Funnily enough, I just ordered and received short blackout curtains for my short bedroom window. We have a high window that faces the back yard, and they’ve built houses behind us this past year. And added street lights. They’re so annoying to me at 3 am when I’ve slept just enough that my body thinks it could survive the day with that amount of sleep, but I need 2-3 more hours to really be at my best in a classroom of young children. So the curtains are here and I need to iron the packaging wrinkles out before I hang them.
I ordered blue ones. What could be the deeper meaning? My bedspread has blue stripes, but if eyes are the windows to the soul and I have blue eyes, does my color choice relate to that?
My favorite curtains were choices inspired by the book Joyful by Ingrid Fetell Lee. I got the sheers with polka dots, all in white. They do look happy!
I’m hoping my inside cat is grown enough that she will not climb the new curtains. Window coverings really changed because of her!!
That is so funny! I hope your cat is older and or forgets how to climb curtains. Mine is 2 years old and she will still climb to the top and she balance on the rod and almost falls a few times before she leaps on to the safety of the bed. All this in aid of keeping me from going to bed!
I’m laughing about the blue. I hope the blackout curtains do the trip and help you find those extra hours of sleep! I haven’t read that book…. But embossed dots is what I think I’ll end up with if I ever give in and replace these. Great minds :)
Love these kinds of synchronicities! I'm another one who often awakens earlier than I wish and curses the light pollution in my backyard (a neighbor with an out of control and, frankly, unwarranted security light). But I so adore the moon and early light of day that blackout curtains have not seemed like the right solution for me. It would require a major overhaul, because when we settled into this house, we chose 1" blinds rather than curtains for most of the windows. They've worked well, and our cats, sadly now gone, could not climb them! I hope everything works out for you and yours. Thank you for your work as a teacher!
Totally thought about Sidewalk Oracles with this. It really was a strange moment. I think there were a few this weekend. I’m glad the patterns idea had some resonance for you. Thanks, Lauren!
The curtains in my bedroom are green velvet. They let just the right amount of light through and in the mornings I watch the shadows of the leaves of the sycamore tree dance in the wind. They are very old and have several holes. I can't replace them though as I want the exact same shade of green and the same not quite black out effect. The new ones are all very harsh colours and either total black out or let too much light in. I guess I will have to live with holey curtains.
I imagine they are beautiful and soft. I think a few holes here and there never hurt anyone, and I can totally understand the challenge (or impossibility) of finding the “right” replacement. Thank you for commenting.
Reading about the curtains really brought me back to my great-grandmother's house. I remember laying in her bedroom watching the curtains blow in the wind during nap time and feeling extremely at peace ❤️
Good morning Amy! Interesting subject. You make any topic interesting! Thank you!
I bought a black out blind for my bedroom. It was from IKEA. The cat has pierced the shade in several spots as she climbs the white textured drapes ( also cheap from IKEA and floor to ceiling) to reach the top. My living room has no drapes or blinds. I wanted all window and the sliding door visible. Living in an apartment there is only light on one side and I am on the shady side of the building with the forest behind. No one can see in. The only other windows are in the small 2nd bedroom. I bought $5 accordion paper blinds and the same floor to ceiling linen look textured white drapes from IKEA to frame the windows. I did get several “mosquito net “curtain panels (sheers) from IKEA to use at my daughters’ weddings to wrap an arbor. I briefly had them over my living room windows and they looked gorgeous and romantic blowing in the breeze. The old cats ignored them. These would be in tatters with my young cat. They are in a trunk now.
Bylaws state all window covering must be white in our building! We have 158 units.
Yesterday I went to view a newer apartment in a posh high rise with my friend. She wants to downsize from a townhouse with many stairs. With global warming these towers are like an oven in the summer heat. They had powered blinds you could even open and shut from your phone! No drapes…just these crisp very wide minimalist blinds. I was in awe. This place was 965 sqaure feet for $825 K. And no ocean view but massive windows!
I remember doing a project drawing patterns from my place. Being a small space I limit pattern to the area rugs and a few pillows. I love my Chinese blue and white plant pots patterns. I have drawn them often.
