project Archives

Upcycling scrap fabric for closet portière

Apr 21, 2020 | Create, Sustainable Living

Now that our home office is set up, I wanted to hide all the crap that we moved into our closet. I figured the easiest thing to do was to sew a curtain, but didn’t want to buy new fabric, so I gathered up some scrap fabric from old projects and set out to work.

How I made it

The first step was to choose fabric with colors that sort of matched. For me, most of my projects involve a mix of blue, green, and yellow, so I had lots to choose from.

I measured the width of the closet and multiplied it by 1.5 to give the portière a gathering effect that makes it easier to cover the entire space, and measured the height of the closet plus a few inches for the hanging loop.

Then on the fabric, I cut any funny edges so that each scrap was rectangular, and laid out the scraps on the floor to roughly fit the width of my measurement and added more scrap fabric pieces in areas where the mismatched fabrics didn’t align.

Took each scrap bit by bit and sewed them right sides together with any zig zag stitch–I used the shell tuck stitch–on your sewing machine. It took a little while to get all the pieces sewn up, but once that’s done, you’re almost there! The scrap fabric ‘quilt’ should roughly fit the dimensions of the closet frame.

I left my edges raw, but if you want to have clean edges, fold the edges twice with a half inch seam and sew along the entire curtain.

Next, I folded the top of the nearly completed portière twice and sewed a two inch seam to allow space for the string that would be looped through to hang.

My fiancé screwed two nails inside the closet on either side of the frame, then we looped our string and tied it up real tight.

And voilà–the portière is complete!

It definitely gives me country homemaker vibes, but the color and prints of the fabrics are bold, and overall, does the job of hiding our crap in the closet!

Glad to get finally make use of some scraps I’ve been hoarding for far too long. I hope you enjoyed this badly written tutorial hahah, and have a wonderful day or night, wherever in the world you are!

Photo Journal: I made a duvet cover!

Oct 10, 2018 | Create, Lifestyle

Last weekend, I mustered up all my creative energy and patience and got to work behind my sewing machine to make my own DIY duvet cover. Now if you’re reading this and know where I live, you’re probably wondering to yourself – why the heck would she even have a duvet? Isn’t it disgusting humid in American Samoa most of the year? Welp, yes. BUT if there’s one thing I love more than falling asleep to the sound of this tropical rain, it’s getting all snuggled up under a down feather duvet while it’s absolutely pouring outside. Can you say #hygge? Look it up. Also, I found out the a/c in my room works and it’s changed my life.

SO the past few years I’ve had a naked white duvet. And after many breakfasts in bed, dinner over movie nights, and just general klutziness and spillage, it was time to literally put a sheet over it. I wanted to order a cute minimalistic duvet cover but figured I should change it up, go for a full color/print fabric, and make my own. Ian and I hit Forsgren’s fabric aisle and both agreed on this forest green island-y print cotton fabric.

All in all, I spent a little less than $50 on fabric, and probably something like 6 hours on measuring/cutting/sewing (give or take a couple of hours for in-between breaks haha) since we have a massive cal king-size bed. It was quite an undertaking for me since it’s just such a huge piece, but it was fun and I felt so proud of myself for doing beautiful french seams. Also major props to Ian for keeping me entertained when I needed a break, and I think he cleaned the whole house and like, fixed the car or something, while I did just this!

Anywayyyy- here are photos of me and Office Scruffles taking up the task. Please excuse my sewing outfit and shoes! Comfort for comforters… I’m also writing this at 1am so please bare with me and my sass. Photos by Mr. Ian-credible.