Doug & Diane's Dining & Sitting Room Valances

Hello!
     It has been a while since I posted.  I have been pretty busy with lessons, halloween preparation, a kitchen redo and just life in general. :)
    I have also been working on valances for  Doug & Diane.  This time I was working on their dining room and  joining sitting room.   I have now done  the windows in 5 rooms on their house :)  They are so fun and so sweet, I love going to visit them!
   For the SR and DR they wanted valances.  We chose  the Catherine valance from Pate Meadows Patterns.  I love the updated swag and jabots of this pattern.   It is classic and tailored but still has a modern quality to it.

      Diane wanted a fabric that  evoked Williamsburg.  Doug didn't want anything that be  considered country.    They both  wanted color POP!  We have used red in each room of the house and so I made sure the Fabrics that I looked at  had dominant reds in them .
           When I saw this fabric I knew it was the one.  I still had some other for them to choose from but this one is just perfect. I love the large bold flowers and the blue vines.

     For finishing  the edges, Doug didn't want anything with an tassels or funny business on it.  I did still  take a couple of trims to show them ,  even though I knew he wasn't going to go for it, because I had to try! I have seen versions of this valance that had a tassel trim on the bottom edge and they were gorgeous.   He picked a  beautiful  red twist cording  from the trims I had brought  to choose from.
    The contrast fabric on the inside of the jabots and the horns  is a smooth creamy satin. It matches the walls almost exactly  and peeks out  of the bottom folds of the jabots.

The valance is very straightforward to make.  After making a number of Pate Meadows designs, I have their method of construction down pat.  The sewing part of the valance did not take  too long, however the altering of the pattern and cutting it all out took fooooorrrreeevvveeeer.
    The swag valance pattern piece unaltered is about 40-42ish inches long.  The fabric repeat of the large flower was 36 inches. I had take the inches out of the pattern piece so that I could allot 1 yard for each swag. The altering took a while because I had to evenly distribute what I took out. That took all my brain cells!   I then had to alter the jabot and horn pattern  piece as well.
Then I had to cut them out. My husband called  when I had the scissors in hand about to make the first cut. I was so relieved for an excuse to stall in cutting!

     Once I cut the first swag,  I used it to cut the other pieces. that way they would all be the same.  Then I cut interlining pieces , lining pieces and contrast pieces. Yes, a lot of cutting! Then I stacked all the pieces up on one end of the dining table  and there they stayed as I worked on them for a month. I couldn't store them in the sewing room as I have had lessons out there and the spare room was full of kitchen cabinet doors  being re-stained.  My husband did eventually ask, hey are these ever going to be done and off the table? :) 

       This pattern is a yardage eater!!!  Each swag is a little over a yard and each jabot is a yard.  I had to cut out of the center of the fabric, making it impossible to salvage any  leftover fabric to use for anything else.  It hurt me  a little to throw the cuttings away. This fabric is gorgeous!

This is the dining room valance. It is 88 inches long, 

The dining room before .

       I love the red cording on the edges of the valance. It frames it gorgeously. I will confess, It is not one of my favorite things to sew. It is just thicker and therefore isn't super flexible or co-operative.   Most of the edges in this valance are pretty straight so it wasn't too bad.
I bought out most of the red twist cord in Hampton Roads because I needed large continuous pieces.  I had to go to a couple of stores and buy all they had. And then  wait till they got new  stock in to get more :).

 For the side jabots, the pattern has you make wooden pieces that attach onto the wall  under the rod bracket and then the  jabot return attaches to the wood.  I made the wood pieces but ended up not using them. 

I hooked a ring onto the bracket and attached the return of the jabot to that. I liked it better than  the wood. 

Dining room 

 The rods are solid wood and  lovely. I wanted to use wood rods as   Doug & Diane have lots of gorgeous wood pieces in these room.  The wood rod  ties it all together.

The sitting room  

The sitting room before. 

The Fabric:
The  red and blue is from Artee's in Virginia Beach. I used to love going there but they are under new management and I have to say, the guy running it now has kinda turned me off to the store.  I was confused by the lack of customer service and put off the the holier than thou  attitude of the manager. He was really rude to me directly  and I find that I do not want to repeat the experience. It is a shame, I used to really love going there.
The contrast cream satin  on the inside of the jabots and horns is from good ole Blaneys in Norfolk.  They have been there since the dawn of time and will probably be there till the end of time because hey have good customer service.  I have used this satin often as it is a dream to work with and comes in lots of yummy colors.
The linings are  flannel  interlining and roclon rain no stain ivory cotton.


The hardware:
is from Lowe's.  In the window treatment  hardware aisle, in the first section is a collection of Allan & Roth mix and match wood rods and finials. They are great quality and a  great price for decorator rods.

The pattern is:
Catherine valance from Pate Meadows Patterns.  All Pate meadows patterns are awesome.