I Made Curtains!

Yes, you read that correctly.  I made curtains!  This is probably the project that I'm most proud of thus far in my home-fixer-upper career.  Why, I'm not really sure.  Probably because, unlike painting and scoring deals on Craigslist, this is something that I never really expected that I would do.  But along came a simple-sounding tutorial on one of my favorite blogs and the results came out much better than I expected.

The room:
Our dining room, which is in the front of the house, has tall, vaulted ceilings and a lot of dark furniture.  There is a little window seat in front of the main windows that have been decorated, since the moment we moved in, with a few pillows.  It brings a bit of dimension into the room but it has always been apparent that long drapes would bring a lot of pretty into the room.  Due to the height of the wall, I would have had to order custom-length drapes... not an option ($$).  DISCLAIMER:  This room is next on the list to be painted.  Please ignore the (lack of) color at this point.

The materials:
The hardest part was picking out the fabric.  I saved my Joann Fabric coupon for the perfect rainy day and away I went.  I stayed in the "home fabric" section because the fabric seemed nicer (read: more expensive) and looked closer to the material that I would expect curtains to be made from.  I have no idea if this was the right choice or not!  I needed approx. 6 yards of fabric, iron-on hem tape, a tape measure and pins from my new sewing kit (thanks, Joe!).

The process:
I used the dining room table to help make the cut.

After I had two long pieces of fabric, I ironed the hem tape onto all four side of both pieces of fabric.  I was worried about this step because I am not in charge of ironing in this family.  It took a bit of adjusting (perhaps I just don't know how to use the iron correctly) but the second curtain went much smoother than the first!

Before:

Hanging:
I purchased a curtain rod at Home Goods and bought clip-on drapery rings at Joann.  By using clip-on rings, I didn't have to figure out how to fold over a loop of fabric in order to fit on the rod.  The clips also help the fabric to hang in perfect folds.

DISCLAIMER #2:  It's nearly impossible to take a good picture of this room.  The afternoon light streams right into the room but the color just isn't the same once it's dark.  Please also see Disclaimer #1 regarding the color of the walls.  Perhaps this is a premature reveal but I'm just really excited :)



After:

Yay!!  What do you think?  I think they'll look much better once we have some color on the wall but this is a good start!