Ruffle Curtains

In decorating Lillian's room for her arrival, we decided she needed curtains of course. While on Pinterest I kept seeing posts of waterfall ruffle curtains. I just had to have some ruffles for my little princess. So my mom and I decided we would make them! Here is a quick tutorial that we used for the curtains along with some links from others that we pulled from.

Step 1: Gather supplies. We decided to go with and ombre style from dark red to light pink which matched the bedding (another post). We measured for our panels which we are going to attach the ruffles to and decided how many ruffles we needed on each panel. Each ruffle is 14" long so each panel we needed 9 ruffles. We picked basic cotton fabrics and a nuetral cotton for the panel. If you are using a sheer fabric for the ruffles I suggest using the same fabric for the panel. We asked thefabric store to cut each ruffle separately; saves you time and no calculations on yardage! The ruffle should be 1 1/2 to 2x the size of the panel to have a good ruffle. For the panels add a little extra to use for the hidden tabs. We used 12 4" tabs between both panels.


Step 2: Creating the panel. For the panels we hemmed the bottom with a 2 inch hem and the top with a 4 inch hem and were able to use the salvage edges on either side. We created the tabs by cutting them into 4x2" pieces and zig zaging the raw edges flipping them inside out (similar to a belt loop). Sew down the top and bottom to close. To attach it to the panel simply space evenly and sew the top and bottom along the top hem. Your panel is complete!

Step 3: Create the ruffles. We used the salvage edges on either side so only had to hem the top and bottom. We ironed stitch witchery to the bottom hem before sewing just to give it a more stable edge once finished. This will depend on the fabric you choose and is good for decorative stitches. Once the 18 panels were ironed and hemmed it was time to ruffle. We used a pintuck foot to ruffle. You need to cut a piece of crochet thread (comes in a big 400 yard roll; not yarn) that is double the width of the panel. Tie the ends together. Find the center of the thread and loop over the center part of the hook. Now sew the fabric with a zig zag stich wide enough to go over both sides of the crochet tread. As you stitch pull the ruffle away from the foot so it doesn't get caught. This takes time. Once all of the ruffles have been ruffled its time to put it together.

Step 4: Put the pieces together. Pin the ruffles onto the panel to sew. Start at the bottom and work your way up. Make sure the bottom hem on the last ruffle and the bottom hem on the panel line up. Each panel should be evenly spaced on the panel. For ours we used 10 1/2" from the top of the one panel to the top of the next. This gave a nice overlap. They should overlap to give the waterfall look and hide the top stitch of the ruffles.

Now you are ready to hang!