Ruffle Curtains.

I made these curtains recently for my living room.  As usual, I was very undecisive with what to make, so this is what I ended up doing:
I bought plain white tab curtains from Ikea for $14.99.  I also bought a couple of yards of plain green fabric from Ikea that matches my wall-hanging:
I added three rows of ruffles to the top of each panel using a technique similar to the ruffles on the ruffle skirt (except my fabric was home dec weight so I had to gather it all by hand after sewing a basted stitch down the middle of each strip instead of letting the machine do the work for me).  Before I gathered the strips, I serged each long edge with white thread for contrast.  Then when I stitched the ruffles onto the panels, I used a basting stitch so I can rip them off in a month when I get sick of green ruffles in my living room.  They’ll still be plently secure since they’ll never be touched at the top of the curtains and give me the option of re-using the panels later for something else.

I then hemmed the bottom of each panel.  Unfortunately when Ikea says that each panel is 108″ long, that doesn’t mean that each panel is 108″ long.  I don’t even know if either panel was that length, but I can say they were definitely different lengths.  Also unfortunately, a natural fleck in the fabric can be confused with the line you made with a pencil to mark the hemming length.  You can imagine my happiness when I hung my curtains up and they were not only way too short, but also different lengths.

To make a LOOONG story short, I ended up adding a green panel (also sewed with a basting stitch) with exposed serged edges to the bottom of each panel.  I initially ruffled the green at the bottom but after getting them half done I decided it would just be too much ruffles.  I would never want my seam ripper to be left out of a project anyway.  Obviously the picture was taken pre-pressing and you can still see the remnants of my gathering fiasco :).

And that’s it!  It’s nice to finally have some curtains in my living room, I’m actually pretty sure I won’t be ripping the green off any time soon :).

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34 Comments

  4. ruffles and frills are my obsession of the moment!! the green looks great with the artwork : ) happy monday!

    Reply

  9. These ruffles are soooo stinkin cute…the curtains look outstanding! Hop over and enter my COASTAL GIVEAWAY…I think you will like it!

    Blessings,
    Linda

    Reply

  10. Oh I love these ruffles ,,,,,,so cotton pickin cute!!! Would cheer up any room for sure! Please come over to MIdchix and link this project up in the Crafty Mamas Flock! Link it back to your site!!! LOVE this!
    http://www.midchix.com/

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  12. they look very nice…what kind of serger do you have? do you like it? i keep thinking i need to acquire one one of these days…

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  20. Ruffles always make my heart go pitter-patter so of course I’m loving your curtian. Great job. I like it so much I think I’ll have to add it to my to-do list.

    Reply

  22. oh my gosh i love those curtains!!! i may make some for my house- they came out sooo cute!

    Reply

  27. Thanks for linking it up at Fine Craft Guild DIY Linky Party.

    Do join again with a great DIY tutorial next party, will ya? :-) It opens Wednesday and you can reach it from our homepage.

    Reply

  29. They came out great. I made a pillow case for my daughter with some ruffles. I need to take a picture and post it.

    Thanks for posting to the party.

    Have a great week.
    Cheri

    Reply

  31. Very earthy curtains! The color green can really refresh our tired eyes. And when you’ve got cool windows, you also must have curtains or other window treatments that will gild your room even more.

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  34. Hello! Would you mind if I share your blog with my facebook group? There’s a lot of folks that I think would really appreciate your content. Please let me know. Cheers

    Reply

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