DIY: Curtains

It's been a long time since I've made anything worth showing off, so you guys are finally in for a tutorial. 

I made curtains for the boys room, which we finally have a color scheme for, yay!

We bought this striped fabric at Ikea because it was pretty, and a few days ago I was dying to do something in the nursery (it's forbidden to nest in the nursery until it's been painted, apparently) so I pulled out this fabric and made curtains.

I wanted them to be really thick and dark, so they'd keep the room dark during the day if the babies were napping, so I made them double sided with a blue back.

What do you think?

So to make your own double sided curtains begin by measuring your windows, washing and ironing all your fabric or you'll end up like I have many times - with too little fabric. 

If you want to just make regular one-sided curtains please visit this Design*Sponge post, which was my jumping off point.

And before you begin, read through this entire confusing post and try to figure out what the heck I'm saying or you might get half-way through and go "Oh my gosh, Becky is an idiot. Why didn't she say to do [insert something obvious]." And you'll be mad that you ruined lots of good fabric with my confusing instructions.

Step 1: Cut out your fabric about 8 inches longer than you want the curtains to be, and about an inch wider.

Step 2: (See how helpless I am? I don't know what those little loopy things are called...) If you want your curtain to have these fabric loop-things that go over the curtain rod, cut them out now.

I cut out 5 for each curtain (which is about 3.5 feet wide) They were 8 inches by 3 inches.

Step 3: Fold each of the little fabric pieces in half lengthwise (right sides together) and iron. 

Step 4: Sew down the edge, turn your little tubes right side out and iron them flat.

 

Step 5: Go back to your big pieces of fabric (for the main part of the curtain). Pin the two different fabrics together along all four edges, right sides together.

Step 6: Sew along three of the edges - the bottom and 2 sides, leaving a 4 inch space unsewn along one side (To turn the curtain right side out again later.) 

Step 7: Tuck your loops (the little bit of ironed fabric folded in half) into the unsewn top and pin them with their rough edges along the rough edges of the curtain. When you turn the curtain right side out they should be on the outside of the curtain. 

Step 8: Sew along the top edge of the curtain, being sure to double stitch over the end of each loop.

Step 9: Turn the curtain right side out through the 4 inch hole you left in Step 6. Sew that hole closed - either with a machine or by hand.

Step 10: Depending on how long your curtains are now and how long you want them to be, fold a few inches of the bottom of the curtain up and sew along it. This will create a nice border on one side and make the other side look a bit cleaner.

Step 11: Hang up and admire. (This was the probably the most creative thing I managed - I was dying to take a picture of these curtains but we don't have a single curtain rod in the house yet. It took me a while to figure this out.)

This is a really confusing tutorial. 

Maybe I'm so bad at writing patterns because I'm also bad at following them. 

I would always just advise that you figure things out as you go.

That's what I do.