My house looks a bit like a bomb went off in it at the moment, it’s always half way through these projects that I think maybe I’ve taken on a little bit toooo much… but we press on anyway and today we’re doing so by making some curtains for the big window in our living room!
Because we rent, everything needs to be removable but I wanted some big drapey fancy princess styled curtains really badly.
|
The Pretty Window.I love my window, it’s what makes my apartment awesome.The problem is that I hate my neighbours . They apparently hate wearing clothes and love smoking. (Yes, directly into our window… they also have very loud domestic disputes and have a baby.) View from my window is often a big guy smoking and scowling minus his shirt. At the moment we have plain ugly blinds that are functional but also very boring. I want somewhere to take nice outfit photos next to! Solution: removable curtains!! I used 6m of fabric, 2 ribbons and some florist wire…
My Dad gave me some fabric for my birthday for this project and I was really happy with it because I picked out a really nice floral design. Pretty but not too over powering.
I used around 6 meters for this project because our window is massive. Other than fabric the only thing you need is a sewing machine. Trust me, you don’t want to hand sew this much, I’ve done it before and it’s a great way get super sore wrists! Also note that this is the laziest way possible to make curtains, I would suggest that you all double hem things and unless you want them to be sheer, add in a lining. Step 1. Making the ruffle at the top. Hem one end of the fabric. This hem needs to be the wrong way around because it’s the bottom of the frill. So fold the edge over with the bad side facing up and stitch in place.
Next lay it all out flat and fold over around 20cm (again bad side up). This is going to be the frill so make it as long as you want. Pin in place.
Measure how far down the frill should start and place a line of pins.
Stitch along the line of pins but don’t tie it off. Stitch a second line next to it 5mm away and again tie off.
Pull the top thread of the stitching so it gathers into a ruffle.
Taadaa it’s a ruffle top:
Hem all of the raw edges on the sides and bottom.
Then you’ve got one curtain! I attached mine to the blind with some clips to see how it looked so far. Not bad!
Repeat to make a second one and make sure they are wide enough to overlap slightly.
It’s important during all of this to keep hanging them up and seeing if they acually fit the window.
Now to work out how to attach them! Usually I would just suggest clipping hem on to the bottom of the roller blind, ours is broken though so it doesn’t go up all the way. Instead I decided to make some wire hooks and hook the whole thing over the top of the blind.
To make the hooks I make a “U” shape of wire with a loop on the end that I could sew on to the curtain.
I made 5 of them.
And stitched them evenly across the back of the ruffle.
Then I hooked it over the blinds. Done!!
It needs some prettier ribbons to hold them apart but very pretty right?
I’ll have to take some better photos with James’ camera so I can show you all properly how pretty it is! |
