Making Custom Curtains from Purchased Panels

Now that I've found decent curtains for the front room, I need to make them long enough.  Here's the high-water look they were sporting:

And although we do love tubing and rafting and water sports of all kinds, we won't ever be taking the curtains along. So there is no need for them to be ready. JoAnn's had a great fabric on sale (I am really into the brocade look - have been forever) that I can sew onto the bottom of my original curtains. This took a bit of unpicking, so that the new look is seamless (pun intended).

The material was easy to cut to size, since I could use the original curtains as a template. The original hemline hung right underneath the windowsill, so I used it as the start of the new material - the perfect height to make a visual change!

The material sewed on (again, using the hemline as my stitching line), and then I did a zigzag stitch along the seam so that it would hang nicely. The thread is matched to the brown so that it melts away into the pattern.

Then I had a lot of material left on the back from the original curtain. I was going to line these suckers, but I think the extra light coming in through the drawn curtains is actually a nice thing in the front room. They are opaque enough to not be worried about see-through after dark, so I left them as is. I don't want to ditch the extra material, though - you never know when you might want to use the original curtains again - so I turned up the hem again and just stitched it along the same stitch line I'd already done. The back looks just fine.

That done, I turned in the sides and stitched them. Then it was time for the hemming. I actually tried one with a five-inch hem and just hung it up. My original idea was to have it "puddle" on the floor, but the brocade is too heavy and the curtains aren't quite long enough. So instead of a puddle, I had an awkward hem that doesn't quite turn underneath. The others went up without a hem so I could mark the floor length. No puddle on these babies. Maybe the next time I have the cash for silk curtains? Or maybe after the kids aren't around to spill chocolate milk on them, and after we don't have an inside dog? Okay, we don't have the dog yet. But we want one, and a dog definitely wouldn't mix well with puddlin' curtains.

Sophie is already mixing it up with those curtains - see her cute bum?

They're all lumpy and folded over strangely

Once hemmed, we finally have our fishbowl sewn up again. I didn't realize how much I missed having curtains in that room until they were gone. And how long did we not have curtains there? Months and months. Craziness.

It looks a little bare...but the dark wall compensated a little

The back light adds a glow to the room during the day

So here's a question for you: should I put a band, or ribbon, or some sort of decoration to mark the transition from one fabric to another? What would you do?

A close-up of the transition

Let me know, I definitely would love some additional ideas!