Beauty and the Beast

Here's the beauty! Let me tell you about the beast.
I bought these ready made drapes but since I have a sunken living room my walls are taller and therefore the drapes are too short. A friend of mine was helping me lengthen them. Without the long, long, version, let me tell you the short version. We lengthened the brown side panels and they came out all right, but when we did the first sheer drapes she steamed it and it made it too long. She came over with some of the gold panels fixed but they weren't the right length. Since we had steamed one panel and made it too long we were afraid to sew them without actually measuring them in place. My friend actually went home and brought her machine here and we measured each panel in it's place to get it exactly the right length. After it was the correct length we didn't dare take it down and iron it so we thought it would be best to iron it while hanging. Ironing the lower part was fine but then I couldn't reach the top part. I had the crazy idea to put the ironing board on a stool and a bench to make it higher but then I couldn't reach it. So I had to get up on the stool as well. Another friend came over and was really laughing at my idea. It actually worked but it was the most unusual ironing job I've ever done. Once we got that finished they were beautiful but then figuring out how to hang the valances was another puzzle. After 7 hours of everything going wrong we finally got the finished product. They are gorgeous and I'm very pleased. Now that they're finished, I can say it was worth it.