Continuing with my bedroom redo, the next project I
tackled and, coincidentally, the next item on the “To Do” list I shared here is
custom curtains!
I blogged a little while ago about the fun little kitchen
additions I created here. What I
DIDN’T tell you is that I finally broke down and decided to learn to sew. This decision came out of my inability
to be patient and my reluctance to spend money on things I can (obviously) do
myself, like: sew a straight seam.
I digress.
Here is the inspiration picture for my curtains:
And here’s a couple of DIY posts that made me realize “I can
do that, too!!”
Removable fabric stripes:
Painted stripes:
Ombre chevron stripes:
These girls all had great ideas, but I ruled each of their
techniques out for one reason or another.
(Read: I was scared.) Also,
I’m a bit of a traditionalist (and had just bought a sparkly new sewing
machine), so I wanted to sew my stripes!
I bought pre-made curtains like the ladies in the
above-linked blogs did.
Sidenote: When
you are buying curtains, you want DOUBLE the width of the windows you are
covering. If you are buying
pre-made panels, here is my best advice: Refrain from hanging a panel of curtains
on either side of a window and calling it a day. Most times, those panels are around 56” wide, and those
panels will (might probably) seem puny and not give you the prettiest coverage
when closed OR prettiest stack when open. So, measure your window. My wall-o-windows is 140-1/2” wide. (Finding a curtain rod that big could
have been a REAL nightmare if it weren’t for Google Searches.)
So, I was in need of 281 inches of curtain panels. K... (Luckily, I’m familiar with a certain
store that has a knack for having decent items for pretty low prices.) Here’s the pre-mades I bought.
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| http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/80111985/ |
I had to buy three packages, but at $25 a package, I’m still
doin’ alright, budget-wize.
I went ahead and threw those curtains in the washer and
dryer to get all of the kinks out.
Then I laid one panel on my (steam-cleaned) floor and took a
measurement. (56” wide x 98”
long) I’ve found that, many times,
actual dimensions and printed dimensions are different. I also measured the height from ceiling
to floor in my bedroom.
A couple of tips: 1.
When hanging curtains, you want the rod to be just below the crown molding or ceiling and about 6-8” outside of
the windows. This will make your
windows appear much larger than they are! 2. The best length for curtains is lightly kissing the
floor. Too long and they puddle
and puddling is, in my opinion, very formal. Too short and they look like they’re waitin’ for a flood.
Back to the task at hand: There is a mathematical science to deciding how long your curtains
should be and my brain doesn’t translate how it does that math into words very
well. You have to decide where your
rod will be and how many inches of the total length is going to be above the
rod and figure out how much panel you need between the rod and the floor, then
add that to how much is going to be above the rod. Divide that by the square root of 57 and multiply that by
pi. (Just kidding on that last
part.) Anyways, after I had done
all of my acrobatic mathematics, I discovered I needed 88” long curtains.
Next I figured out how many stripes I wanted (7). There is no right or wrong number of
stripes, folks, although I am partial to odd numbers. There is no correct width of the stripes, either. I decided to treat the grommet section
(4” wide) of the curtains as a band of sorts. Subtracting the grommet section from the total left me with
84” of curtains. Simple math
time! 84/7=12! My stripes would need to be 12” wide.
Let me give you a glimpse into the future… We are sewing the
gray onto the existing white curtains.
We are NOT cutting the curtains apart just to sew them back together in
stripes. That would be cray cray.
Cray.
We’re not done with math yet, sadly, because before I could
go fabric shopping (the fun part), I had to know how much fabric I needed.
I needed 56” long strips 12” wide. Remember that.
I need 4 stripes per panel.
I want 6 panels of curtains.
That means I’m going to need 24 pieces of fabric 57” x 13”. (See what I did there? I added an inch to each dimension because
we’re going to have to seam the edges of each piece.)
Okay, stay with me here… It’s almost over. 24 stripes x 13”= 312”/36=8.667 yards
of fabric. You need 8.667 yards of
57” wide fabric! Typical fabric
widths are 45”, 54” & 60”. If
you fall in love with fabric that only comes 45” wide, you can get 3.46 stripes
out of 1.58 yards, so you’ll need 12.65 yards of 45” wide fabric. If you need help with an further
calculations, email me, ‘cause I gotta finish this blog entry! K?
I knew I wanted the stripes on my curtain to blend
seamlessly with the walls. And all
of a sudden I had created the first challenge for myself: I had already painted the walls. So, I painted a piece of paper and set
out to a couple of local fabric resources for my 8.667 yards of 60” fabric. I thought I wanted cotton sailcloth
like the base drapery panels, but they do not make it in the exact gray of my
walls. So, after some searching, I
found a LOVELY linen type woven fabric in the perfect shade of Software
gray. It even had a little sparkle
fiber woven in, which I totally loved, because my room tends to be a little on
the dark side, despite the wall-o-windows and I thought the sparkle would just
help reflect a little bit of light.
I purchased my 8.667 yards and then popped into the nearest
sewing store (no, my fabric store and my sewing store are NOT the same) and
purchased the thread that just matched
my newly acquired linen sparkly woven.
A word of caution: do NOT fall in love with linen-like
sparkly woven fabric. It will
break your heart and perhaps your spirit.
Mine frayed SO quickly and SO deeply that my 13” strips of fabric
quickly became much less if I wasn’t SUPER careful with them. (Really, though, they are absolutely
gorgeous and worth the heartache.)
Okay, cut your 24 strips of 13” wide fabric. If you bought 60” wide fabric, this is
a pretty straightforward task. If
you had to settle for 45” wide fabric, you need to cut your widths first. Measure out 57” and cut. Then, cut along the long side to get
your strips. See, the whole point
here is that your strips of fabric MUST be at least 1” wider than your pre-made
drapery panels.
Hem your strips.
I did a 4/8” seam all the way around. This step might be a bit extraneous for you, depending on
the type of fabric you choose. You
might be able to iron a hem in the fabric and you can skip the sew hem and just
go straight to pinning. I had to
sew a hem. Gag. This was te-di-ous.
Once you have your strips and your pre-made panels hemmed, you’re ready to get
pinning!
You’ll need your measuring tape and a nice wide open space
for this next part. I used my
breakfast room floor.
Lay out your pre-made curtains and measure from the top of
the drape to where you want the top of your first stripe to be. Pin. Repeat all the way across the panel. I would suggest pinning very 6 inches
or so because you do NOT want these things to move. And there is lots of maneuvering involved once you get to
sewing them on.
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| Measuring and pinning the fourth stripe. |
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| Use LOTS of pins! |
Once I had all of the stripes pinned REALLY well, I sewed them on!
A word to the wise:
measure down from the top of the panel each time you position a new
stripe. DO NOT measure from the
bottom of the previous stripe.
Here are my finished curtains! (Sorry for the HORRIBLE lighting!)
 |
| TADA!!! |
XO,
MM.
PS. If you have any questions or need any guidance or clarification, don't hesitate to email me!
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