Patchwork Curtain

After weeks of scrappy quilt-making, I needed to take a detour and make a different kind of project - a patchwork curtain. We have a space in our home that needed a bit of a cover. Nothing fancy, yet something we wouldn't mind looking at when we were in that space.

The flooring in that space is a bit old-fashioned and worn, but we're working with what we have. So to coordinate as best as possible, I pulled a handful of solid neutrals - Kona Snow, Bone, Cream, and others that remain unidentified.

There were a coupe of tutorials I glanced at before starting:

• DIY Projects - Patchwork Curtain from the Fabric Store
• How to Sew a Flat Felled Seam by Jennifer Wiese of Workroom Social

From them, I gleaned that I should use a 5/8" seam allowance to begin my flat-felled seams, and that the 'right' side would be the side that showed two rows of stitching, not just one. For all the stitching, bobbin and top, I used Aurifil 50wt 2000 [beige].

At the start, I knew that for our 30" opening, I would need the total curtain width to be 45"-60" for a standard look. As I began sewing, I thought 45" would be fine, but once I got that far, I changed my mind and decided to go wider, to 60". At first I thought that meant that I needed to order some fabric, as I'd worked through all my neutrals. But luckily, I found a yard of Kona Putty that I could borrow from my BOM project, which was perfect with the odds and ends I had. I figured that the best way to add the extra width was to add a narrow panel on either side, each 8" wide. And then, wouldn't you know, I decided to make the curtain just a tad longer by adding a short width of Dear Stella Dash Flow in Fennel along the bottom. THEN it was time for hemming. After unsuccessfully figuring out how to do a rolled hem on my machine, I just folded over 1/4" twice for the sides and bottom hem and stitched that down.

I'd found another good tutorial mid-stream - How to Sew Patchwork Curtains by Rachel LaBour @stitchedincolor, and she suggested that 5" tabs 1" wide work well. Due to what I had on hand, I cut fabric 2.5" wide, then folded and pressed like double-fold bias tape. Once sewn along both sides, they were about .75" wide. Rachel suggested placing tabs approximately every 4.5”, so I made 13 of them using a variety of my fabric scraps, and followed her suggestion. She also explained how to insert and secure the tabs in the top hem, and that was easily done. In retrospect, I think I'd make the tabs longer, but for this project, they look and serve well enough.

So with the addition of the hanging loops, my curtain is very nearly 90" tall x 60" wide. Though I wondered at times if I had enough fabric to make it, I barely did, though I definitely need to restock all of these colors. I'd often admired similar patchwork curtains, and though many of them were made of prettier, lighter-weight fabrics, I'm glad to have sewn through the process with this project, and am quite happy with the result.