Door Curtains

I was very happy with how the curtains turned out for the east window, so I jumped right into making the panels for the back door.  That enthusiasm did not stick around for the whole project.

Nothing was tricky or hard, it was just all so boring.

 

 Husband has his computer in the dining room area, and I had promised I'd make curtains that blocked the light better than the pink striped curtains.  I figured the fact that the plaid fabric here is heavier than the pink striped fabric had been would block more light, and then I also decided to line them.

And add the faux valances.  It is really dark in there now.

Granted, it might have been a bit darker if I had lined the faux valances, but I didn't have enough of the sheet fabric to do that.  I finished the curved edges with some bias tape that I'd salvaged off of something else (possibly gathered eyelet) years ago.  Yes, I can very much make bias tape myself, but I didn't want to.

The faux valances are cut the full width of the large floral, then gathered to fit the width of the plaid panels, which is half the width of the plaid fabric.  The ruffle at the top of the curtain panels is a separate strip of fabric, folded and gathered to fit the panel width.  The seam allowances of everything is hidden inside the rod pocket made from a strip of the small floral poplin.  I had considered sewing the lower edge of the rod pocket through all layers, but I knew that would provide many opportunities for things to go wrong.  I was at the point in this project where I just wanted to be done, so I did not want to deal with that.

I ended up awkwardly moving the faux valance out of the way and stitching the rod pocket from the back, through just the lining and plaid fabric.  There were opportunities for things to go wrong but not as many, and nothing did.

All that was left was to measure the length from the top of the upper rod pocket to the bottom of the plaid/lining combo, and trim it to the right length to sew on the lower rod pocket.

Except.

It turned out the length from the top of the upper pocket rod to the bottom of the plaid/lining was exactly the length it needed to be when finished.  Great.

So I thought a while and ended up making extra wide poplin strips, sewing them to the back a half inch from the lower edge, then flipped them around to the front and edge stitched them in place (much like I do button shirt bands.)  I hadn't expected any of the poplin to be visible on these curtains, but it's not a problem that it is.

 

Since it's stretch poplin, and since I did not finish the edges of anything inside the rod pockets, the elastic threads kept grabbing the curtain rod and not wanting to let it pass through--even Husband tried to help, and got vexed by how strong the resistance was.  We eventually finagled everything and yay maybe I won't think about making curtains again for a very long time (although I still had one more window to treat in this project.)