Take It From The Pros – View Along The Way { DIY Curtains }

What is it with bathroom shower curtains? A single flimsy piece of material with a lovely design should be easy to find, and more importantly inexpensive, right? Last week I flew excitedly to Kohls armed with a $10 off coupon, prepared to purchase a pretty new shower curtain! Much to my shock and dismay my ideal shower curtains have a less than perfect price, and I must say it was a bit traumatic. I kid you not, $39.99 for one shower curtain! I sat there in the bath aisle at Kohls trying to wrap my brain around this number…ummmm yeah, not happening. A moment later I hear a lady from the aisle over exclaim “$40 for a shower curtain! Are they stink’in crazy??”. Heh heh, at least I’m not the only one who thought that price was outrageous. 
Thankfully I ran across a fantastic curtain tutorial by View Along The Way, and I may have just hatched either a brilliant or ridonculous plan to use Kelly’s tutorial to make a shower curtain!
But wait, I have even better news…
Kelly from View Along The Way is here on the blog today answering a few question! Plus she was so sweet to stand by ready to give me any necessary aid while I executed her curtain tutorial! 

Taking It From The Pros
You know me, I am not a “read-the-directions” or “find a tutorial” type of gal…but I’m trying to be! I am learning that sometimes the best solution to a problem is to seek help from the pros.
I love that Kelly’s curtain tutorial  isn’t impossible for the non-sew’er to follow! *chuckle* I borrowed a slew of books I didn’t understand, then read another slew of tutorials to try and figure out if I could even make a shower curtain, so I’m particularly happy that her tutorial was in plain English!

Look how gorgeous her nursery curtains are! You can see why they made the perfect inspiration right?

The Project
Ok, now click here to open Kelly’s tutorial in another window…you might want to read it before seeing how mine turned out. It will better help you understand what I did next…

I carefully followed Kelly’s tutorial with only three tiny alterations:
1. I used two flat twin sheets as my backing (since these will be shower curtains and don’t need blackout lining). This meant I could skip hemming the curtain back (happy lazy me), since it was already hemmed. In addition, I saved a little money on backing and used some old off-white sheets that had a couple small but unfortunate bleach spots. Eh, at least now they have new life!

2. Instead of a straight seam across the bottom of my curtain front, I hemmed the bottom like this before putting the front and back panels together. This way the stitching is barely visible at the front, and the majority of the stitching is at the back. (Back is shown below) >> 

3. I tucked the ribbon used for the back tabs under before sewing them…because apparently I’m a sucker for pretty seams (or for punishment!).

Well, what do you think? I applied the basic principles of curtain hanging that Kelly advises to my shower curtains. I hung them much higher up, and I think they are so much more elegant than a traditional shower curtain would have ever been! 

I sewed these puppies as two curtain panels so that I could choose to throw them both open from the middle. What can I say? I guess I just prefer my shower curtains to act like real curtains!! *wink*

Are you wondering about the liner? Easy peasy! You can add back tabs to your shower curtains and hang both curtains back-to-back (which I did!), or if you’re done with sewing for a while you can still hang your liner as usual from the inside (as shown below)…just flip those curtain hooks around!

A Little Chat With Kelly

Ursula: Your nursery curtains have this absolutely perfect billow at the bottom *drool*, what factors create that elegant feel and how can we recreate it?