How To Make A Valance From A Really Long Curtain

When I was little, I would turn my room (or swing set, or back yard, or closet…) into a make-believe house of my own.  I would imagine how I would decorate it, what the walls would be painted, even the type of stone that would be used for the exterior.  (Seriously. I had problems I think.)  Most of my ideas hatched from looking through my mother’s catalogs that would come in the mail and from the pretend bedding setups at J C Penny, Macy’s, & other department stores.

 

Cut to 20 something years later…

The other day, I somehow I found myself aimlessly wandering the maze-like “aisles” of Ikea.  Some people cringe at this thought.  I on the other hand, could spend  days wandering around there.   It is pretty much like a big kid version of  Mindy’s House Obsessed Make Believe Game.  I am THAT person that sits in the store model kitchen and imagines what a regular old Tuesday morning would be like in that very kitchen.

 

I digress.

 

A few hours later, I was driving home with this set of curtains.

 

 

Ikea rocks my socks for so many reasons.  The fact that they sell insanely long, pretty, stylish curtains (in pairs) for $25 is most definitely one of those reasons.

 

I had a plain white shower curtain and a plain white sailcloth curtain on the window.

I was over it.  I wanted to use one of the curtains as a shower curtain or convert the pair into shorter curtains for the room.  So I did both.

 

I hung one curtain on the shower rod and pinned where I wanted to hem it to.  Took it upstairs to my lab (craft desk) and chopped off the remaining 15 or 16 inches.  I sewed a straight line hem and that was done.  I had a  new snazzy shower curtain and a large left over scrap.

Since the pattern is pretty busy and the bathroom is pretty small, I decided against making  curtains that cover the window.  It would be too much.  I didn’t want to leave the white one up.  It seemed too heavy and a different style from what I had in mind.  We have white blinds in there, so I though a small valance would do the trick.

I measured 12″ from the original hem of the fabric scrap and folded it over.

I pinned 2″ down the fold.  This would create the pocket that the curtain rod would slip through.

Once I was pretty sure that the pins were even, I ironed the fold to make sewing easier.

Sew a straight line where the pins are.  Not rocket science here ladies & gents 😉  Baby steps with my sewing machine.  Baby steps.

Slip the curtain rod through the pocket, and voila!

You are Martha freakin Stewart! “Oh, this valance?  No I didn’t buy it, I made it.”  Tee Hee!  Easy peasy.

 

There is also one remaining remarkably huge curtain left over.  I already have something in the works.  Muahahahah!

 

Do you ever use your scrap fabric or does it collect dust?  Are you a repurposer like me?  Do you know how to sew more than a straight line?!