Window dressing

Sew a set of soft feminine drapes for your bedroom, trimmed with lace and crochet and decorated with fabric corsages and a pretty textured border.

Size 250cm length and 125cm width

You will need
For each drop
• 125 x 255cm white soft tulle
• 150 x 30cm cream loose-weave textured fabric for border
• 5 x 250cm strip of white lace
• 130cm white braid 12mm wide
• 250cm white tape
• remnants of grey and white soft cotton for corsages
• remnants of grey and white netting for the back of corsages
• matching coloured sewing thread
• 1 x 50g ball of 100% cotton DK in white
• 4mm crochet hook

Choose a good-quality fine tulle fabric that is soft and will drape well. Avoid synthetic tulle or netting fabrics as they are too stiff and will not drape. If you are unable to find it in the soft furnishing section of the store, try the bridal section as this fabric is often used for wedding veils. The corsages can be made from remnants of soft cotton of your choice.

To make NOTE The side edges of the curtain and the lower edge are not hemmed; the lace strip and crochet border along the side edges will stop the fabric from fraying and the textured border stitched along the lower edge will reinforce the lower hem.

1 Fold a narrow hem along the top edge of the curtain and press. Cut five strips from the white tape each 50cm long and fold in half. Press the fold. Turn the curtain over to the wrong side and attach a tie along the fold line to the hem of the curtain at each side edge. Sew the three remaining ties along the top edge of the curtain hem making sure they are evenly spaced apart.

2 Turn the curtain over to the right side and sew the white braid on top of the front hem along both sides of the braid, folding in the raw ends when stitching to ensure a neat finish. This braid will act as the header on the curtain.

3 Cut a strip of the loose-weave textured fabric to fit the lower edge of the curtain and sew it in place along all four edges. It may be necessary to change the stitch length on your sewing machine to the longest stitch so it does not pull against the weave of the tulle.

4 Fold the lace strip in half length- ways and press. Open the strip and, using the fold line as a guide, sew it in place down one side edge. The curtain has been designed with the lace as the inner edge of the curtain and the crochet border as the outer edge.

To decorate NOTE The decorations form the lower half of the curtain.

1 From the same textured fabric as you used for the bottom border, cut four rectangular patches and sew them at random intervals onto the curtain.

2 Tear strips of soft grey cotton approximately 5cm wide. along the lower edge of each strip, hand sew a row of gathering stitches. Use a matching coloured sewing thread for these stitches. Gently pull in the gathering stitches of each petal to form the centre of the flower. NOTE The petals are not worked tightly and must form a loose flower. Hand sew the flower along the lower edge as you work to keep the petals in place. When one strip is completed, attach the next strip in the same way until a flower approximately 7cm in diameter has been worked.

3 Cut a circle from the grey netting, slightly larger than the flower, and attach it to the back of the flower. This creates texture for the flower base. Complete all the grey flowers in the same way. You will need approximately 20 flowers per drop.

4 Now attach the flowers at random to the curtain by sewing the grey netting to the tulle and border with neat hand stitches.

5 In the same way, make the white cotton flowers but this time tear the strips 8 cm wide and make the flower so that when completed it is approximately 15cm in diameter. Cut a circular piece of white netting to fit the back of the flower and stitch it in place as before. Carefully sew the larger flowers to the curtain. These will be heavier than the smaller flowers and will require more stitches to hold them in place. You will need to make two or three of these large flowers per curtain.

6 When all the decorations are complete, turn the curtain over to the wrong side and carefully snip away any loose ends of the sewing thread.

Measure the edge of the curtain where the crochet trim goes. Crochet a chain to this length using double knit yarn and a 4mm crochet hook.

Row 1: ch 2, dc into 3rd ch from hook, dc in each ch to end, turn.

Row2: * ch 3, skip 1dc , dc in next dc*,rep to end (if left with 1 dc, rep * to * without skipping 1 dc), ch 1, turn.

Row 3: ss into 3ch-sp, * ch 3, dc into next 3ch-sp *, rep to end, ch 1, turn.

Row 4: ss into 3ch-sp, * ch 11, ss into 5th ch from hook, ch 6, ss into same sp as before, ch 5, ss into same sp as before, ch 6, dc into same 3ch-sp as before, [ch 4, dc into next 3ch-sp] 5 times*,rep*to*to end.

NOTE If the last repetition cannot be completed, simply finish off by ss into last 3ch-sp.