Looks Like It's Curtains For Me...

So, it’s summer. For some people that means beach days and cute sundresses, and carefree nights. For me it means sweltering, sweating, and generally hating everything. Summer makes me cranky, especially in LA where “it’s a dry heat” doesn’t really mean anything. 100 degrees is still hot. A couple of entries ago I detailed my fight with gallery glue in an attempt to make a stained glass-esque covering for my window. (Check out that entry here!) Well, the faux stained glass was doing its job but I still needed something to cover the rest of the window and I wasn’t about to mess with painting again. So I decided on what, I felt, was a logical solution. I had a sewing machine. I was going to make a curtain. How hard could it really be, right?

Could I actually do this, or would it be curtains for yours truly?

Supplies

*Fabric (way to calculate amount below, courtesy of my mom)

*Coordinating thread

*Sewing machine

Sounds super easy, right? Let’s take a look.

Thanks for the vote of confidence, Bey.

I knew better than to go it alone. I used this tutorial from Hey, Let’s Make Stuff as a guide. Unfortunately, a guide can only take you so far. You actually have to do the work yourself.

Step One

Start out by knowing how much fabric you need. The original tutorial called for floor length curtains. However, since I never make anything easy on myself I didn’t actually need curtains that covered my whole window. Just the portion above the air conditioner. So, naturally, I turned to the person with all the answers: my mom.

Her formula was simple sounding: Length times two, plus width times two divided by 36.  Well, it sounded simple until I actually had to do it. Math is not my strong suit...okay, that’s an understatement. I’m really freaking bad at math.

Thanks, Siri

I finally worked it out and went to Jo-Ann Fabrics armed with my new knowledge. I selected the fabric that I felt most resembled the curtains that were already on my window (I wanted to keep a sense of symmetry) and marched to the fabric cutting counter where I told the nice lady that I needed five yards of fabric, please.

She gave me a skeptical look. “Are you sure?”

“Yup,” I said. “That’s what my mom said.”

“Okay, well, what are you making?”

“A curtain,” I told her.

“Hmm, well, most fabric is 60 inches in width, but this one is 90 inches. Do you still want five yards?”

Well...bollocks. This certainly threw a wrench into my well thought you and calculated plan. And I felt weird calling my mom in the middle of a fabric store. I’m supposed to be grown, after all. I could do this.

“What do you think?” I finally asked the fabric counter lady.

She must have sensed my helplessness, because she smiled and said “I think four yards should do it.”

In case you were wondering, four yards is still a TON of fabric. My husband took one look at it and said “You could make curtains for every window in this house with all of that!” He was exaggerating, but not by much.

Here I am modeling my fabric toga.

I went a little overboard.

So I clearly had plenty of fabric. That’s good, right? Well, except for the fact that it made step two a lot harder.

Step Two

Cut the fabric

How could something as basic as cutting some fabric fill me with such terror? I think it goes back to the fact that I’ve never been a good cutter. I just can’t cut straight. They mentioned it to my mom when I was in kindergarten and suggested that I might need remedial help. Way to boost my self esteem, school. Whatever. I have many other talents. And frankly, it didn’t matter if my cuts were a touch messy as I was going to be hemming the fabric anyway. Still, my mom always advised to say a Hail Mary before cutting fabric and it seemed like a good idea.

In addition to my less than stellar cutting talents, I also had to deal with the fact that I had enough fabric to cover a good chunk of my apartment. The swath of future curtain barely fit on my living room floor, forget about putting it on my kitchen table. So I did what any normal, rational person would do: I crawled around on my floor to cut the fabric.

Don’t worry, I had help.

Even with the help of the greatest pug in the world, I still had a hell of a time cutting this fabric. I marked where I wanted to cut with a water soluble pen, which seemed like a good idea except that I kept losing my marks. My blue lines and stars got lost in the fabric. My floor got lost in the fabric. My scissors got lost in the fabric. I got lost in the damn fabric. Finally my husband held it up so I could see where I had marked and we could get this show on the road.

Step Three

Hemming and hawing. I went with a one inch hem on each side because I don’t trust myself to sew in a straight line. My slightly interesting cuts made pinning down a one inch hem a little more complicated than it probably needed to be but I managed to do it. Once I had the hems pinned down, I used my iron to press them down.

I never understood the logic behind this until I forgot to do it. Always iron your hems before sewing, dear reader. You won’t like the results if you don’t. Trust me.

Once your hems are ironed and pinned, it’s time to head over to the sewing machine. Ingrid (the name I have given to my Swedish sewing machine) and I have been getting along better lately, but I was still nervous about undertaking so many inches of sewing. Think of all the things that could go wrong! All of the potential for failure!

And did things go wrong? Well, sure they did. It wouldn’t be me if everything went right. And, once again, it was my left handedness that got me into trouble. I’m telling you, the world is made for right handed people. As I previously stated, I had a metric frakton of fabric and since I tend to use my dominant hand to craft I wound up being on the “wrong” side of the machine. I managed to get everything through, and sewn relatively straight but I looked ridiculous doing it.

Pro tip: the wine is the most important part of any craft project

Step Four

Now that you have your side hems sewn up, it’s time to focus on the top and the bottom. These were a lot easier for me, for the simple reason that they were bigger and, thus, allowed more room for error.

And by "error" I mean "crooked stitches"

I used an extremely scientific method for measuring the size of the top and bottom hems for my curtain: I held the curtain up to the window and pinned it where I wanted it to fall. I know. It’s super complicated. You can do it, though. I have faith in you. Don’t forget to leave an extra inch or so at the top and bottom of your curtains so you can fold it over and sew it down to create a nice smooth look. You know, one that doesn’t look like you borrowed Leatherface’s chainsaw to cut the material. Not that mine did. No siree.

Step Five

It’s time to sew the rod pocket, which is nowhere near as filthy as it sounds. You just need to create a place for your curtain to hang. I have a super thin IKEA rod, so I didn’t need a lot of space. I gave myself a two inch pocket because, as you know by now, I always leave room for error. Once you decide the right size for your pocket, sew a seam above the one you’ve already sewed. Et voila!

Step Six

Hang that curtain!  Seriously, that’s it. We’re done here.

Is it a perfect fix? Well, no. The perfect fix would have been for my landlord to actually fit our windows with blinds that allowed for an air conditioner. Does it serve its purpose? Absolutely. The window is covered, the A/C is on, and it looks a lot better than an old bedsheet.

Especially from the outside. And we all know that it’s what’s on the outside that counts. Wait..that doesn’t sound right.  Whatever. It’s 106 degrees in LA today. I’m just trying not to melt.