This Old House

I live in a very old house. Knowledgeable folk suggest it dates from about 1720. This old house has very old doors, and these old doors create some mighty drafts.

As the purpose of this blog is to help me remember what I spend my caged minutes on, I would like to wax lyrical about door curtains. Since I got my sewing machine 2 years ago, I have managed to make 5 door curtains to help keep the house snug and warm in the winter. It's a very ordinary pass time, but one with practical purpose and benefits that I see and feel every day, so I feel I should be justifiably proud of these door curtains.

Most of the door curtains are made from old window curtains. Inevitably they are too short, so I have to join them, which I do with a kind of decorative pleat. It is a big heavy job, especially as I line some with a second layer of curtain material, and in one case an old wool blanket. Here is my favourite fabric that I have used for a door curtain. I estimate it takes 3 hours from start to finish to make a door curtain, so in all that accounts for 900 caged minutes spent on this little enterprise.

I couldn't finish without a poem about curtains... (this blog is also rekindling my love of poetry). This is by William Cowper:

Now stir the fire, and close the shutters fast,
Let fall the curtains, wheel the sofa round,
And, while the bubbling and loud-hissing urn
Throws up a steamy column, and the cups,
That cheer but not inebriate, wait on each,
So let us welcome peaceful ev'ning in.