I could kill myself for starting this project when I am the worlds worst at measuring.

I found this amazing fabric that I posted about in my last posting. Except it was almost 30 dollars a yard. If I had made my curtains fully out of that with lining they would have been like $225 dollars. I wasn't sure I trusted myself with that much money attached to my sewing machine so I opted to take another route. My sister bought some panels from Pier One a couple of years ago for her office and when she got them home they weren't nearly long enough. Her mother in law is a sewer and came up with this for her:

So I copied.

I did not take pictures step by step of me making these and believe me, you could thank me because I'm sure I didn't do them the right way.

Here are some pictures of the transformation.

Here is the first curtain unhemmed and without trim. Basically I took 3 yards of burlap went around the outline of the burlap and ironed down an inch hem, then went back around and ironed that 1 inch hem folded over.

After that was completed. I took a piece of liner that was the same size and tucked the liner under the burlap hems and pinned. Then I sewed around the perimeter of the burlap piece.

Once that was completed I laid the burlap piece right side up and pinned the patterned fabric to the burlap so that its finished size would be 20" long. I sewed around the edge of the patterned fabric.

To create the pleats at the top of the curtain I literally just folded 3 pieces of the fabric to make a fan-like area on the curtain and pinned. I then sewed an "L" shape into the fabric. (If anyone has specific questions as to what this looks like up close I'll be glad to take pictures.)

Then I hemmed and added the trim like so:

Here's where the problem started. I have to make another curtain JUST like the first one. HAHA.

After measuring and measuring and pinning it still turned out to be wrong. To the naked eye I rigged it to be so-so, but when you pull out your yard stick you can blatantly see that the first curtain's patterned fabric area is longer than the second's.

So If you look you will notice that at first the curtain on the right was too long, then I over corrected and now its a smidge too short. I'm throwing my hands up and giving myself an A for effort because I cannot sew anymore this week. My back is killing me and I'm seriously considering cleaning out my only guest room and turning it into our "hobby room". I don't think I can sew one more thing at my coffee table.

-Caren