It's curtains for me...

I made a curtain! One! Singular! I will make a pair, but that will have to wait for another weekend when I have free time.

I made a lined pencil pleat curtain for a curtain rail. Curtains with loops are certainly easier, but I like the neatness of curtains on hooks.

When I mentioned to a few people that I was planning on making curtains, the response I got was an almost unanimous * intake of breath * “Ooooh, I hear that’s really difficult”.

I'm hoping that by talking through how I made my curtain, people will see that, actually, making curtains doesn’t have to be complicated. It is achievable and you shouldn’t be intimidated. Even if you result doesn’t turn out just like the professional seamstresses’ curtain, if you’re happy with it, that’s all that matters.

I’d like to start with a disclaimer that this is very rough and ready job. I’m not an expert by any stretch of the imagination, and there are so many good tutorials out there that will be more detailed than the advise i can offer.

I followed some of this tutorial from Sew Helpful. You can watch a few videos for free, but after (I think) three, you have to pay. I am, fundamentally, a cheapskate; so I completed my curtain through a combination of watching a few videos from the site, reading the rest of the instructions, as well as a couple of other online guides, and a bit of make-it-up-as-you-go-along. The Sew Helpful guide really is very good, so if you can afford it, I would recommend paying for the full tutorial. The woman who runs the site replies to questions with very helpful answers, and is very knowledgeable.

Measure, measure, and measure again. Measure thrice, cut once. What I’ve learnt from making a curtain (as with most sewing projects), is that the most important step, and most of the work, is in measuring and prepping.

Here’s my fabric of choice.

I found this fabric on the market almost two years ago when we first moved into our house. I have no problem in storing something till I can use it. I love the Josef Frank style of the design. Unfortunately, most of his designs are little out of my price range, but you can find a good selection at Svenska Tenn; his long term collaborators. I saw an exhibition of his work at the Fashion and Textile Museum in London earlier this year with Hive account@tubequeen and it was a joyous expression of colour and life.

This particular fabric is made by Harlequin, this pattern is called Zosa - Folia, colour way Chalk/Stone/Leaf. You can find it here.

I cannibalized the lining from an old pair of curtain that we no longer use.

To make curtains for hooks on a pole or track, you use heading tape. Mine was taken off the old curtains I took the lining from, but it’s not expensive, and pretty easy to get your hands on.

Here we go.

1. Measure from the top of where you want the curtain to where you want the curtain to come to on the floor (meeting the floor, hovering just above, or puddling onto the floor. Work out you top to hook measurement (top of the curtain to the bottom of the curtain ring where the curtain hook will hang), and hook to drop measurement (the bottom of the curtain hook to the bottom of the curtain).

I found the marking on the hem of the fabric to mark the pattern repeat to be useful to line up the top of my curtains.

1. Curtain tape has three rows of loops to attach the curtain hooks to. Top middle and bottom. You need to decide if you want the curtain to hang from the top row, so that the curtain pole is fully visible, from the middle so that it’s partially visible, or from the bottom so that the curtain fabric sticks out over the top and conceals most of the curtain pole. I put my hooks in on the bottom line of curtain tape, so that the curtain will come up high over the curtain pole. In the tutorial I watched, they mentioned that this could give a “messy” “too full” look” at the top when the curtain is pulled back. I see their point, but I don’t really like seeing the curtain pole when the curtains are drawn, and how it looks at the end when open doesn’t bother me too much.

1. Give yourself 20 cm hem at the bottom of the fabric, 10 cm folded over twice.
2. At the top of the fabric, you’ll want a 10 cm hem, 5cm folded twice.
3. I used one width of fabric for my curtain, so the edge of the fabric gave me a natural hem. If you have wider windows, or want fuller curtains and are using multiple widths of fabric, I would reccomend 10 cm hem at the sides, 5cm folded twice.
4. If using a patterned fabric, consider the pattern repeat. Normal vertical repeat is a standard pattern, where the pattern is the same on both side of the roll, so if you had 2 metres of fabric and cut it in half, moving the top and bottom half next to one another, the pattern would flow across the divide, and align at the sides. Half drop pattern repeat will not align on both side in the same way, usually by a half. Half drop fabric requires more fabric to make the same length of curtain.

This youtube video from Sew Helpful that explains half pattern repeat very well.

