Laundry Room Window Treatment Sewn from Scraps

It's Done!  Quit Nagging Me!

My kitchen drapery panels were installed back in 2008, and I've been holding onto a scrap of leftover drapery fabric ever since.  I knew I could do something with it for the small window in my laundry room, which is adjacent to the kitchen and has the same cabinetry and granite, but I've been very busy for the past four years and have not had time to do anything with it.  Um, that's my story, and I'm sticking to it!  My husband started nagging me about it a few months ago, and I retorted that he needed to repaint the laundry room before I could even think about making a window treatment.  When he hauled out the paint rollers and called my bluff I had no more excuses.

The fabric is Monado in Havana colorway from Vervain.  I found a reddish fabric for the contrast pleats in a pile in my studio, left over from a client's project so long ago that I don't remember where it came from.  (Note: I really should have contrast lined those pleats instead of using white drapery lining for those pieces, because I don't like that I can see white lining peeking out there from the front).  The trim at the bottom of the valance was another leftover piece from a long-ago project, a Robert Allen braid that is now discontinued, and it was top applied (NOT machine stitched).  The valance is interlined and board mounted, with a narrow contrast piping at the board line.

On the Cutting Table, Ready to be Mounted!

The colors are truest in the photo above, taken just prior to mounting the valance.  I really love this fabric, especially because of the little red-headed birdies.  We have birds that look just like the fabric frequenting our bird feeders in the back yard. 

So here's my newly improved laundry room!  It's really tiny, more like a laundry closet, but the door is always open because I like having the natural light from the window.  The dogs' water dish is in there, too, another reason the door has to stay open.  I think the new window treatment dresses it up a little bit.

I must confess that I loathe sewing window treatments anymore.  I still have some remaining naked windows around the house that I promised to sew for, including the F. Schumacher drapery panels for my office, but I would SO much rather start cutting out my next quilt instead!!

FINALLY!!! The New Kindle Paperwhite has PARENTAL CONTROLS!!

New Amazon Kindle Paperwhite, Now with Parental Controls!

Isn't it great when product manufacturers listen to what their customers want?  Today I learned that Amazon's newest Kindle e-reader device, the Paperwhite, actually has the parental controls I've been begging Amazon for.  I just ordered two of them for Lars and Anders.  They are backordered, and expected to ship out sometime in November.

With the boys' current Kindle Keyboards, the devices are registered to my Amazon account and the boys were able to purchase and download new content on their own way too easily, with a couple of clicks, and it would automatically charge to my American Express card.  One little boy was able to play by the rules and ask permission first, but the OTHER little boy has some, ahem, impulse control issues. 

On the whole, I really love the Kindles for my kids.  The digital books are slightly less expensive than their paper equivalents, they are environmentally friendly, they can both read the same book at the same time without fighting over it (and I only have to pay for it once, since both devices are registered to my account).  I really love the ease with which the kids can pull up a dictionary definition for unfamiliar words on their Kindles just by highlighting the text, and -- best of all -- I don't have to buy any more bookshelves for their bedrooms or figure out where to fit yet another bookcase.

I don't know the details of how the parental controls work yet, but Amazon says I'll have the ability to restrict my little Book Bandit from the Kindle Store as well as from the Internet.  I'll post an update once the new Kindles show up.

UPDATE, 10/7/2012:  Even better news -- the kindle keyboard e-readers that we already own were automatically updated wirelessly today to the newest version 3.4, and this new software update has optional parental controls that allow me to restrict access to the experimental web browsing AND to the Kindle Store.  I enabled the restrictions, and all is smooth sailing.  I canceled my order for the new Kindle Paperwhites.