Hemming Curtains

Christy Needlecrafts, Sewing 8 Comments

It’s so sad when real-life responsibilities interfere with crafting. If you follow me on Facebook (hint: you should follow me on Facebook), you know I got an embroidery module for my sewing machine yesterday, and all I want to do is play with it. But alas. I have curtains to hem. At least it’s a chore that involves sewing, right?

I was pretty proud of myself 6 months ago when we managed to pick out and hang curtains in our bedroom and living room within a month of moving into our house. That always seems like something that gets procrastinated on, doesn’t it? My pride was short-lived, though, when I realized the curtains I bought were 2 inches too short. They were available in another length, but then they would have been 10 inches too long. I decided there was enough of a seam that I could lengthen the short curtains, so we hung them until I could get around to re-hemming them. Fast forward to today. I don’t know why I didn’t get to them before now, other than to say there was just always something I’d have rather been doing. There are still things I’d rather be doing, but I put it off long enough.

Curtain hemming isn’t really worth taking pictures of. It’s just fold, press, sew a straight line. I will say, however, there’s one minor feature on my Bernina machine that I LOVE for projects like this. It’s just the wide table attachment and the sewing guide. But man, when you’re working with something big like a curtain, the extra surface space makes a huge difference, and the guide lets you just line up your fabric and go. I was able to stitch an even 1/2 inch seam much faster than I would have been able to if I was eyeballing it.

Note: I did leave the edges raw. I wasn’t thrilled about it, but I needed every available bit of fabric to go toward length, and it’s too thick to fold over less than a half inch. I used Steam-a-Seam hemming tape which, in addition to holding everything together without pins while I sew, will keep the ends from fraying.

I’ve finished 2 of 12 panels, so I still have a fair amount of work to do. In between that I’m washing and sorting baby clothes. I feel like every few weeks I have to pack up the stuff that no longer fits and sort through the new stuff to see what does. Does that ever end?