DIY Ikat Curtains

My new little abode has pretty white wood blinds everywhere except the bedroom...in the bedroom the two gorgeous windows are outfitted with skanky light blue vertical blinds... 

Skanky vertical blinds on move-in day 

For the past 2 months I’ve been trying to think of a way to fix this situation, but I couldn’t find a fairly easy way to cover the vertical blinds without taking them down and hanging curtains. The window behind my bed seemed like the easiest one to tackle first, because I never open those blinds. Of course I couldn’t just find pre-made tab back curtains that I loved, so I finally decided to improvise and make my own! I really wanted to bring a fun pattern and some color into the room because my headboard is a neutral color, my bedding is all white and the walls are greige. The “fabric” I finally decided on was actually a fabric shower curtain from Target in this fun red/beige ikat pattern.

Close-up of the pretty ikat fabric

The shower curtains were originally 72”x72”, but after a little trial & error, cutting, sewing, hemming (and a lot of help from mom), I successfully completed a custom pair of tab back curtains to replace the vertical blinds!

In progress

The finished panels are 89” long. I added the extra length by cutting a 34” strip off of the side of one panel, and using that strip to extend each panel by 17”. The panels are not even in width, but it isn’t noticeable. If I had been making these curtains for a window that I would open and close regularly, I would have made them more even but for this particular case it really didn’t make a difference. For the tabs on the backs of the curtains I used white grograin ribbon and generally followed this tutorial from View Along the Way.  

Measuring & pinning for the back tabs 

I absolutely love the way that they turned out, and now I just have to decide what I’m going to do with my other window!

 xoxo
Marisa