This is my second curtain project, but my first curtain project all by myself (if you don’t count the phone call to my Aunt wink wink)! Again, I apologize if some of the details are fuzzy as this was a few months ago. Don’t worry I will have a start to finish tutorial for my next curtain project!!! For this project I wanted to make something for the master bathroom. It’s pathetic, but we have had a temp shade up since we bought our house!!! It actually looked ok though. And I thought this would be a good beginner project because the window is a big square. I wanted another shade, but the window is so shallow (see picture below) that there is not a lot of room to mount one inside. So I thought I would make a shade with a pocket and hang it on a rod!
I was inspired by my sister-in-law’s kitchen curtains. They are adorable and tie up in a bow. I liked the look and wanted to do something similar here. However, as a beginner, I wasn't sure I was quite ready to have 4 strips of fabric lined up and sewn matching on the front and back, much less making the fabric ties! I thought about ribbon, but wanted something wider since this was going to be a pretty wide shade/panel. So when I bought my fabric at Hobby Lobby (on clearance) I was talking to the woman who worked there and she suggested ribbon. And she showed me some wider options. I had also thought about doing Velcro to make things easier on myself. So on second thought I decided to go with the ribbon and Velcro option! I felt a little bit like I was cutting corners, but whatever works!! So, I went home with fabric, lining, ribbon, thread, and Velcro to get started! My window measured just under the standard width of most fabrics so I was in luck! All I needed to worry about was the length and I bought a little more than my window height measurement to have plenty of room for the pocket at the top and the hem at the bottom. I would guess you would need at least 10” extra. And then of course I bought the same amount of lining. Check out my sis-in-law's curtains in the background and of course I'll sneak in a picture of my pumpkin (well, in this case my bumble bee!) whenever I can!!! She loves her Granny:)
I started out by measuring my fabric. I laid it out on my new cutting board (I bought one for a couple bucks at Wal-Mart after seeing my Aunt’s) to get it all lined up nice and neat. I ended up cutting a little from each of the sides leaving room for a ½” seam on each side. This project was a little easier because my measurements did not have to be exact. I just measured where I wanted the curtain to fall in front of the window. I liked it in the center of the molding around the window. It was nice doing this at my own house because I could hold it up to the window to make sure it was fitting along the way! After that I cut the top of the fabric leaving some extra for the pocket up top (for the rod) and the hem at the bottom. Next, I cut the lining. It was a lot easier because I took a short cut and laid the fabric on the lining and cut around it. I wasn’t sure how to do the next part and probably should have called my Aunt before I started cutting, but it ended up working just fine. I was trying to remember how we had done the roman shade. And if you read my post about my first curtain project you can get all the details, but basically I did this curtain the same way. I cut the lining a little smaller than the fabric so that the white lining would not show on the sides (the fabric would show). And I was confused on how we did it so I called my Aunt Pat. She cleared things up and I went on my merry way. I told her I originally thought I could do it like a pillow. What I mean is cutting the fabric and lining the same measurements, turning them facing each other, sewing 3 sides, and turning it inside out. She said that would have been perfectly fine in this case since it is not a window that gets much traffic and you don’t walk right next to it like the one going up our stairs. Had I known that, I probably would have done it that way to make it a little easier on myself. But I'm glad I did it this way giving it a nice, professional touch. And for this curtain I only did about ½” of fabric wrapping around the sides (shown below) so the lining was not that much smaller than the fabric.
Before sewing, I pinned one side of my fabric and lining together (fabric facing the lining). I sewed one side and then pinned and sewed the other. I turned it inside out and ironed the sides flat giving them a nice, clean line. Then, I realized I had no clue how to do the bottom of the curtain (the hem). I looked at the roman shade my Aunt and I did and realized I needed to fold the bottom piece up and sew straight across. I was nervous sewing this part because it was going to show. But I thought if it looked horrible I could cover it with trim, fringe or something! Side note: If I had done it like a pillow mentioned above the bottom would already have been done and look like the sides (something to consider). But it looked pretty nice so I let it be. Lastly, I sewed the pocket at the top of the curtain. I would advise sewing the ribbons on before doing this, but you can read below how I finagled it. I folded the top over (leaving about 2"), pinned, sewed, and was left with a pocket! I made a 2” pocket because I wasn’t sure what size curtain rod I was going to get and thought that should be plenty of room.
Sewing the ribbon & Velcro
I cut my ribbon in half making two strips. I trimmed one end of each strip very straight and sewed a seam to keep it from fraying. I also went ahead and sewed my Velcro on since it would be easier than after it was attached to the curtain. I tried pinning the Velcro, but it was pretty difficult since it was so thick. I just held it where I wanted it (centered at the bottom of the ribbon) and sewed. It was a little crooked, but wouldn’t show so it was ok. Next, I laid the ribbons on top of the curtain to figure out the placement and see if I needed to trim the ribbon. I eye-balled it and once I had them where I wanted I measured from the ribbon to the outside of the curtain to make sure they were symmetrical. When I had them where I wanted them I stuck a few pins about half-way up the curtain underneath each ribbon so I could sew the Velcro to the back of the curtain. I had to hold them in place somehow so I stuck pins straight up and down because they wouldn’t work the normal way but it was held enough in place for it to work. Hindsight I probably could have drawn a line with pencil and held the Velcro in place while sewing. My sewing went a little crooked so I ended up doing two seams and back-stitching at both ends so it would hold up for everyday use and they weren’t centered so I kind of had to so it would lay down flat.
It was time to sew the ribbons to the curtain! I lined them up again on top of the curtain. I made sure the bottom was even with the bottom edge of the curtain and left extra at the top so there would be enough to fold over and go past the seam. This was so I could sew beginning after the pocket (I did not want to close off the pocket and the rod not be able to go through). Next, I pinned (checking the back and front of the curtain at the pocket) and sewed a little shy of half-way down the curtain. I did this so I could use the loose ribbon to pull the curtain up during the day. The curtain only goes about half-way up so if I were to do it all over again, I would move the Velcro on the back of the curtain a little higher.
I held it up to the window and it fit! And I tested drawing up the curtain with the ribbons and Velcro and it worked and looked great so I was pleased!!! It’s not perfect, but I was pretty proud of my first solo curtain project!!:)
I ended up getting a small rod because all the larger rods stuck out too far from the wall. I wanted the curtain to hang as close to the window as possible (especially since there were no blinds or anything else covering the window). This one worked out nicely.
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