Seriously, they are so ugly. They give the living room and the bedroom (the only two rooms with windows) a terrible feeling. Especially since they're that sort of dingy yellowish color, like they used to be white back in the 70s but aren't any more... gross.
Earlier in the summer, Jo-Ann's had all their home decore fabric at 50% off, so I decided to do a little improving. I bought a pattern (McCall 5828) and yards and yards and yards of fabric. (It takes way more fabric than you think to make curtains.) I made the ones featured in the main picture, but I didn't make them go down to the floor. Here is my interpretation.
You can see the covered buttons on the tabs holding the curtains to the curtain rods. Here's the same curtains, but a little shorter, on the bedroom window.
The hardest part of the whole process was adding the trim that separates the cream from the purple. I finally figured out that I could do it using the zipper-foot of my sewing machine and stitching close to the ridge of the trim.
This isn't so much a traditional sewing pattern as it is a worksheet for calculating how to make your own curtains. You have to measure the window, then add some, then divide, then subtract, cut to X length... etc. I bought some special "green" curtain lining that is supposed to reduce energy waste by keeping cool air in in the summer and warm air in in the winter. It's cut just an inch or so smaller than the curtains and sewn to the back of the curtain along the top edge only so that it can trap air between it at the actual curtain. Hopeful it works, it was a bit spendy...
I also made the shears. They were very easy, just a lot of straight seams then a pocket at the top to hold the rod. The hardest part was finding double-rodded curtain rods. Fred Meyer had some, but only in one style... at least it was a pretty nice style. Plain, but nice.
Overall, I'm so much happier with the whole feel of my apartment now that these are up. I'm pretty proud of them.
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