Bed curtain out of old duvet cover

I have only something "small" to show to you this time. Last week I made a belt and this is another week that I show to you only "something small". The reason is that I have been making something secretive that I can only put here after next week. So for now to that something small - or is it actually?

Our kids share a room at the moment and they both have loft beds. There is no point in having separate rooms now that they are this young, the company of the other gives a feeling of security. But who wouldn't want to have some privacy every now and then? Daughter is preschooler now and wants to be alone every now and then. Also to calm down the bed time I thought that some kind of curtains would be good.

Then I had an idea, then another one, then I asked my kids and had to change all the plans. Then I was looking for a fabric that would suit, found something else and changed everything again. Eventually I had one ready.

First idea was to make a bed curtain out of nice fabric, or maybe just buy curtains, especially when I calculated how much the fabric would cost. It is insane really, you can buy curtains and bed sheets for cheaper than just fabric!

Then I asked what the kids would like and the ideas were so interestingly weird that I decided not to follow them as they were. But that gave me an idea, how about if they could design their own curtains? I found a fabric that would almost ask for drawing! I bought fabric pens but only my daughter wanted to draw anything and as drawing into fabric isn't as easy as on the paper this is what she came up with:

On top left curtain there is a sun, like any drawing should have. Under it grass and worm (that long pink line) and inside the circle small pond with another worm, some grass and a carrot. She said that she will draw other vegetables there as it is a vegetable patch but we will see.

So the drawing wasn't fun and also the pens were quite light, some stronger colours would probably have been good. Then they found my scrap fabric box! And after careful planning the result looked like this:

My daughter chose the pictures, my job was to cut them and sew them, all the positions are hers. If you ask her what there is you will probably get a very long tale with fairies, ponies, pandas and hedgehogs somehow connected to the vegetable patch. It isn't quite what I had in mind but it is what she wanted and that's what matters. Also she coloured one piece:

My idea was that this side would be visible to the room but of course she wanted to see her own story from her bed so we had another problem as the backside wasn't that pretty to look at. I searched my fabric storage and couldn't find any. Then I remembered that there was one duvet cover that used to be her favourite before getting bigger duvet and is now too small.

The duvet cover was a bit too small but being duvet cover it had co-ordinating fabric on the other side that I could use. Now I remembered why I don't like sewing curtains. There simply isn't big enough table to lay the fabric flat and no matter how carefully you measure the result is something that is close enough, not precisely. Even if you cut them along straight grain, you never know if the other side is few centimetres longer than the other. And I had two fabrics to be measured and with the duvet cover I had to think how to cut it to make it cover the other fabric.

I knew I had to put it on the floor but how to make it stay still so I could fit the duvet cover on it? I taped it on the floor:

Now it would stay still and it was much easier to measure it and see what would work and what not. I think I will use that again when working with bigger fabrics...

The other side is "mum-friendly" and the other side designed by the kid herself. Both are happy. :)

The curtain is hanging next to her bed with curtain wire, like this (pic not by me):

I have another one on the making for my son but not ready yet, will show it too once it is ready.

Another small thing that I made is this:

Last week we got info from school that the kids would have photo shooting for school pictures on this Monday. Naturally, there is nothing good enough to wear. I say no to all characters in pictures, so no Frozen or My little pony, thank you very much.

I have had this cat fabric for a while now and good I had, I could make a shirt for the photo shooting as it was the only fabric that was big enough to make a shirt! I used most of my fabric storage for the outfits shown in this post and haven't bought any since. I know many dressmakers have room full of fabrics but I only buy when I know what I'm going to make out of it - or if it is really, really cheap and I can think of something I can use it to. Not very good thing with few day notices...

The shirt covered but how about the pants? Not a chance that anything in the closet would do. Remember the pants in How to patch knees post? Yep, they all look like that. And now some of the patches have holes in them, as have both of the new leggings that I just made for her. Or at least they look very worn out. She likes to play on the floor on her knees and that's the result.

I tried to look for matching fabric but that's easier said than done! I looked all my shirts that were in my to be upcycled - box and everything but nothing would match!

Close, but not enough. Luckily we had business to the city anyway so I could buy new pants for her. Why not use some of the jeans from the closet that are practically unused? She doesn't want to wear them. :D Leggings are the only pants she accepts...

Good thing was that once I started making the shirt, it was smooth sailing. I copied the pattern from old shirt, just roughly draw the parts on pattern paper, measured a bit that it made any sense and all the parts fit so well together that I was actually surprised. I like the collar part, something different. In the single photos most that is showing is usually just the collar (they do group pictures too and that's a different thing, that's why I wanted new pants too) anyway. The model is very easy to sew too, the sleeve is something close to raglan forming part of the collar so no fitting the sleeve on the armhole. I think I will make a pattern with the same collar for my son too. The boys' clothing are seriously lacking the details overall and I'm always happy when I can find something new.

Now having arms crossed that she keeps her clothes clean until the photo shooting... She goes to preschool tomorrow with an advice not to be on her knees before the photo shooting. What do you think, will she remember? :D