White Ruffled Curtains - The Perfect Curtain For a Nursery

Okay, things have been crazy busy, but I'm still working away, just not posting away. Blogging is more time consuming than you think. Especially when projects with photos are involved. But I've been up to a lot that I really want to share. A couple of weeks ago I made white ruffled curtains for a friend's nursery. I went to visit her a couple of weeks after she had her baby.  While visting, she showed me the nursery.  She had a big beautiful window in there and she told me she was looking at white ruffled curtains from Pottery Barn Kids.

                                                                 Pottery Barn Curtains

                                                               
She said that she didn't want to spend what they were selling them for.  They were $84 a panel and she needed two.  So, I said, "I'll make them for you!!!" I had never done it before, but I knew that I could.  So why not give it a shot?  Because I just don't have enough going on in my life, right? This just gave me the opportunity to learn something new, plus these were going to be a gift for the baby anyway.

I immediately began looking around at my options. I looked online for others that had made them and could give me some pointers. I quickly realized that to make the exact curtains that she wanted could be a lot more work than I wanted to do. So, I found these and ran them by my friend to see if she liked them as well. I thought these were a perfect compromise between the two.

She liked them, so I got to work! I decided to check out my trusty old friend, IKEA, first. I had purchased some great white ruffled ones from them years ago, and I thought they might have something similar. They didn't! But they did have white panels that would work. And they came two per pack, so I bought two packs. I decided I would use two panels as my base, and the others to make my ruffles! What a genius, right? It's like that Food Network show, "Semi-Home Cooked". They're semi-home made curtains! I'm not that dumb! I do know how to make life a little easier when I can.

A few things varied from the curtains I wanted to make and the ones that were already made. The width was much smaller on the ones that I wanted to make then the panels from IKEA. I considered making them a little smaller to match the others, but I thought it'd be too much extra work to do that, so I just left them the width they were.

You can make your ruffles any width you prefer but mine were about 7 inches or so.  And in order to cover your base, you'll need them to be double the width of the base curtain.  So, I laid my extra curtain out on the floor and used the length of the curtain to make my ruffles. Then I made a cut at the top every 7 inches.   Then I just began ripping them instead of cutting the strips.  Believe it or not, it's faster and much more accurate then cutting!

I made 4 ruffles per curtain.  So, after you've ripped your 8 strips of fabric, you'll want to hem the side that will be showing.  The side that will be sewn to the base doesn't need hemming.  However, you will need the top ruffle to be hemmed on both sides because you don't want an unfinished edge showing.

There are two ways you can do this part to make the ruffle.  You can set your sewing machine on your largest stich setting and sew all the way across your strip.  Then leave some extra thread so that you can pull it, which will cause it to ruffle.  For some reason this never works right for me.  Therefore, I just make basting stiches instead.  These are large stitches that you run through the top and then pull the thread to make the ruffle.  It's the same concept as using your machine but you have a larger stich. 

Once you've got your ruffle, pin your ruffle at the edge of each side of the curtain first, and then adjust your ruffles accordingly.  Once your ruffle is where you want it, pin the heck out of it to the base.   Use a lot of pins here.  I had to redo the first couple of ruffles that I did because I didn't realize that by doing this it would keep my ruffle straight while sewing it to the base. 

Then get busy sewing those suckers down.  You'll just over lap the bottom of each ruffle to cover the top of the previous ruffle.  This part wasn't easy.  But you can do it!  I promise.  It's time consuming, but you can do it!  I promise.  And when you've had enough, take a break!  Eventually, you'll want to just get it done, so you will.  It's really like The Little Engine That Could type of project!  You think you can, so you do! 

                                                                    See you can do it!!!

After I added all the ruffles, I hung one in my bedroom to see how they would look.  The height wasn't the same as the height of her window, and so the bottom ruffle is laying on the floor, but this gave me a good idea of what they'd look like. 

                                                                          And...
...here they are hung in the baby's room!  I had my friend take photos for me, and this is what she sent!  How cute.  And Baby Savannah's, big sister, Emma, adds just the perfect touch to the curtains!