That Chinese fabric.

One of the things I sought to find in China was some cool fabric to make drapes for two rooms in my house. I wanted silk drapes, on the cheap. At one of the markets we went to I found the perfect fabric for both rooms. After haggling my price, I paid $15 per meter for both sets of fabric.



The first room to experience my gold mine of a find was my guest bedroom. I found the swags you see in the photo at Ross for $2.99 a piece before I left for China, but they did not quiet cover the entire window. So I knew I wanted a coordinating fabric for side panels, when I stumbled across the perfect brown and blue stripe. I added trim on the end, because I did not get enough to go all the way to the floor. (My bad, I didn't measure before I left and eyeballed it, but my good, the color was an exact match.)

Next it was on to my bedroom. A few years ago I made a duvet for my bed with some steely blue fabric I found on clearance, for $2.00 a yard, at a home fabric store. I have to say I was before my time, because I purchased the fabric before the color and style came into vogue. The fabric sat in my sewing room for about a year before I finally tackled the project, and it was about that time that home interior styles were changing. Again when I purchased the fabric I did not measure, I just guessed. I had plenty for my duvet, so I used the remaining fabric for curtains.

The curtains have always bothered me because they did not go all the way to the floor. So while I was in the middle of trying to haggled down my brown and blue fabric, I ran across this stripe that was PERFECT. It has the steely blue of my duvet and curtains, the sage green of my wall and the cream of my carpet. I took the stripe and added it to the bottom of my already existing curtains, and added trim to connect both pieces.

I had enough fabric left to make coordinating European style pillows for my bed. It completely looks custom made, well...because it was!