Suki cat really has changed everything :) — I am enjoying envisioning the powered blinds you can control from your phone. lol. I think of the photos you share as always bright and vibrant. It’s interesting to me that you have limited patterns in your space. I think you make up for that in your art.
I have a sewing machine that I absolutely love. It is an industrial weight Juki that sews up to 1000 stitches a minute. A few years ago, I came across a wad of blue and white checked fabric on the free table at the quilt meeting. I whipped up curtains for the kitchen out of that pretty gingham, accentuated with cheerful red ties. I am in favor of curtains, when they are pretty, or sheer, or very cheap. Like the cotton cutwork curtain that covers the window in my entryway. I think I found that one on the street. Or maybe it was a buck at a garage sale
I implore you to tear down those ratty old curtains, and get some new ones that you like. Or, even better, mini blinds.
I think homemade curtains are wonderful. Your blue gingham ones sound sweet. We made curtains for all the other rooms. I love the sheers that this post was about—even if they are aged. I simply don’t love the blackouts curtains behind them. But they really are a sign of the time. Thanks, Fran. I hope things are well.
We just hung honeycomb style blinds today on new windows we had installed last month. It seems curtains are back “on trend” but the commitment to a type or pattern was too daunting. So I went with something “easier”. Now I am challenged by the number of different whites in a small window area because white is not always the right white.
We got a blackout honeycomb blind for our bedroom.
I hope you end up enjoying the honeycomb blinds. I’m sure it’s especially nice with everything fresh and new right now. Whites do vary, but I bet they look great!
i bought double rods and hide the ugly blackout curtains behind the 86 in long, white linen ikea curtains i hang facing the room. it is no longer quick work to do simpler tasks alone, like taking down curtains to wash and then putting them back up. my shoulders are creaky, my breath is short, and i should have a taller ladder, but i don’t, and so it’s a struggle to get them hung back up. the ladder has now been sitting in the living room, in front of the huge north window, filling up with assorted items - books, lithops, homemade linen spray and dust - for the past month. everything in this place seems so blah. i painted stripes on the floor lamps shade and it has made me happier than it probably should.
What a wonderful image, the abandoned ladder adorned with whatever will fit! Like the bookshop where the owner never has the time to shelve everything.
Maybe it is time to ask for help, with things like those curtains.
Kathi - I hope there is someone that might be able to help with those curtains if you need to take them down or rehang them. I know what you mean about these kinds of things being difficult alone - or even unsafe. I don't think you need to be on a taller ladder! I am sure if I had a ladder sitting somewhere, it would do just what yours is doing, sit and accumulate stuff. I think your lamp shades with the stripes sound delightful. Small things can, indeed, change how a space feels.
you wrote about so much more than curtains - skies and hospitals and notepads and more - but this fiberglass ladder with the green legs stands like an industrial tree beside my chair, mute, ornamented with the cast-offs from daily life. ugh. you truly write beautiful, thought-provoking pieces and even though my replies do seem to be fluff, i see the depths and appreciate the all of it.
I love that the legs of the ladders are green even more! It's a wonderful image, Kathi. And I really do know that kind of moment and how things become rooted in place and catchalls. I do! Your comment was wonderful - and I am so grateful to have had you as a listener and now reader for many years. Thank YOU!
I love your pictures with the curtains, and the curtains themselves. Sheers in front of something heavier, where needed, would totally be my choice, too, if I were repopulating from what you've been using. In fact, I love looking at IKEA's gauzy, translucent options, though I tend to shop elsewhere because the closest one is over an hour from us. Our window treatments arrived to this space shortly after we did, 13 years ago. We chose white, 1" Venetian blinds and only recently took them all down for a long-overdue, scrubbing. I like how they don't require more than the space of the window itself to do their job, and the look fits our Cape Cod style home.
As for blue curtains, the whole trend reminded me of the written comment a judge once gave me for an oral dramatic interpretation I gave from The Glass Menagerie. "Tennessee Williams never meant Laura to be 'thus-and-such'..." At the time, in high school, I remember thinking "Really? Did he tell you that personally, or are you maybe just forcing your opinion on mine?"
Love how this piece wove its way through your spaces, Amy, and your orange skies. Such difficult times, and yet also such beauty.
