Curtains.

Hi!

Been busy these past days. School is starting next week and I'm making sure I enjoy the last days of my vacations. Also, my hubby's b-day was this past Wednesday so I got a little caught up in that. I've been hitting the gym pretty constantly also, so that leaves me with less time to sit down and blog. Anyhow, I'm here to talk about something specific that I learned the hard way a while ago.

You might not believe it but sewing, in the act itself, is the easiest thing in the world. You literally sit down on your machine, press the pedal and the needle works the magic all by itself! Its the prepping stages of sewing that often are more intimidating and harder than the act itself.

I'm here today to talk about a particular prepping stage that can make your life way much easier when you sit down on your machine: Ironing. Ironing the fabric has a lot of benefits. It helps bind the fibers and prevent fraying on the edges that still need seams, but more importantly, when you iron you set clear, visible guidelines for yourself.

In this particular project, I was making a simple rectangular curtain panel out of a flat sheet.

I bought this flat sheet for mistake. I actually wanted the fitted sheet for my bed. I never got around to taking it back to the store and just left it around my crafting room to use it for something else.

So the first step was just washing and drying the fabric for it to do the necessary shrinking (it didn't occur, at least I didn't see it). It's always good to be cautious because we wouldn't want to cut the fabric before it shrinks (if it does), that would render it useless. After you're done with the washing, drying and cutting, iron the whole thing flat.

Please ignore the fabric on the floor and the mess on the background... Lol. In this particular case, I didn't have to sew all the borders of the rectangle because I cut my fabric in half and it had the original seams to it. I proceeded then to shape and iron the unsewn borders to sew a simple hem.

To do this, first lay your fabric flat and iron it thoroughly.

After you have ironed it flat, fold the border twice so the raw edge stays inside of the hem. Another great nail polish color right?!

 After you have folded, secure the hem in place with pins or safety pins whichever is results more comfortable. I use regular pins because after I iron I usually take them out quickly.

Iron the fabric and pin where you think its necessary.

I did the same procedure with all the borders I wanted to sew, except for the border on the top. Remember, I am making curtains so I need to sew an aperture for the curtain rod to fit in.

I started by folding a sleeve three inches wide: two for the aperture for the rod and an extra one which I'm gonna fold inwards so the fabric doesn't fray.

It doesn't necessarily have to be this size. You can adapt it to the width of your curtain rod. In my case, the rectangular panels were pretty big, so I could afford to lose three inches of length.

After you have finished folding, pin the fabric in its place and iron it. Remove the extra pins only leaving the ones that are necessary or important.

And so, after a while sewing in the machine, this is the final product. Please ignore the gym bags... Lol.

From the fabric I had left, I cut and iron four straps and sewed them to the wrong side of each side hem.

So, there you have it! Ironing and how to sew a simple curtain. This same skill set you can use to sew more adorned curtains or other window treatments. For now, I just like to keep these simple.

I hope you enjoyed this simple tutorial. I'll be back for more later on.
Natz.