Curtain Tutorial

Curtains are probably my favorite thing to make. Weird, eh? I think its because I never use a pattern, I just measure the window and go. Its fun to think up the style in my head and make it come out my hands!

I am in the progress of making curtains for our new bathrooms. I have one done, and have the other all cut out. Here is a little tutorial on what I did:

Just so you know where I am going with this, here is the style curtain I made:

I just measured how long I wanted the curtain on the outside edges, and how long I wanted the middle to be. Then I cut diagonally between these two points. I left allowance for the top ruffle as well. This is a pretty large window, so had a 2” ruffle on top of the curtain rod. All total, with the bottom hem as well, I had about 6” hem allowance added to the length of the curtain. I cut two of these to make two triangle-shaped pieces for main part of the curtain. I also cut a rectangular piece for the middle that was the same length as the shortest side of the triangle pieces.

When that was cut out, I ironed all my hems. Here I am ironing the top. This is a large hem to make the place for the rod to go through and the 2” ruffle on top. (There is a real name for that place the rod goes through, but it isn’t coming to me right now!)

After they were all ironed, I used the curtain like a pattern to know how big to cut the lining. Ingenious, aren’t I?? Hey, whatever works! I wanted the lining to lay flat with the edges hidden by the hems of the curtains.

Next step was to serge all the edges of the curtain. This is so nice, so I don’t have to do the whole double iron-foldy thing on all the hems!

Then I just laid my lining in, and sewed all the edges! I started with the sides, then the bottom, and finally the top edge, making the curtain rod-thingy and the ruffle on top. (This is a very technical description, isn’t it?)

And viola! That was all there was too it!

Heres a picture with our $1 shower curtain. Doesn’t it all match so well!

When I get the other bathroom’s curtain done, I’ll show you a picture of that as well. I am absolutely hearting the fabric we got for that one!!