It’s half scale swap time again! This year’s theme was Kitschy Things, and I made beaded curtains. This post will show how I did it, so you can make one too.
My curtains are 1 1/4″ wide by about 3 1/4″ tall, which fits a 1:24 scale Houseworks interior door. You can easily change the curtain’s width and height to accommodate a different sized doorway, or increase the dimensions to create a 1:12 scale beaded curtain.
If I’d only been making one curtain, I might have had enough beads left over from various projects to make my own mix, but since I had to make 21 of these for the swap, I bought a few packs of multicolored seed beads from Michaels.
I started by cutting a 1/8″ x 1/8″ basswood strip into 1 1/4″ lengths. Then I put this up against a ruler and made dots spaced 1/8″ apart.
I used the micro drill to turn the dots into holes, using a bit slightly thicker than a beading needle.
Next I stained the wood with a Minwax stain pen.
I cut a piece of sewing thread approximately 12″ long (about three times the length of one strand of beads). I strung one bead to the center, and then doubled up the thread and reinserted it into the needle.
I strung beads to my desired length (approximately 3 3/16″).
I inserted this into the center hole and tied a knot at the top. The long tail makes it easier to tie the knot. It needs to be knotted several times to be large enough not to slip through the hole (tug on the strand to make sure it doesn’t slip through).
Emily is a freelance writer, miniaturist, and adventure game enthusiast.
