New Kitchen Curtains and Easy Tablecloth Tutorial:

Yesterday was a productive stay-at-home day.  I made a couple of double batches of playdough, installed a Magic.Jack on our computer to have a phone number for my gifts business, and made new kitchen curtains and a tablecloth.

I had some fabric that I had bought a couple of years ago that looked pretty, and went with the rose and color theme of our living area.


This is what the kitchen window looked like before:

 Oregon Gifts of Comfort and Joy ~ Kathy Matthews

This is what it looks like now (sorry it is blurry ... I need to figure out what is going on with my camera):

 Oregon Gifts of Comfort and Joy ~ Kathy Matthews

This is how I made them.  To make  your curtains more ruffly than mine, measure your window across and then double it.  I was just using what I had on hand, so I took my piece of fabric, which was 1 1/2 yards long.  I folded it in half, and cut it down the middle.

 Oregon Gifts of Comfort and Joy ~ Kathy Matthews

Then I got out my little ironing board and heated up my iron.  Your iron can be your best friend when you are sewing.  It can even save you from having to use pins in many cases.

 Oregon Gifts of Comfort and Joy ~ Kathy Matthews

Next, I worked on finishing off the edges.  I do this before I sew anything.  I turned folded on the white line (where there was one) and ironed that down flat.

 Oregon Gifts of Comfort and Joy ~ Kathy Matthews

 Oregon Gifts of Comfort and Joy ~ Kathy Matthews

Then, I folded the fabric again and ironed some more.  I did this on three sides, but not along the top.  I could have though.

 Oregon Gifts of Comfort and Joy ~ Kathy Matthews

It is just that along the top, I folded it down more, around three inches.

 Oregon Gifts of Comfort and Joy ~ Kathy Matthews

Then I sewed around the edges, except for the top.

 Oregon Gifts of Comfort and Joy ~ Kathy Matthews

After the edges were sewed, I attached the two pieces together.  Actually, you can make that the first step if you want to.  Just make sure that you do it before you sew the top down, or your curtain rod will not be able to go all the way through.

 Oregon Gifts of Comfort and Joy ~ Kathy Matthews

After you sew the pieces together, make sure that you get that iron out again and iron the seam open and flat.

 Oregon Gifts of Comfort and Joy ~ Kathy Matthews

Fold everything on the top back down along the line that you ironed before.

 Oregon Gifts of Comfort and Joy ~ Kathy Matthews

Judge how much of a top ruffle you want to have.  You will sew along the top and then along the bottom of that 3" fold; just make sure that you have room to put your curtain rod in the middle.

 Oregon Gifts of Comfort and Joy ~ Kathy Matthews

 Oregon Gifts of Comfort and Joy ~ Kathy Matthews

This is what it looked like when it was all done, before I hung it up.  The new curtain is as along as the couch, but that still isn't twice the width of the kitchen window.

 Oregon Gifts of Comfort and Joy ~ Kathy Matthews

Ti-da!  All done.  Much better, at least I think so.  On to the next project.  I had taken these portable drawers out of the guest room the other day.  I needed a place to hold my empty canning jars, and they fit the bill.

 Oregon Gifts of Comfort and Joy ~ Kathy Matthews

They really hold a lot!

 Oregon Gifts of Comfort and Joy ~ Kathy Matthews

I took the piece of fabric that goes with the new curtains and ironed/folded twice around all of the edges and then sewed them down.

 Oregon Gifts of Comfort and Joy ~ Kathy Matthews

Here is the nifty little tablecloth.  It will also fit on the kitchen island or the dining room table if they should ever need dressing up a bit.

Oregon Gifts of Comfort and Joy ~ Kathy Matthews

Notice our over the counter medicine center, along with Kleenex...all ready for cold and flu season!

This was an easy peasy project, and was fun to do.  It helped me get my feet wet and stirred a bit of motivation for more sewing to come.  If you have any questions, please let me know. 

God bless, 

Kathy M.

At Oregon Gifts of Comfort and Joy, if you miss a day, you miss a lot!  All material on this post is copyrighted and not for use without my permission ...Please click here to go to my home page and see what is happening in Mayberry today.