Curtains!

I am mildly ashamed that it's been a month and a half since we moved in and I'm just now able to share this project with you. When we arrived, our first big priority was to get some kind of window covering for the large sliding glass doors in the dining room.

Thankfully, I had a couple of days of calm before the madness of our past 6 weeks kicked in, and was able to complete two panels to give us the privacy we needed. I also finished one matching panel for the double windows in the living room. 

But then I stopped. I'm one of those people that if something gets put away, I'm totally not motivated to drag it back out and start again. And that's exactly what happened... I had to clean up the machine and all my sewing notions because it had taken over the dinner table, and we were having company. So away it all went. And sat. And sat.... leavin our living room window looking awkward and haphazard with just one curtain on one side. But since we have blinds on those windows, I couldn't justify taking the time to finish it all up in the midst of our busy schedule. Until FINALLY this week, the impending visits of two groups of people made me feel self-conscious about my half-done decor.

So I finally brought the machine back out, unrolled my giant piece of fabric (we bought 13 yards to cover 3 windows), and got to work. The process of making a curtain panel is absurdly easy. You basically sew a giant rectangle. But I figured I'd share my methodology in the event that any of you might want to try to make some curtains for yourself.

I precut all my panels a couple inches longer than I knew I'd want them to make sure I'd be able to line up the pattern on both sides. Then I trimmed the sides of the fabric to leave about 1/2 inch of white space before the pattern began.

Next, I folded the sides over to conceal the white area, and pinned the hemmed area into place. Then, using the edge of my presser foot as a guide, I sewed a simple straight stitch down the side of the entire panel, making sure to reverse some stitches at the beginning and the end to prevent unraveling.

Then I just repeated the process on the other side of the panel. For the top of the curtain, I took advantage of the extra inches I'd cut to make sure the pattern would line up across the whole window when the curtains were closed. Since I'd already made and hung the first panel, I held up the second and determined how much I needed to fold over to make them even. Then, I sewed up the top to align them.

It was that easy! I used drapery rings from Tar-jay to hang my finished product (7 hooks on each panel). 

I took these photos on my phone, so the color is really off (it was dark), but I love the way they turned out! Especially in the living room, I think they make the room feel so much more "lived in" than standard white blinds. Now I can't wait to incorporate a giant rug and recover our couch pillows to make the whole room come together.

Have any of you busted out the sewing machine lately? Or maybe you prefer the store-bought route but have recently redone some windows? I'd love to hear how you're making your house feel like home!