Thank you for having read that there was more here than curtains. I started to wonder. I love your example of reading the Glass Menagerie. That's an interesting flip, too, the student interpreting and being told that wasn't the intent. I fully admit it's a gray area.... and our approach to literary analysis changes somewhat when authors are no longer with us, of course. Interesting questions. I like the image of your blinds. It seems blinds were a common thread in the comments here.... that surprises me. Thanks for reading, Elizabeth!
I love curtains so long as I don't have to be the one to hang them 🤣!
I do love the ritual of opening blinds or curtains to let the morning light into my studio and then closing them when I feel too exposed to the outside world and want more privacy to sleep or create art I'm a bit insecure about.
I agree about that ritual - it can be lovely and intentional, right? I'm glad that I'm not at ground-level. I know I would constantly be worried about seeing someone outside the window, so sheers would be out. Hah! I laughed though that creating art is one scenario you might close your curtains.
I loved reading this whole thing. From top to bottom. I've been so overwhelmed with reading the past few weeks that I can barely get to my Substack reads, but I somehow make time for your Illustrated Life. Even when I can't seem to squeeze anything else in.
Thank you so much, Linda. I really appreciate this and knowing that you read this one. I know how difficult fitting everything in can be, so it means a lot. I look forward to your post every Thursday, and I hope that all the reading you’ve been doing has been good, rewarding, and enjoyable! I hope there is a good balance of writing going on, too.
Thanks, Amy! Switching to posting Tuesdays, which works better for managing my ADHD (procrastination) so I can get it written and off my desk earlier in the week. I do a lot of reading for work, which can get exhausting. But yes to writing! And all kinds of things, which is very satisfying.
Funnily enough, I just ordered and received short blackout curtains for my short bedroom window. We have a high window that faces the back yard, and they’ve built houses behind us this past year. And added street lights. They’re so annoying to me at 3 am when I’ve slept just enough that my body thinks it could survive the day with that amount of sleep, but I need 2-3 more hours to really be at my best in a classroom of young children. So the curtains are here and I need to iron the packaging wrinkles out before I hang them.
I ordered blue ones. What could be the deeper meaning? My bedspread has blue stripes, but if eyes are the windows to the soul and I have blue eyes, does my color choice relate to that?
My favorite curtains were choices inspired by the book Joyful by Ingrid Fetell Lee. I got the sheers with polka dots, all in white. They do look happy!
I’m hoping my inside cat is grown enough that she will not climb the new curtains. Window coverings really changed because of her!!
That is so funny! I hope your cat is older and or forgets how to climb curtains. Mine is 2 years old and she will still climb to the top and she balance on the rod and almost falls a few times before she leaps on to the safety of the bed. All this in aid of keeping me from going to bed!
I’m laughing about the blue. I hope the blackout curtains do the trip and help you find those extra hours of sleep! I haven’t read that book…. But embossed dots is what I think I’ll end up with if I ever give in and replace these. Great minds :)
Love these kinds of synchronicities! I'm another one who often awakens earlier than I wish and curses the light pollution in my backyard (a neighbor with an out of control and, frankly, unwarranted security light). But I so adore the moon and early light of day that blackout curtains have not seemed like the right solution for me. It would require a major overhaul, because when we settled into this house, we chose 1" blinds rather than curtains for most of the windows. They've worked well, and our cats, sadly now gone, could not climb them! I hope everything works out for you and yours. Thank you for your work as a teacher!
Uncanny, or “shelf elf” to find that set of notes Amy!? Haha. Oh sidewalk oracles. I love your idea of drawing some patterns.
Totally thought about Sidewalk Oracles with this. It really was a strange moment. I think there were a few this weekend. I’m glad the patterns idea had some resonance for you. Thanks, Lauren!
The curtains in my bedroom are green velvet. They let just the right amount of light through and in the mornings I watch the shadows of the leaves of the sycamore tree dance in the wind. They are very old and have several holes. I can't replace them though as I want the exact same shade of green and the same not quite black out effect. The new ones are all very harsh colours and either total black out or let too much light in. I guess I will have to live with holey curtains.
