Free Curtains

Letting friends and coworkers know about your hobbies can be advantageous.  I had mentioned a recent sewing project to a coworker, and it turned out that she had a bunch of fabric that she was looking to rehome.  She asked me if I was interested, and I wholeheartedly said, "Yes!"  So far she has brought me multiple boxes of fabric!!

In one of the boxes was this large piece of drapery fabric.  I didn't immediately know what I was going to do with it, but after a couple of weeks the need for this fabric became very clear.

We have been working on finishing our mudroom (slowly over the course of the past three years), and it came to completion last week!  Unfortunately, the fabric that I had set aside to be the curtains for this room was not quite long enough. I remembered seeing the fabric pictured above while I was sifting through the boxes that were given to me, and inspiration struck!

Armed with the donated fabric, a pair of scissors, some black thread, and my sewing machine, I set to work.  Straight valances are, by far, one of the easiest sewing projects.  If you can cut and sew in a relatively straight line, you can sew a valance.

The valance above was made from a strip of fabric cut 24 inches in length (I kept the width from selvage to selvage). I made a quarter inch rolled hem on all four sides, then folded the top down three inches, and seamed along the bottom of the folded edge (creating a three inch pocket on the top of the valance. I then measured down one inch from the top of the fold and made another seam all the way across. This created a "ruffle" along the top, and a smaller pocket to feed the curtain rod through. Each valance took less than 20 minutes, including measuring, cutting, and sewing!