DIY curtains

[Champagneponies]

Right, I am not handy. But I want to make some curtains for my bedroom (current ones so dates).
Can anyone give me any recommendations or tips?

You mean make proper curtains, using a sewing machine (which I assume you have if you are going down this route) as this could be difficult if you are not handy, and it isn't always cheaper than buying ready made ones.

Or do you mean DIY curtains as in you are asking for tips for things you can hang at your window to replace your old curtains?

If you don't have a sewing machine then I really wouldn't.

With a sewing machine it's not a complicated task but can be cumbersome because you're dealing with big swathes of fabric so need to keep it in control, also if you have big windows you'll need to joint several panels of fabric to make them wide enough so you need to factor in pattern matching if you don't want plain fabric.

Basic gist is

• measure your window (from where you want the curtain to start and end, not the actual size of the window) , for tab top each curtain needs to be 1.5x the total width of the window, so you end up with 2 curtains that if stretched flat would be 3 x the width of your window, for pencil pleat you want 2 or 2.5 x the width to give a nice pleat.
• if you need to sew together panels to get the width, do that
• sew hems on sides, top and bottom
• if you're doing tab top, make your tabs and attach them
• sew in lining if you want it
• attach header tape if you're doing pencil pleat

There are lots of step by step tutorials in picture and video form online.

If you need standard size curtains and don't want anything particularly specialist you'll probably find it's cheaper to buy ready made from IKEA/Dunelm than to buy the materials to make your own.

Sorry just to be clear, for Pencil point each curtain needs to be 2 or 2.5 x the total width of the window so laid flat side by side the 2 curtains Wouk be 4 or 5 times the window width.