I imagine they are beautiful and soft. I think a few holes here and there never hurt anyone, and I can totally understand the challenge (or impossibility) of finding the “right” replacement. Thank you for commenting.
Reading about the curtains really brought me back to my great-grandmother's house. I remember laying in her bedroom watching the curtains blow in the wind during nap time and feeling extremely at peace ❤️
I feel the same about windchimes, the sound reminds me of naps at my grandma’s house. Such special memories!
I love my wind chimes. Not sure if my neighbors do. I had a huge wind chime when I had my house. Such beautiful melodies it made.
A good wind chime is a special thing 💙
I love that, Melissa. What a wonderful memory to have …. And to have it tied to curtains!
Good morning Amy! Interesting subject. You make any topic interesting! Thank you!
I bought a black out blind for my bedroom. It was from IKEA. The cat has pierced the shade in several spots as she climbs the white textured drapes ( also cheap from IKEA and floor to ceiling) to reach the top. My living room has no drapes or blinds. I wanted all window and the sliding door visible. Living in an apartment there is only light on one side and I am on the shady side of the building with the forest behind. No one can see in. The only other windows are in the small 2nd bedroom. I bought $5 accordion paper blinds and the same floor to ceiling linen look textured white drapes from IKEA to frame the windows. I did get several “mosquito net “curtain panels (sheers) from IKEA to use at my daughters’ weddings to wrap an arbor. I briefly had them over my living room windows and they looked gorgeous and romantic blowing in the breeze. The old cats ignored them. These would be in tatters with my young cat. They are in a trunk now.
Bylaws state all window covering must be white in our building! We have 158 units.
Yesterday I went to view a newer apartment in a posh high rise with my friend. She wants to downsize from a townhouse with many stairs. With global warming these towers are like an oven in the summer heat. They had powered blinds you could even open and shut from your phone! No drapes…just these crisp very wide minimalist blinds. I was in awe. This place was 965 sqaure feet for $825 K. And no ocean view but massive windows!
I remember doing a project drawing patterns from my place. Being a small space I limit pattern to the area rugs and a few pillows. I love my Chinese blue and white plant pots patterns. I have drawn them often.
Suki cat really has changed everything :) — I am enjoying envisioning the powered blinds you can control from your phone. lol. I think of the photos you share as always bright and vibrant. It’s interesting to me that you have limited patterns in your space. I think you make up for that in your art.
I have a sewing machine that I absolutely love. It is an industrial weight Juki that sews up to 1000 stitches a minute. A few years ago, I came across a wad of blue and white checked fabric on the free table at the quilt meeting. I whipped up curtains for the kitchen out of that pretty gingham, accentuated with cheerful red ties. I am in favor of curtains, when they are pretty, or sheer, or very cheap. Like the cotton cutwork curtain that covers the window in my entryway. I think I found that one on the street. Or maybe it was a buck at a garage sale
I implore you to tear down those ratty old curtains, and get some new ones that you like. Or, even better, mini blinds.
I think homemade curtains are wonderful. Your blue gingham ones sound sweet. We made curtains for all the other rooms. I love the sheers that this post was about—even if they are aged. I simply don’t love the blackouts curtains behind them. But they really are a sign of the time. Thanks, Fran. I hope things are well.
We just hung honeycomb style blinds today on new windows we had installed last month. It seems curtains are back “on trend” but the commitment to a type or pattern was too daunting. So I went with something “easier”. Now I am challenged by the number of different whites in a small window area because white is not always the right white.
We got a blackout honeycomb blind for our bedroom.
I hope you end up enjoying the honeycomb blinds. I’m sure it’s especially nice with everything fresh and new right now. Whites do vary, but I bet they look great!
i bought double rods and hide the ugly blackout curtains behind the 86 in long, white linen ikea curtains i hang facing the room. it is no longer quick work to do simpler tasks alone, like taking down curtains to wash and then putting them back up. my shoulders are creaky, my breath is short, and i should have a taller ladder, but i don’t, and so it’s a struggle to get them hung back up. the ladder has now been sitting in the living room, in front of the huge north window, filling up with assorted items - books, lithops, homemade linen spray and dust - for the past month. everything in this place seems so blah. i painted stripes on the floor lamps shade and it has made me happier than it probably should.