Iron and lay out your fabric.

1. Measure the fabric, use pins/ washable fabric pen/ tailor’s chalk to mark out the lines you’ll cut along.
2. Cut fabric.
3. Iron along the hem folds.
   
   
   
   

1. I machine stitched the first fold of the hem, then hand stitched the second fold. By doing this, you won’t see the stitching on the curtains, and will get a neater look.
2. Hem the sides of the curtain first, then hem the bottom of the curtain.
3. The tutorial I viewed said to do mitre corners. You can see how to sew these in this excellent YouTube video tutorial.

I didn’t because I wanted to make sure that the curtains turned out ok before making an irreversible change and cutting off corners of the fabric.

Lining:

1. If making lined curtains, you’ll want the lining to be a few centimetres narrower than the curtain width on either side, so that it doesn’t poke out from the side of the curtain. I set my lining 5cm for the curtain edge on each side.
2. The lining should be short of the full length of the curtain. This is up to you. 2 cm short of the bottom would be good. This is where I’ve cheated big time. As I said earlier, I cannibalized lining from an old pair of curtains. The fabric is about 60cm short of the curtain length. If these curtains were going to be for french doors or floor to ceiling windows, and when the light shone through then you would have seen the difference in fabric length, then I would absolutely have bought new fabric to make longer lining. However, I am trying to do these curtains on the cheap, and as my window is only 105cm top to bottom, the lining I have more than cover it; no one else need ever know my shameful secret.

Attaching curtain to lining and heading tape.

1. Your curtain front is hemmed along the sides and bottom. Your lining is hemmed along the sides, bottom and top. You lay out the curtain fabric, making sure it is smooth and flat. You lay the lining fabric on top. Pin in place before laying the heading tape on top. Remember to sew the back of the curtain fabric to the back of the lining fabric, and the heading tape on top of the front of the lining. So when you hang the curtain, the front of the curtain fabric faces out into the room, the front of the lining fabric faces the window, and no seams can be seen.
2. Make sure the heading tape is fully stretched out.
3. Lay the heading tape on top of the lining and pin in place, going through all three layers. Remove the pins that were pining the lining to the fabric.

1. The heading tape has three rows of loops for the hooks. It has three strings that run the full length of the tape. These strings are tied together in a knot at the end of the tape. The strings are designed to be pulled to give the tape its pleated look. 20. You don’t pull the strings until the curtains are finished. Your tape will be longer than the length of your curtains, so you fold the excess underneath. You want to make sure that the strings stick out from the point where you have folded the tape, so you can pull it from both ends. When you fold the tape underneath itself, you can pull the string out through the holes so that it come out of the tape at the point where you want to fold it, leaving the string ends free of the tape, and able to be pulled into pleats once the sewing is complete.
2. The tape should be 0.5cm from either edge of the curtain, and 0.5cm from the top of the curtain. Fold the excess underneath.
3. I machine sewed the curtain, lining and tape together along the top line of the tape, and the bottom line, but not the sides, as I didn’t want to catch the tape strings by accident, and not be able to pull my curtain into pleats.
   

For work where you're machine sewing long lengths of fabric with lots of pins in, I would absolutely recommend a wrist pin cushion. You take the pins out as you sew along, and have a handy, safe, close to hand place to put them.

1. Trim off any excess thread.

2. Attach the curtain hooks to chosen row of loops.

3. Pull the string on the curtain tape as tight as you want the pencil pleats to be.
   

4. Hang your curtain.

The window I’m making the curtain for is 105cm tall by 180cm width. The curtain rod is 240cm in length, 255cm total with the finials at the end. The top of the curtain pole, where I wanted the curtain to drop from, to the floor, is 230cm. My top to hook measurement is 5cm, and my hook to drop is 225cm. My fabric is 136 cm wide. I used one width of fabric.

My finished curtain.

You can see the existing Ikea curtain on the opposite side; another Josef Frank style pattern. Below you can see how much more light the thicker lining I have used cuts out.

Curtains open.

I measured my curtains several times, made account for the pattern repeat, and they’re actually still a little bit long. About 3 cm over what I want. I’m not disappointed, because, being too long rather than too short means that I can simply take them up from the bottom. As this is a first attempt, I’m counting it as a win!

I hope this has been of some help. Good luck to anyone starting their own project!