Bathroom Curtains made with Ikea Fabric

Yesterday, I spent the afternoon with my sewing machine and made some new curtains for our upstairs bathrooms.  We bought these fabrics from Ikea:  Pink bird fabric for my bathroom and this bird/tree fabric for Paul's bathroom.  I am a brand new sewer and sewing machines have always scared me a little bit - this goes back to my days of middle school home economics classes, attempting to sew a pair of shorts with the sewing machine making awful sounds at me.  I am so new to sewing that I had to literally go step-by-step to wind the bobbin and threading the needle.  By the end of the afternoon, not only had I conquered basic sewing, but I have these awesome curtains made and hanging up in our bathrooms!

These are the curtains hanging in Paul's bathroom.  He has a bit of a tree theme going with the brown tree shower curtain, so these curtains match perfectly - trees and bird houses with a pale pink bird on each side.

The curtains themselves were very easy to make and would be a breeze for anyone who sews on a sewing machine.  You could probably even hand-stitch these, although it would take quite a while.  Each curtain has two panels, as you can see a bit more clearly in this photo:

Cut two pieces of fabric to the size of your window, allowing a bit of extra space around each side for the seam.  Put the fabric inside out, with the right sides facing each other.  Stitch around the entire outside of the fabric on the sewing machine, leaving the top completely open, plus a few inches from the top going down each side (you need to leave an open space where you will slide the top of the curtain on the curtain rod).  Turn the fabric right side out.  On each fabric piece, sew the seams along the sides that were left unstitched previously (don't sew the two pieces of fabric together, just fold over the fabric to create a clean seam on each side).  Then, on each piece of fabric, make a clean seam by folding over the top of the fabric and sewing along each top side.  Then, sew both top pieces together.  Lastly, sew straight across the fabric from side to side, from the bottom of one opening to another.  Slip the curtains over the curtain rods and you're done!

These last photos show how the curtains look during the day with a bit of sun coming through the window.  My bathroom with the pink curtains has a wonderful dark pink glow to it now!