Turn a Shower Curtain into Window Curtains!

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I am participating in  The Stories of A to Z's "Tutorial Tips Tuesday" party!


Today I saw a great post over at Make and Takes that teaches how to turn a bed sheet into a shower curtain.  It just so happens that last week I sewed (by myself) for the very first time, and turned two shower curtains into curtains for my bedroom!   I just  had to share how I did it (sew easy) so that you can do it yourself too :)

My mom came over last year and showed me how to use a sewing machine.  We sewed curtains for my kitchen, but she did most of the work since I was a bit overwhelmed.  This time, I wanted to try my hand at sewing curtains for my bedroom.  I have a new comforter and could not find curtains anywhere to match.  As usual, Target came to my rescue.  I was perusing down their shower curtain aisle, when I noticed a ton of shower curtains on clearance.  Immediately I saw that one of the shower curtains (a cloth one) matched my comforter almost perfectly!  I picked up two of them for only $4.98 each.

First I bought curtain clips and hung them up, but every time I opened the curtains, the metal-on-metal sound irritated me (high maintenance, perhaps?).  I returned the clips and decided to cut the curtains down and sew them myself.  A friend of mine let me borrow her machine, and with the manual in my lap at all times, I figured it out - miracle of all miracles.

I decided to cut 12" off of one side, and cut the holes off of the tops of the shower curtain, and hem the top by 6".  That way, I was keeping two of the original (nice) hems, and would only have to sew two sides of the curtain.  While I didn't take photos of the whole process, you can look a little closer here at the top hem:

As you can see I am NOT a straight-sewer.  Still need practice.  Thankfully you can't tell unless you're up really close.

Here is another view of one window.  My husband screwed in a curtain tie-back hook to the side of each window to hold the curtains back during the day.

This got me thinking about what else I could sew using clearance shower curtains from Target (I picked up 3 more curtains in different fabrics for only $2.50)!  I also purchased some cute cloth napkins on clearance that same day, sewed them together and covered my red pillows that were on the couch.

Before:

After:

These were two easy projects that any beginner sewer could do.  While I'm not an expert, at least I can  now make curtains and pillow covers.   I'm so excited to do more!