What a wonderful image, the abandoned ladder adorned with whatever will fit! Like the bookshop where the owner never has the time to shelve everything.
Maybe it is time to ask for help, with things like those curtains.
thank you, fran, for the lovely reply. i do have a friend who has offered to help - i need to remind myself that it is not a shortcoming to ask!
Kathi - I hope there is someone that might be able to help with those curtains if you need to take them down or rehang them. I know what you mean about these kinds of things being difficult alone - or even unsafe. I don't think you need to be on a taller ladder! I am sure if I had a ladder sitting somewhere, it would do just what yours is doing, sit and accumulate stuff. I think your lamp shades with the stripes sound delightful. Small things can, indeed, change how a space feels.
you wrote about so much more than curtains - skies and hospitals and notepads and more - but this fiberglass ladder with the green legs stands like an industrial tree beside my chair, mute, ornamented with the cast-offs from daily life. ugh. you truly write beautiful, thought-provoking pieces and even though my replies do seem to be fluff, i see the depths and appreciate the all of it.
I love that the legs of the ladders are green even more! It's a wonderful image, Kathi. And I really do know that kind of moment and how things become rooted in place and catchalls. I do! Your comment was wonderful - and I am so grateful to have had you as a listener and now reader for many years. Thank YOU!
I love your pictures with the curtains, and the curtains themselves. Sheers in front of something heavier, where needed, would totally be my choice, too, if I were repopulating from what you've been using. In fact, I love looking at IKEA's gauzy, translucent options, though I tend to shop elsewhere because the closest one is over an hour from us. Our window treatments arrived to this space shortly after we did, 13 years ago. We chose white, 1" Venetian blinds and only recently took them all down for a long-overdue, scrubbing. I like how they don't require more than the space of the window itself to do their job, and the look fits our Cape Cod style home.
As for blue curtains, the whole trend reminded me of the written comment a judge once gave me for an oral dramatic interpretation I gave from The Glass Menagerie. "Tennessee Williams never meant Laura to be 'thus-and-such'..." At the time, in high school, I remember thinking "Really? Did he tell you that personally, or are you maybe just forcing your opinion on mine?"
Love how this piece wove its way through your spaces, Amy, and your orange skies. Such difficult times, and yet also such beauty.
Thank you for having read that there was more here than curtains. I started to wonder. I love your example of reading the Glass Menagerie. That's an interesting flip, too, the student interpreting and being told that wasn't the intent. I fully admit it's a gray area.... and our approach to literary analysis changes somewhat when authors are no longer with us, of course. Interesting questions. I like the image of your blinds. It seems blinds were a common thread in the comments here.... that surprises me. Thanks for reading, Elizabeth!
I wish I'd had time to read all the comments! I usually do, but I've hit a particularly busy patch. Waxing and waning is to be expected, I know. :)
😃
I love curtains so long as I don't have to be the one to hang them 🤣!
I do love the ritual of opening blinds or curtains to let the morning light into my studio and then closing them when I feel too exposed to the outside world and want more privacy to sleep or create art I'm a bit insecure about.
I agree about that ritual - it can be lovely and intentional, right? I'm glad that I'm not at ground-level. I know I would constantly be worried about seeing someone outside the window, so sheers would be out. Hah! I laughed though that creating art is one scenario you might close your curtains.
I loved reading this whole thing. From top to bottom. I've been so overwhelmed with reading the past few weeks that I can barely get to my Substack reads, but I somehow make time for your Illustrated Life. Even when I can't seem to squeeze anything else in.
Thank you so much, Linda. I really appreciate this and knowing that you read this one. I know how difficult fitting everything in can be, so it means a lot. I look forward to your post every Thursday, and I hope that all the reading you’ve been doing has been good, rewarding, and enjoyable! I hope there is a good balance of writing going on, too.
Thanks, Amy! Switching to posting Tuesdays, which works better for managing my ADHD (procrastination) so I can get it written and off my desk earlier in the week. I do a lot of reading for work, which can get exhausting. But yes to writing! And all kinds of things, which is very satisfying.