Making my own curtains

[Anonymous]

We recently bought a house with 20+ windows which all need blinds or curtains. The estimate for blinds came in at $7000, which is just not happening. So I am thinking of sewing curtains myself, especially for the bedrooms.

I am a novice/intermediate sewer-- have made a variety of quilts and other projects. Simple curtains seem like a project I could tackle, but I'm having trouble figuring out a few elements. I like the idea of making my own curtains, so I have more fabric options.

Has anyone done this themselves? Any video tutorials you recommend? I plan to line the bedroom curtains with blackout fabric.

I would prefer to use grommets rather than sewing tabs, because I prefer the look of grommets, but can't seem to find grommet equipment.

Any pointers?

Thanks in advance!

[Anonymous]

Go to tjmaxx, Marshall's or homegoods and get curtains there. Excellent deals. If you want to sew a backing on them you can do that to make them thicker but it's still cheaper. For blinds go to bed bath and beyond, use the coupons and get the honeycomb shades. Easy to install.

[Anonymous]

Ikea curtains are way cheaper. You'll have to hem them to fit your windows (and maybe add black out fabric to some) but they have some styles with grommets. Lots of colors and patterns. Fabric isn't going to be cheap for this, I'd price it out before making them yourself.

[Anonymous]

Hi, OP here, Thanks. I have priced fabric and also the window hardware. I figure I can do the whole house for $2000, which is fine and a huge savings over the whole house blinds. Like I mentioned I like the ability to choose from a wide variety of fabrics, so I don't want to go to Ikea etc. I've ordered some fabric already for some of the windows and will order fabric for other rooms after I evaluate some samples. I was mostly looking for pointers on how to do it, rather than whether to. I do have some Ikea curtains already which I'm considering altering. Thanks!

[Anonymous]

Back when I was single and a new homeowner, I make my own pole-top curtains using inexpensive bedsheets and they looked pretty nice. I even used a white bedsheet as a liner so there were two layers in front of the window. I made matching tiebacks that could pull back one or both layers of the curtains. It was very easy since everything is a rectangle. The guide for pole-top curtains is to make the width 2.5-3 times the width of the window so they bunch up nicely on the pole. I don't have a website to show you but it was wildly easy to do. The sheets I used were literally off the clearance rack and it's not like you need 400-count sheets for curtains.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Back when I was single and a new homeowner, I make my own pole-top curtains using inexpensive bedsheets and they looked pretty nice. I even used a white bedsheet as a liner so there were two layers in front of the window. I made matching tiebacks that could pull back one or both layers of the curtains. It was very easy since everything is a rectangle. The guide for pole-top curtains is to make the width 2.5-3 times the width of the window so they bunch up nicely on the pole. I don't have a website to show you but it was wildly easy to do. The sheets I used were literally off the clearance rack and it's not like you need 400-count sheets for curtains.

PP here. Here's a website that has an easy curtain tutorial. Back when I made these curtains, I just made up my own thing. It was similar to what's in the tutorial but I just made one long rod pocket a couple inches below the top and the liner was only attached to the printed fabric at the top so I could tie back one or both layers.
http://www.viewalongtheway.com/2012/06/tutorial-how-to-sew-lined-back-tab-curtains-drapes-curtain-panels-whatever/

[Anonymous]

Did you price the most expensive blinds on Earth and add in the cost of someone installing them because for $7000 you could have shutters. And not to be mean but didn't you figure window costs into your house bid ? Because the only home I bought blinds for was my new never lived in house. My other homes came with blinds and my sold homes we had to leave the blinds.

I bought from Wayfair. Grommet room darkening insulated drapes. After figuring out supplies and time it took to make, it came out cheaper just to buy.

I take it you haven't priced curtain rods ? That's more expensive than blinds.

[Anonymous]

You might be surprised at how much that fabric would cost for that many windows, especially drapery quality fabric. Instead of custom blinds, check out the cut-in-store faux plantation blinds at Home Depot or Lowe's. They look really nice in a wide variety of style homes and are very inexpensive. Also curtains won't give you the ability to filter light in degrees and unless you add black out liners ($$$) they won't even block that much light. The Faux plantation blinds are between $25-65 per window depending on size. Make sure you remove the extra slats at the bottom!

[Anonymous]

OP here. Thanks for the tutorial! I'll look at it in more detail tonight. There are probably several good ways of making curtains. I like the blind tab option.

My kids picked out this fabric and a coordinating one for their room:
https://www.fabric.com/buy/0362597/hgtv-home-spin-off-slub-pool?cm_vc=756b1813-cbc1-43b3-84bd-29889bf8fb7b. The fabric cost about $150 (including the blackout liner fabric) for the room, which already has curtain rods for two of the windows. I'll have to buy one more rod, which I've priced at about $50 from Lowes. By contrast, the estimate from Next Day Blinds was $1,625 for cordless blackout blinds for that room alone.

