porchswings n' honeysuckle: Drop Cloth Curtains

Hello everyone! I know I haven’t been posting regularly this winter and I apologize for that. I’ve been caught up in getting my Etsy shop up and running, spring cleaning, and just the usual every day tasks that never cease.

Some of you have messaged me wondering whether all is okay and I assure you it is! I find that I have less furniture makeovers going on during the winter since I do a lot of my painting on the outside. So hopefully once the weather breaks I will have more makeovers to post about!

Yesterday I had a lot of fun making new curtains for the dining area. Last winter I had made burlap valances for these windows and I still remember how much time and muscle I put into them! You can read all about it here.

I still like the look of the burlap feed sack curtains but felt they were a bit too rustic for the rest of the kitchen/dining room. My favorite décor and about all I pin is farmhouse style décor. I am sure if you follow me on Pinterest you probably know that, but seriously there’s nothing as inviting and down home as this style! I love neutral combinations of whites, grays and natural wood. I also have dreams of adding shiplap walls to our home someday, giving it that fixer upper look. :)

So yesterday I set all Etsy and spring cleaning things aside and focused on getting some spring décor up, which I will share with you later on. But for now, we will focus on these very simple, inexpensive valances that I made.

First let me ramble a bit on my newly discovered fabric that I’m sure I’ll be using a lot in the future.. drop cloth canvas..

After doing a little research online on how to work with this fabric, I decided to bleach it to a lighter color first. I filled our laundry room tub / sink about half full with cold water and added around five cups of bleach. I then soaked the canvas for three hours, making sure it was all covered with bleach water. (I set soap jugs and other heavy things on the fabric to get it to stay down)

After the three hours were up, I washed it in the washer at a regular cycle, with the usual laundry detergent, and dried it at a normal setting.

I fell in love with this suddenly soft, light, lineny fabric that smelled so good! Before, it was very stiff and too tan for my liking.

You may not be able to tell by the picture but here it is after it was bleached..

After hemming the valances, they were ready to hang. I basically just made rectangles, without even making a pocket for the rod. The fabric hangs so nicely, there was no need for one.