Friday, April 26, 2013

Home Made Back Tab Curtains

Well I made 'em!  My west facing Oklahoma windows are threatening to heat up my home this summer...and give my air conditioner a run for MY money!  So I set out to sew my first set of back-tab curtain panels.

So onto Pinterest I went and I found lots of great ladies who had conquered this little "to-do".  I used the following pages as my inspiration/education resources: View Along the Way and Ana White . If you want to sew some of these for yourself...just get your notebook, tape measure and calculator...and cruise Pintrest for some great ideas.....

I won't go into great detail here.  Make yourself some sketches...decide how big your hems are gonna be..... I used a double 3 inch for the bottom and a 2 inch/ 4 inch for the top hem.

But I would mention this:  If you are new to sewing it will serve you well to remember the standard fabric widths.  Fabric is typically sold on bolts that come in standard widths.  For example, fabric on a bolt is usually folded in half...with right sides together...and on the end of the bolt you will see 44/45.  That means when you unfold the fabric it will be about 44-45 inches wide.  The big single ply rolls that are alway so mesmerizing to wander through....those are 54 inches wide.  You may occasionally find 35/36 width fabric...but just remember 44/45 and 54.  A good panel can be made with 44/45 inch fabric...  and I always buy an extra yard of fabric......cause I love fabric!

For a set of 2 panels (95 inches in length) for a standard window, I used 3 yards for each panel of 44/45" width decorator fabric. I asked the clerk to cut 3 pieces: 2 pieces of 3 yards each and 1 piece of 1 yard.  I got great advice from my good friend "Verna Lee"--she helped me decide to go with this beautiful "Filigree Butter" paisley print.  Love it!


Richloom Filligree Butter
I did line these panels with some black-out curtain liner...(trying to keep that hot sun out!) I bought 54" wide liner fabric...but it was much wider than I needed...I felt like I wasted alot..but it is what it is...

I used some 1/2" Electrical Metal Tubing (EMT) as my curtain rod.  I used a pipe cutter to customize the length and then sprayed with flat black spray paint.  I didn't even prime it since I'm not using rings.  And for an retro-industrial look I used some old door knobs as the finials.  They look nice and were pretty cheap! Enjoy the pics.

The EMT Coupler and the old door knob (pre-paint).

The 1/2" EMT I used as a curtain rod. (and the pipe cutter and a little yellow gripper I used to help twist the pipe) (Bad hands.)
The 5 inch strip that becomes the back tabs. Just folded in half and stiched.

The back tabs are 6 inches long.
Turned inside out....folded up 1 inch on each end and pressed/pinned.
All the back tabs....ready to go.
The black out liner...with a double 2 inch hem.
The finished product.

Oh...how lovely.  It might even be worth unpacking all my boxes I've been living out of for the last few months.

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