Easy “Custom” Curtains

I was originally planning on making all the bedding and curtains for the nursery, but being pregnant has made me a little tired and lazy (plus I want to concentrate on the fun items, like the quilt and a bird mobile).  I am VERY slowly working on the quilt (which will probably serve as a wall hanging until the baby is old enough to use it) and I was going to make matching sheets, bumper and crib skirt, but I ended up winning bedding that matches quite well.  Thank you Ellen DeGeneres!

The only thing left were the curtains and I knew I didn’t want them to be overly patterned.  I thought it would look too busy.  Instead of making them from scratch, I decided to save time and money by purchasing navy sailcloth curtains to use as a base and simply adding the main nursery fabric to them (Alexander Henry’s 2D zoo).

Here’s how my “custom” curtains turned out:

I simply measured the width between the top and bottom hem stitching on the valance (8.5″) and cut my 2D Zoo fabric 1″ wider.  I had to piece the 2D Zoo fabric to create a long enough strip, but the pattern is pretty busy, so I did not worry about matching it.  I then folded the top and bottom edge under 1/2″ and pinned it to the valance using the existing stitching line on the hems as a guide.  I top stitched the valance on my sewing machine, but if you don’t own a sewing machine, you could hand stitch it on.  Just make sure everything is ironed nicely beforehand, so that the patterned fabric lays nicely on the solid valance.

I may also add a wide strip of the 2D zoo to the bottom of each curtain panel in the same fashion. I want to finish the room first and see if the bottom will even be noticeable.

This took me under an hour to sew and cotton curtains from Target are so cheap, that it was much more cost efficient than buying navy fabric.