Kitchen Valences with Grommets

In the throes of closet clean-out and purging during the pandemic isolation I came across a long roll of fabric leftover from when I made drapes for the family room and nearby dining nook. Related posts for the floor length drapes in the family room and the valences in the dining nook are on the following dates respectively 6/28/2018 and 7/30/2018. The fabric remaining on the bolt was 93". So I did a bit of exploratory math. How many short valence panels could I get from this length to span my three windows in the bay area of the kitchen above the sink? To cover the rolled up header of each pulldown sunscreen shade, I needed a finished length of at least 9". I did a quick calculation and initially found that six panels of 54" wide fabric could still give me a width slightly less than twice that of the windows, yielding a curtain to window ratio of ~1.9.

A ratio of 1.9 would be adequately full so as not to look skimpy. Each valence could be 15½" long before subtracting for the 4½" stiffened header, seam allowances, and hem and still exceed my 9" minimum length. But the three windows are not equal sized so the center one would look less full. I could live with that. Maybe I could even eke out a seventh panel so there would be two each on the side windows and three in the center window. More concerning than the fullness, though, was that the 25" long pattern repeat of the fabric would not allow me to have a matching pattern across the breadth of the windows if I cut every 15½" for six panels or every 13 ¼" in the case of seven panels. Then I realized if I cut every 12½", it would be exactly one half a pattern repeat and perhaps I could alternate. The next photo shows the bottom of the panels along the cut line and how they would alternate. I would have four from the top half of the pattern repeat and three from the bottom half of the pattern repeat. Every other hemline would be the same, alternating offsets as shown in four of the seven the panels draped over my railing.

But 12½ " did not leave me enough length for the 4½" header. So I came up with the idea of making the header a facing out of the same weight fabric. I had one yard of a drapery-weight, white and blue line sailboat print. The stiffener is 4", ½" turned over the edge of the stiffener, and ½" goes into the seam allowance with the valence fabric totals 5". I had enough for 7 WOF x 5" =  35". These are the seven strips. They will not show being on the backside, so pattern repeat does not matter at all. I was proud to be using something up and not having to leave the house during the social distancing mandate. My mini-success reminded me of an old poem.

Use it up... Wear it out... Make it do... Or do without.

The extra tools of the trade were the 4" buckram non-woven stiffener for the header and the 56 grommets I would need, 8 for each panel. These were all mail ordered to supplement the stock I already had on hand. I still kept the black rubber setting tool from the last time I made grommeted draperies and valences.

First I sewed the facing onto the drapery fabric with a ½" seam and pressed it away from the drapery fabric. These are the rightmost three panels draped over my railing in the second photo.

I then added the stiffener, butting it right next to the stitching line of that seam. Turning the half inch of the facing over the opposite edge of the stiffener, I set my zig zag stitch at a width of 4.0 and a length of 2.0  and sewed a ½" stitched down the edge securing it in place. No, that second photo is not a microwave or  heart rate monitor; it is the display screen on my Pfaff to remind me of what settings I used.

I folded the facing over behind the valence main fabric and stitched down the middle of three thicknesses to hold it in place, using the longest straight stitch I had. I would remove that line later. After determining I needed to space my grommets 6⅝" apart, I calculated where the middle and those eight centers had to be.

I placed sticky notes at those locations on my tape measure and laid it out on the horizontal center line of the facing. They stuck very well to the tape and good enough to the fabric that I could mark vertical lines on the facing at the grommet locations with a ruler and pencil. The stickiness lasted long enough that I could mark all seven panels, and the yellow squares still clung tenaciously to the vinyl tape measure afterwards.

I then sewed down the facing at each vertical line, again with a very long stitch length, to secure the three layers of fabric, stiffener, and facing so they did not slip relative to each other while I cut out those 56 circles, one by one, with scissors. When I was finished it looked like The Very Hungry Caterpillar had been meandering about on the valences. I just finished two Very Hungry Caterpillar quilts – posts 4/13/2020 and 4/21/2020 – so that munching critter is fresh on my mind.

Grommet installation details are in drapery post for 6/28/2018. While I was sewing the valences and installing the grommets and removing all those temporary stitching lines, my husband repainted the walls from peach to grey; actually the color is Benjamin Moore's Silver Chain which sounds so much more appealing than drab grey. He installed the three rods from Target – which we also had mailed to us, and did not need to leave the house. Instead of alternating the panels, it then occurred to me to put two each from the top half of the pattern repeat on each side and the three from the bottom half of the repeat in the middle window. The discontinuities fell at the corner angles and are not at all noticeable. The kitchen valences are fairly short but their bottom hangs at the same height as the valences in the nook since the kitchen has a drop ceiling. Yay – for once Murphy's Law was defeated!

So now I have removed that long sturdy cardboard tube with a mere 93" of fabric wrapped about it from cluttering up my clothes closet. But this tube is made from a thick durable cardboard and is so strong. It must be useful for something else – rolling a quilt sandwich, keeping a tablecloth wrinkle-free, holding up a blanket like a tent pole for grandchild play. Surely I cannot throw this out. The irony does not escape me.