour of trash picking ๐ Paired the little corner seat with a black and white stripey to bring out the orange a bit more. But who doesn’t know how to foof properly! All this is a little boring. What’s not boring is where I got the idea from!
You’ll laugh. As it happens that a friend is getting married in December and me and mumma were figuring out what to wear. She came up with this brilliant idea of turning her old sarees into salwar suits: An idea I quite liked. We digged stuff in her storage an entire evening and selected this particular saree to turn into a gorgeous suit. The sis in law and I also spoke of a Pakistani design and this and that and oh my, I was almost wearing it in my dreams. That evening when I came home and told my husband of our plans, he saw the saree and said, “Dude, this looks like a curtain. Are you serious about wearing this? You’ll look hideous.” This boy I tell you has not a thread of sugar in his words. You just get as is.
Heart-broken, I stashed it away in my storage. 2 weeks later I was craving to turning it into curtains. I just had to have some fall elements and a bit of Indianness to go with this white wannabe beach house for Durga Puja and Diwali and nothing but that saree would do. I was a little worried mum won’t like it. When I asked if I could chop, chop, no one really cared. Clearly, no one wanted to wear this saree ๐ Haha, so yeah…boys are not completely useless with regards to home decor. Don’t always toss their words away.
How to make 2 minute drapes from old sarees
It’s fairly simple. Measure your window length. Measure the diameter of your curtain rod. The diameter of your curtain rod+ 4″ is the amount of length you need to keep while sewing/gluing the hem. If you don’t leave that extra inch, it’ll be too tight and you wont be able to move it.
I did a 1″ hem and then the final fold. I did a 1″ hem at the bottom to stop it from laddering. This I guess is given. And yeah! That’s all I really did.
I am also very proud of this wee cushion covers I made from the left over saree.
How to make 2 minute cushion covers from your old saree
Take a length of fabric that covers the cushion one full round and one half.
Fold the fabric and sew/ glue at a length where you think the cushion will comfortably fit in.
You’ll end up with a cushion cover and a flap. Glue velcro along the edges ofย the seam, on the inner side of the flap. Bring it down to where it touches the main cushion. Sew/glue velcro so the flap fits. Here’s a sketch i put together for the drapes and the cushions:
Its so easy even the mental one would get it! Imean if I can get it right, you definitely can. If you can sew, nothing like it. If you can’t sew, there’s fabric glue. I used glue and its rocking my boat.
Here’s a quick glance at the fabric of the drape before I end:
Would love to hear how you like it!
P.S: The DIY bit was originally done for Asianpaints where I blog ๐ You can check my decor pieces up here
Must sleep XO