Sewing Basic Panel Curtains

This past week I got productive and finally got around to making some new curtains for my dining room. Despite having never sewed curtains before, I managed to do a good job and the panels are actually the same length and seem to be hanging in there pretty well. Making basic panel curtains is incredibly easy and even if you don’t know a thing about sewing you should be able to do it without much trouble. Here are some basic instructions:

• First, figure out how much fabric you will need. This will vary by window but the basic sizes are 64″, 84″ and 96″. I chose to make 84″ curtains which required just a little over five yards of fabric. That’s a lot of fabric, so unless you have a killer discount you might want to save the $30 a yard patterns for something smaller.
• After you’ve got your fabric, fold it over lengthwise and cut it into two equal sections.
• Next comes the pinning. You’ll be doing a whole heck of a lot of this to make these panels. You don’t want the rough edges of your fabric to be showing on the finished product, so you’re going to want to fold them under on all your edges.
• Start with the long side hems first. On my curtains, I folded over 1/2 inch of fabric once to hide the rough edge and once more to make it look nice. Measure, fold, pin and repeat is the process here.
• Once you’ve finished the longer sides you can sew those puppies up.
• Then you’ll do the top and bottom edges. Again, you’re going to want to hide the rough edges, so fold over a half inch on each end to hide it and pin. You can see an example in the lower picture.
• After that, you’re going to go back and create a hem on the bottom that’s 2-3″‘s (depending on how you want it to look) and about 3″ on the top. Pin it all up and then sew along the edge of the fabric so you’ll create a little pocket for the curtain rod to go through.
• And that’s about it. When you make the second panel, make sure to compare the length of it while it’s only pinned to the other panel. That way you can adjust if something is off and ensure they’re the same length before sewing.

This project is an incredibly easy one and it only took a few hours. It’s also pretty economical, as the fabric cost less than $30. You can find pre-made curtains for that, but making ones to match your taste and style is more fun.