Stitch Craft Mini: Sewing Stylish Curtains for Beginners

1. Welcome!: Beginner sewers, here's a quick project to use up your scraps. Stylish curtains you can make in a weekend. Hi, my name is Amy Plant. I'm a multi passionate creative with a focus on sustainable design, and I've been sewing for 20 years. In this mini course, I'll be sharing with you a sewing project that uses simple yet essential techniques that are great for beginners and also will help you use up fabric scraps and leftover odd shapes instead of throwing them away. This project is inspired by the traditional Korean Poyagi, a wrapping cloth that was often created as a hand sewn patchwork. We'll be practicing that tradition of patchwork in this class, and at the end, you'll have a stylish and beautiful curtain without having to spend a penny. You don't need a lot of sewing experience to tackle this project, but you should be comfortable using a sewing machine. You work through the class, I'll share with you tips for selecting and arranging your fabric and show you step by step how to sew a clean, finished seam. I'll also give you inspiration and ideas for future projects you can tackle with everything you've learned in this course. Alright, it's time to fire up that sewing machine and come sew with me. 2. Choosing Your Fabric: Choosing fabric. First things first, let's select the fabric for our curtains. As this fabric will usually be displayed with light shining through it, I recommend choosing thin or shear fabrics that will really allow your seams to pop and create a stained glass effect. Shear fabrics don't have to be tricky to sew. If you're new to sewing, I recommend lightweight cotton fabrics which are easier to control. If you're comfortable working with them, chiffon and organza type fabrics will look beautiful in patchwork. Stick to woven fabrics for this project and avoid anything with stretch. In terms of color, you can get as simple or as wild as you'd like. Choose a range of shades in the same color family for a sophisticated look or choose a variety of hues for a maximalist effect. I like to have a few colors in the same family, then pop in an accent color or two. When sewing lightweight fabrics, you want to use a needle on the thinner side, like 60 or 70. If you're finding that stitches look loose on the back, tighten up your upper thread tension a little bit. As always, do a couple sewing tests with your fabric to dial in your settings. I like regular all purpose polyester thread for a project like this. Depending on how monochromatic or colorful your fabric selection is, you can choose a thread that blends in or pops as a subtle accent color. Now that you've chosen your fabric, let's get it ready to sew. 3. Preparing Your Fabric: Preparing your fabric. Now that you have your fabric picked out, you'll need to cut it into pieces to sew. We're working with squares and rectangles for this project, but no need to get fussy with measuring. If you have a cutting mat with a grid and a rotary cutter, this part will go really fast for you. You could also use an L square and a fabric pen or chalk to draw guides for you to cut on. We're just removing any non straight sides to create rectangles. Make sure your rectangles follow the straight of grain. That means that the sides will run parallel or perpendicular to the threads of the fabric. Need to waste anything when you're cutting. I like to save small scraps for stuffing into a throw pillow. In terms of sizes, I find anything smaller than two by 2 " tends to be a bit difficult to work with for this project. And depending on the size of your curtains, anything larger than a piece of printer paper probably won't give the stained glass effect. However, I encourage you to follow your creative muse as you're cutting and make the sizes that feel right for you. Once you have all your pieces, start organizing them by width. It's okay if they aren't exactly the same. We're just aiming for rough matches. If you have a couple of oddball sizes, you can either sew them together to create a wider width or cut them down to match a similar. Easiest way to tackle this project is to sew one column of rectangles at a time. So, ideally, we want enough rectangles to form a series of columns. The length of your columns will depend on the overall size you want your curtain to be. We'll be using a five eighth inch seam allowance on each side of the rectangle. I know that's a really annoying fraction to calculate dimensions with, so I would advise you to take a more organic approach with this project and measure your columns against your window as you go. Remember to leave extra length at the top and bottom to allow for a curtain rod and hem. If you'd like to work out the math, I have formulas to calculate your curtain dimensions in the downloadable PDF guide that accompanies this class. Now that we have our fabric pieces grouped, we can begin sewing. 4. Sewing a Flat Felled Seam: Sewing a flat feled seam. The primary seam we're going to be using for this project is called a flat felled seam. If you've never sewn this type of seam before, I promise you you will be confident in it by the end of this project. A flat feled seam involves sewing a regular seam, then trimming back one side of the seam allowance and enclosing it in the fold of the other side of the seam allowance. This fold is then stitched down, resulting in a strong, clean seam with no raw edges on either side. Let's practice the flat feled seam on our rectangles. Pin a pair of pieces you grouped by width so that their edges line up. If the widths don't match exactly, line them up at the top and you can trim the excess later. When working with light fabrics, I find it helpful to start sewing a quarter inch in rather than the very top edge and then back stitch to the top to start the seam and prevent the machine from eating the fabric. Remember we're sewing with a five eighths inch seam allowance. Sew a straight stitch, remembering to backstitch at the beginning and end. If one of the pieces is longer than the other, finish stitching on the shorter piece. Iron your seam open, then trim one side of your seam allowance so that it is half the width. Iron the seam close so that the wider side is on top. Tuck the wider side over the raw edge of the narrower side, enclosing it in a fold. Iron the fold as you go. If your fabric won't stay in place, you can pin this fold down as well. Sew along the edge of this fold to stitch it down, staying an eighth inch or less away from the fold. Back stitch at the beginning and end. You've just completed a flat felled seam. Continue sewing the rest of the column. You may find it easier to batch your work, sewing the first step for the entire column before taking it over to the iron to trim and fold each seam in one go. When you've completed a column, trim any excess fabric using a ruler to help you. Once you've sewn all your columns, it's time to join them together. 5. Joining Your Pieces: Joining your pieces. To join our columns together, we're going to sew the same flat filled seam you sewed in the previous lesson. Line up the edges of two of the columns and sew a flat filled seam to join them. Do this to join all the columns together to form your curtain. Trim any excess fabric to form neat edges. If you're happy with the width of your curtain, but want to increase the length, flip a column on its side and sew it along the bottom edge. Remember that you should have a few extra inches on the top and bottom of the curtain to allow for hemming. Next, we'll sew a few finishing touches to complete our curtain. 6. Finishing Your Curtain: Finishing your curtain. We're almost done with our curtain. Now let's finish the edges. If you still have uneven edges, trim them to be even. To finish the raw edges, we're going to use a double folded hem. Fold the edge over by a quarter inch and press it with an iron. Fold it one more time to hide the raw edge, press and pin. Sew along the edge of the inner fold to stitch it down. Do this for each side. For the bottom of the curtain, I like the look of a wider hem, so I'm using a 1 " fold, but feel free to sew a narrower hem if you prefer. Decide which side is to be the top of the curtain and fold it over to create a channel for a curtain rod to go through. One to 2 " is usually a safe bet. Pin and stitch this edge down. You can now slip the curtain onto a rod or a cord and hang it in a window. Your curtain is complete. Don't forget to take a picture of your finished work and upload it to the project gallery to inspire others. In the next lesson, I'll give you some ideas for your next sewing project. 7. What To Make Next: Congratulations on completing your curtain. Now that you know how to make patchwork fabric with flat felt seams, here are a few project ideas to sew next. Use more opaque fabric to make a pillow. Take my class, one pillow, seven sewing machine skills to learn how to make an envelope style pillow cover. Sandwich two rectangles of patchwork together to make a throw blanket or accent piece for a bed. Make a large patchwork piece, and then cut a skirt or other clothing pattern out of it as you would with regular fabric. Thank you so much for taking this class. If you found it helpful or inspiring, I'd love for you to leave a review to share experience with others. As always, keep in touch and happy sewing.