Curtain attempt

Now that most of the interior decoration is done (I just have five more Adam ceilings to make, but there is no rush), I can start adding small objects.  I have three shoe boxes of objects from the old house: toys, vases, ornaments, paintings, mirrors, flowers, rugs, books. Plus all small things that I have bought or found in the past year, waiting to find their place. In  principle, I want everything to be movable, and I also want to see how things look before fixing them permanently. However, if you white-tack paintings they will start falling down soon, and the wallpaper will be damaged. And so on.

Anyway, today I made curtains. My issue with curtains is this:

 

This does not look natural, and I have always wondered why even professional dollhouse makers, like here (V&A Museum of Childhood, London), don't see how unnatural it looks.

I have read about making curtains with corrugated cardboard, and I have been saving some for this purpose.

Here is my point of departure:

 

Corrugated cardboard, a 30p silk scarf from a charity shop, lace, ribbon, a piece of L-shaped moulding, grill sticks. Patience.

As it turned out, the glue I used was wrong so I had to start over again and got distracted by another scarf, but to begin with, I glued lace onto the moulding:

This assembly is with different lace, which was originally a curtain that came with some joblot, but it wasn't neat. I had to cut it to suit my purpose.

 

Then, using a more appropriate glue, I glued the fabric onto corrugated cardboard and pressed in with grill sticks. I am sure there is an easier and smarter way of doing it, but this is how I did it.

 

After a while, when it had dried, it looked like this:

 

And this is what I wanted it to look like, since I was all the time consulting a picture I got from the net, but it just showed the result, not the process.

Next, I had to glue fabric on the other side of the cardboard piece because otherwise cardboard would be what you see through the window. The picture from the net withheld this information, but I figured it out myself. It also gave a neat side of the curtain.

 

Now the right-hand curtain is glued onto the lace assembly.

 

Repeat. 

 

Now the pelmet. I did try to make a wavy one, by stitching in two places in the middle, but this particular fabric didn't look good. So I had to go halfway.

And finally tassels. That's what often make miniature curtains look unnatural. Don't tie tassels too tight. I am not quite sure that this ribbon is right, but I can change it later.

 

I think that for the very first complicated curtain ever I've done well.

It is not attached permanently yet so I can trim everything that needs trimming. (As you see, the white-tacked paintings are falling off). It also strikes me that this curtain is perhaps too yellow for the room so I may move it elsewhere. But here is what it looks like through the window:

With trial and error, it took me four hours to make this curtain. It was a good way of spending Christmas Eve.