Happy New Year and a very quick tute for Lined Curtains for French Doors Part 1

This is a tutorial for making long huge lined curtains for french doors. Although you could make one of these for a single door. I made these in about 3 hours. The fabric was from ebay and was end of line. It was £2.50 a metre and I bought 8 metres. I am extremely impressed as my lining fabric cost £15.00, again from ebay and the header tape was around the £5 mark. So for £40.00 I managed a pair of curtains, that I actually like, which keep the draughts out.

You will need

Patterned/plain curtain fabric. I always buy 1/2 metre more than my measurements. If you have any spare, you can always do a patchwork cushion to go with the room.

Lining fabric. Again I always err on the 1/2 metre more than I need.

header tape. In this case I needed 104 inches. Can't remember what this is in metric.

Most fabrics come in a 54 inch width. So does the lining. You need to make your lining smaller than your Patterned fabric (PF) so that when you turn it inside out, the PF makes a hem. More of this later.

To cut my long length of PF I folded it in half longways, 54 inches became 26, then used a metal tape measure to chalk a mark either side of the width. Then I used a piece of wood to chalk a line and cut it that way. I also did this for the lining but made the lining 3 inches shorter. I wanted curtains 100 inches long, so I cut them at 104 inches. 3 inches extra for the bottom hem and an inch for the top. The top doesn't need to be as neat as the header tape will cover it.

Once your fabric lengths are cut, you will need to cut some off the sides of the lining. I found the best way to do this was to fold it again and again, measure 2 inches and use the piece of wood to get a straigt edge. You either cut both sides or just shave 4 inches off of one side for speed.

The next bit of this is quite the most important bit of curtain making for me. THE IRONING. It gives you neat hems and allows you to straighten out your hem should you have gone a bit wrong during the cutting. I love stripey fabric for this too as you can line the stripes up so it's easy, certainly easier than plain fabric.