17.6.13

Easy Easy EASY DIY Drapes


How easy?  Like, "Rizzo from Grease" Easy! Yeesh, that was a bad joke.

Note: I hope you all had a great Father's Day weekend.  This post has been nearly ready to publish for a month.  All that we needed to do was mount the holdback but they sat in a drawer while we worked on other things.  This is a perfect example of how I'm hoping this blog helps to serve as a kick in the pants to push us to complete tasks!

Our weekend was eventful and good.  We managed to spend an hour at "Funderland" (aka Canada's Wonderland) yesterday... What else would we be doing on a rainy Sunday? :P  We also enjoyed a friend's wedding and we figured out what to do with the proceeds from our latest Craigslist Score.  Updates soon!

You'll remember from my earlier post that we found some cheap sheers at Ikea but I wanted to sew some nicer drapes.


While at Ikea, I bought an inexpensive sewing machine.  I know you're thinking: Ikea makes a sewing machine?  I was as shocked as you!  Does it also make meatballs?  No... but that would be AMAZING! 

I have never actually used a sewing machine and I think I threw out the instructions.  Luckily, they're pretty easy to figure out if you give some thought to how they actually work.

I found a rich purple taffeta on Fabric.com on sale for $3.48 per yard.  I love the idea of purple as a bedroom accent colour so I purchased some and it was delivered within two days!  I whipped up these simple drapes in about an hour on Friday night.



I'd apologize in advance for the kindergarten nature of these diagrams but I'm going to pretend that it's a deliberate way for me to reflect the mindnumbing simplicity of this project.  Seriously, a well-trained animal could do this.  By the way, "well-trained" means Barkley's automatically excluded!

You start with a rectangular piece of fabric.




Sew the side seams and a quick seam at the top.

Fold the top over (making sure to keep all seams on the same side) to provide room for the curtain rod.  Leave more than enough space so it's not a tight squeeze.  The blue line is the fold.

Test that the curtain rod fits.  Then, sew your last seam. (purple line)  I want to laugh looking at these pictures because even my photoshop seams aren't straight.  Oh well!

I hung the curtains before marking and sewing the bottom seam.  I didn't bother with a diagram for that. 

I also found these antique brass curtain holdbacks on eBay for under $14 for the pair.


Here's the finished product:



Now, my sewing's not perfect but for the price, I think they're fabulous!  I call them Betty and Don Draper. #MadMen #FakeHashTags :)

While we're on the subject of affordable curtains, my friend Jo gave us some of her daughter's old curtains for one of our other bedrooms. 


So lacy and pretty, right?  I think they'll be perfect for a nursery... one day in the (fairly distant) future!
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