We did have a budget for window coverings -- $2000 to $3000 for the house. Hence the need to get creative. There are no window coverings in the house now.

I may try to get additional estimates for blinds from other companies, but I'm excited by the idea of making curtains.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We recently bought a house with 20+ windows which all need blinds or curtains. The estimate for blinds came in at $7000, which is just not happening. So I am thinking of sewing curtains myself, especially for the bedrooms.

I am a novice/intermediate sewer-- have made a variety of quilts and other projects. Simple curtains seem like a project I could tackle, but I'm having trouble figuring out a few elements. I like the idea of making my own curtains, so I have more fabric options.

Has anyone done this themselves? Any video tutorials you recommend? I plan to line the bedroom curtains with blackout fabric.

I would prefer to use grommets rather than sewing tabs, because I prefer the look of grommets, but can't seem to find grommet equipment.

Any pointers?

Thanks in advance!

If you're in the DC area, G Street Fabrics has sewing classes and some of them cover window treatments. Sometimes its helpful to do it once with an experienced person right there to guide you, then you can do the rest. The classes aren't too expensive.

http://gstreetfabrics.com/classes/falls-churchs-md/dress-your-windows-with-valances.html?options=cart

[Anonymous]

For the less important windows, consider shades. HD or Lowes will cut to size, and it will cost about $10. These are super easy to cover with fabric using spray adhesive, and can look very nice. No hardware costs as the fasteners are included with the shades. This has been mentioned here before on this forum--dsearch on shades for old discussions.

[Anonymous]

I paid 10k, you need to figure this in when you buy a house, duh.

[Anonymous]

Hi, OP. I was a novice-intermediate sewer, and made curtains for a few rooms in our new house, including grommet curtains for my kids' rooms. Like you, I made the curtains instead of getting ikea or other cheap ones because I wanted to pick the fabric.

For the kids rooms, I sewed in blackout liner as well. I bought that fabric at joanns.

Look up a few tutorials online- I don't have handy the ones I used. Definitely be as careful as possible during the measuring and cutting phase. The hardest part for me was keeping the fabrics from puckering as I was sewing the long seams along the side. I just tried to iron and pin very, very carefully and go very, very slowly. I found that it was easiest to wwork with straight repeating patterns like you have, because you can use the pattern as a reference point.

The grommets for my kids' curtains were easy, if you're ok with plastic ones. They sell them on amazon. The packages come with a pattern to trace a circle on the fabric. Then you cut on that line, and snap the two halves of the grommet together.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We recently bought a house with 20+ windows which all need blinds or curtains. The estimate for blinds came in at $7000, which is just not happening. So I am thinking of sewing curtains myself, especially for the bedrooms.

I am a novice/intermediate sewer-- have made a variety of quilts and other projects. Simple curtains seem like a project I could tackle, but I'm having trouble figuring out a few elements. I like the idea of making my own curtains, so I have more fabric options.

Has anyone done this themselves? Any video tutorials you recommend? I plan to line the bedroom curtains with blackout fabric.

I would prefer to use grommets rather than sewing tabs, because I prefer the look of grommets, but can't seem to find grommet equipment.

Any pointers?

Thanks in advance!

If you're in the DC area, G Street Fabrics has sewing classes and some of them cover window treatments. Sometimes its helpful to do it once with an experienced person right there to guide you, then you can do the rest. The classes aren't too expensive.

http://gstreetfabrics.com/classes/falls-churchs-md/dress-your-windows-with-valances.html?options=cart

For my first house, that's exactly what I did. It was fun learning to sew and getting custom drapery treatments for a fraction of the price. Yes, fabric can be expensive. I think people fail to understand that when they complain about the cost of drapery. It was also great to have an adult class to get out of the house for once a week.

OP---this is your house. You should be able to decorate it the way you want. What I realized when I took the G Street class is how much of a lost art home ec is in the schools. It's sad that kids today aren't taught the basics of life--sewing, cooking, how to use a hammer and nail. Anyway, after taking the curtain class, I went on to take a pillow and duvet class. Now that I have the skills whenever I want or my kids want to change out the decor, we just do...its fun and easy.

Good luck and don't get Ikea curtains if that's not what you want.

[Anonymous]

PP again. I know I used this tutorial, particularly for determining how much fabric I needed and how wide to make the hems.

http://www.designsponge.com/2010/02/sewing-101-curtains.html

And this is tutorial for making lined curtains, using a basic bedsheet as lining.

http://www.houseofhepworths.com/2011/10/12/how-to-make-professional-lined-curtain-panels/

This tutorial is a little more in depth, and explains how to do mitered corners.

http://midwestmagnolia.com/2011/06/sew-lined-panel-drapes/