I may be crazy to attempt this but as soon as I saw the front window in the house we just bought I imagined these curtains on it. The stylized shape of the trees in a bold color gives filet crochet an interesting contemporary look. And I love how these let the light through. I showed a picture to my husband and he loves them too, but I said they would take a really long time to make out of thread with a tiny hook to fit a big window. He cast his vote of confidence by saying “You have 5 months. Get cracking.” We are not moving until July.

So I ordered the pattern, took the measurements and bought the thread. I swatched for gauge and started with a base chain of 783. I estimate that I will need to do approximately two and a third repeats of the pattern to fit a window 59 inches wide, but after I get the first row done I will remeasure and reassess that.

The window has the 59” section in the center with two much narrower sections on each side. I am not sure if I will make panels for those side sections or do something different. So I just decided to tackle the largest part first and go from there.

The pattern is in German but charted and the written portion easily translated. To make the chart easier to follow, I enlarged it on a photocopier, numbered the rows and added red outlines of each section of 10 x 10 squares. I have decided to work the chart from the bottom up instead of top down so that I can adjust the length as needed after the tree part is done.

Did I mention that I am beginning this as my right index finger knuckle has been swollen for days from an apparent arthritis attack? I have figured out how to crochet with my middle finger in the lead.

2/28/20 I measured after the base row of double crochets and my gauge is way off from the pattern but there is no way I am willing to drop down to a smaller hook size so I am going to readjust. I can’t do math in my head so after a lot of counting and scratching on paper, and measuring my work, I think 645 base stitches and almost two repeats of the pattern, stopping after the 5th tree on the second repeat, will get me the width I need. I marked every 30 stitches with a safety pin to correspond with each 10 square box on the chart and made sure to add the border stitches on either side. We’re off!

4/24/20 The trees are all done so now I just need to do rows of squares to get the curtain length that I need.

5/26/20 Worked to the right height only to discover that when hung the curtain is not wide enough at the top. It started out wide enough on the bottom but got narrower on the mesh part. Blocking did not fix this problem so I decided to widen the whole thing by extending each side with some additional mesh. I figure as long as the whole window is covered the inconsistent width will be disguised.

6/2/3 Finally finished this and hung it in the window. The sides that I added on are still a bit wonky but at least it covers the whole width. I still love this so much. Now I just have to make side panels to match for those narrow windows. Contemplating graphing out my own design of a stylized evergreen tree.