curtain call

Sometimes my decorating philosophy tends to be if at first you don't succeed, try try again. A few months ago I made two blue curtain panels for our dining room balcony doors. I envisioned flow-y pale blue curtains and somehow that wasn't quite what we ended up with:

The two panels, left something to be desired in the middle and reminded me of a stage. I could have easily and quickly remedied the problem by making two more panels for the middle of the doors. (We actually simulated this solution for awhile by framing one of the doors with both panels to see if we liked it.)

Something still wasn't quite right with the blue... Fast forward a couple months, when I finally decided to do something about it.
My neutral-loving self won out over my let's-add-some-color self, so during spring break I made four new panels, for the cost of $5 a panel. These cheap-cheap curtains were actually made out of canvas drop clothes from Home Depot. The color and weight for the drop clothes were exactly what I wanted and the cost of material was unbeatable.

I used two drop clothes @ $10 a piece for a grand total of $20 for four new panels. I cut each drop cloth in half longways and then trimmed the end to my desired length.  Naturally, Lucy was marking the place where I needed to make my cuts- what a helpful dog!

Fortunately for me, drop clothes are hemmed, so I only ended up hemming two sides of each panel (where I made my cuts). I used the tried-and-true hem tape method to finish them up.
I love the new look so much more than the old blue curtains.  Plus the canvas is much heavier than the original blue fabric, which means they actually do block out light, if need be.

I have a plan to make the curtains a little more interesting (while keeping them neutral) with a slight modification, but I have decided to live with them "as is" for a couple of weeks. I'll see if I actually want to change them at all. We shall see, we shall see...