Striped Curtains {DIY}

One of the projects that really got me smiling in our updated eating area was the striped curtains. I'd fallen for stripes when they began to pop up all over the place. I wanted some of my own somewhere in the house. But anything worth buying was out of our price range. I went so far as to pin some other ways of getting stripes: painting, buying fabric and making it from scratch or using some other material. Well, I ended up going with the third option, but only after finding the best resource off one of my favorite blogs. I saw this post mentioning how Ashley from Under the Sycamore turned this duvet from Target into curtains. Perfect! I thought. I could totally do that! 

Off to Target to purchase this...then time for some quick math on the back...

Since the curtains had to cover our sliding glass door, the width of the duvet was perfect. I didn't have to mess with the measurements. The duvet's back made for a perfect lining. So I just cut the duvet in half, turned it inside out, and hemmed those two sides. By doing it that way, I had clean lines on both sides of each panel. 

I made the button end the top. The first stripe was gray. I folded that over to make a loop to slide the pole through. That took the length up by 6 inches, making it the perfect height for our door. I sewed on the front side of the curtain, along the line where the white stripe met the gray to get it as straight as possible.

Before...

After...

I truly am in LOVE with these $35 curtains. I may or may not spend extra time downstairs during the day just to be near them. Or invite more people over than necessary just for them to see them. ;)

Things I learned along the way...

...having a large space/table was super helpful. I used my mom's huge island to cut and pin...

...I'm still not a very straight-line kinda of sew-er-- W was the one who recommended sewing against the line where the two colors meet...

..the iron was my BEST friend with this project...

{linked up to Home Stories A to Z}