Circus McGurkus

Bonnie came home from school and said "Mrs. K asked me to ask you if you would make a tent for Dr. Seuss Day.  Apparently Mrs. K is using 3rd graders to do her dirty work.  The 3rd grade theme is Dr. Seuss' book If I Ran the Circus.  

I told Mrs. K. that I didn't think I could make a tent and that I would be afraid it would collapse on the kids.  We finally settled on curtains for the three 3rd grade classroom doors.  I saw the 3rd grade room mother who is a stay-at-home mother with waaaayyyy too much energy at Author's night.  She said she was thinkinig of an awning and maybe a tunnel.  When she saw my eye start twitching and lip start curling, she decided that curtains would be just fine.

So here is what Mrs. K got...

Curtain #1 

I got the cotton quilting fabric and tension rods at JoAnns. 



I used a saucer (as in cup and saucer) to trace the scallops for the valance and tie backs. 



Curtain #2



I used my ruffler attachment for the valance and tie backs.  There is a nice video of the ruffler in action at the Bernina website.

I serged the ruffles of the tie-backs with red thread. 

Closeup of the valance.

Curtain #3



This curtain has a scalloped valance and ruffled tie backs. 

The book actually shows yellow stars on red fabric.  I couldn't find any fabric with yellow stars.  I thought the polka dots looked pretty circusy. 

I was pretty happy with the results and the Mrs. K was thrilled.  The only thing that took any skill was pressing the scallops correctly.  I actually don't clip my curves for scallops.  I find the clips seem distort the smooth curves.  I just trim very closely and carefully press out the curves. 

Not too bad for 10 hours of work.