You know how I love reusing stuff, recently I recycled a beautiful white lace cloth & some lace trim, to make some cute privacy drapes for our bedroom.

We love the huge windows in our bedroom with a view of the ocean & distant mainland mountains. It’s great to have the drapes open, but it sometimes feels like we are on show, as we are on quite a busy street.

I dug out a small old white lace tablecloth from among my treasures, which I’d inherited from Mom. White seemed a bit stark against the beige walls & blue-beige cover so I decided to dye it with tea to better blend in.     I made tea with about 6 tea bags & steeped it for a while in a pot, then I added more hot water just enough to cover the cloth in a bowl, and soaked it for about an hour. After a few rinses, a tumble in the dryer & a smooth with the iron, it looked more like a vintage piece.

As the lace cotton cloth was a perfect square I folded it & cut it in half, knowing already that the halves would fit across each window perfectly. Then I turned over a 1/2 inch of the cut edge of each piece a couple of times, pinned it carefully in place & sewed the seams on my machine with matching thread, to finish them so they wouldn’t fray.

Next step was to cut the woven lace trim into 2 pieces that would perfectly fit across each window, leaving enough material to fold over & finish the ends of the trim where it had been cut. I was left with 2 wide pieces of woven lace trim with neatly finished ends. I folded it in half lengthwise over the cut & sewn edge of the cotton cloth, so that the lace would form a tube through which to thread the curtain rod. After checking that each finished drape would be long enough to fully cover the windows, I adjusted the length, then carefully pinned & sewed the final seams.

Now I have beautiful privacy drapes to cover the bottom of our large bedroom windows, so that no-one can see in from below, and we can still enjoy the gorgeous views. We are so lucky to live in such a beautiful part of the world with so many unspoilt wild areas so close to us. I feel very strongly that we need to keep it this way, by reusing instead of throwing things away, buying locally as much as possible, conserving our precious water and investing in renewable resources as much as possible.

Loving the view over the new lace privacy drapes…..