DIY Window Treatments

I made the window treatments in our breakfast room with just simple sewing techniques. The styles of window treatments I’m about to show you, are some of the easiest to DIY… it is just basically stitching a few rectangles.

Design Considerations

The design I created for these window treatments was a simple farmhouse style that would coordinate nicely with the room. The curtains are able to be easily closed, offering full privacy. Another design issue is there are 3 different styles of windows in this space, and I needed to come up with a style that would work for all 3. My last consideration regarding the style design, was because the bay window faces the street and the west window faces directly into the neighbor, cafe type curtains on the lower half of the windows would offer a nice daytime privacy, without feeling like the curtains were closed or blocking the natural light too much.

Part 1: Cafe Curtains

To keep it light and airy, I selected simple unbleached muslin for the cafe curtains fabric. A very primitive style trim detail I made from Waverly’s black ticking stripe was added to the bottoms.

First I finished the cafe hem by simply press a double 1/2″ folded hem then sewed it in place.

Then with the strip of ticking stripe that was double folded and zig-zagged in a black thread already, I attached it to the muslin panel bottom by zig-zagging it with white thread onto the panel. The ticking strip on the bottom of the finished cafe curtain is purposely extended about 1/2″ beyond the finished hem of the muslin.

There is a double zig-zag stitch on the front but it really isn’t noticeable. Typically, I wouldn’t attach a bottom trim in this fashion, however, I had the strips of ticking already made, (leftover from a prior project) and I liked the way it has a little extra depth with the zig-zag in the center of it… It’s a very simple straight non-ruffle sort of ruffle.

The rod pockets of the cafe panels, where the tension rods slip through, to hold it at the window, is all that’s necessary to hold the cafe curtains in place. See the diagram below for that:

Part 2: Side Panels

The cafe curtains on windows offered daytime privacy. Then, for added color, and to create the main window treatment panels, I made simple panels that are hung with clips on wood rings and mounted on wooden rodding. When we close these side panels for full privacy, the wood rings slide effortlessly across the wooden rods.

I hemmed the side panels to make the total length end just below the window sill, keeping the treatment casual and clean looking. White wooden drapery holdbacks that I mounted right on the face of the trim hold the panels and look classic. The white wooden drapery hardware matches the white trim in the room.

The fabric I chose for the side panels has wonderful texture, reminds me of the texture of barkcloth.

Part 3: Patio Door Drapery Panels

We now have a patio door on the south end of the breakfast room.

For the patio door window treatment design, though no cafe curtains would be needed, just the long panels. But to connect the ticking and floral, I incorporated both the ticking stripe and Waverly floral into the single panel, using the ticking for the top 1/3 and the floral for the bottom 2/3 of each panel.

For the drapery holdbacks here at the patio door, I carefully placed them mounted on the trim at the exact point, 1/3 of the way down on the drapery panel, where the stitch line is between the two fabrics.

Here I have the panel folded back for you to see the white lining on the back. With the full south sun coming in, these panels absolutely needed to be lined!

These 2 fabric panels I did it a little differently than what I showed you for the window panels.

Here’s a sketch of how I constructed the patio door drapery panels:

As you can see in this simple sketch, I sandwiched the front floral and back white lining fabrics in between the top ticking stripe.

To keep all the raw edges hidden and to keep the panels looking neat from the front and back, the step by step way I actually accomplished this is:

After I measured out the pieces and cut them, I started with one seam at a time and sewed the bottom floral to the ticking, then the lining to the ticking on the other side, creating a long single strip for each panel.

Next step was, with right sides together, I folded the long strip in half crosswise, lining up the front and back seams where the ticking was sewn to the fabric and to the lining. Then I stitched the two long sides together, creating a large pillowcase, with one end open, in this case the bottom of the panel.

For the last step, I turned the whole thing right side out, pressed it, and hemmed the bottom edge, folding it twice so that the raw edge would be tucked in and hidden inside the hem, like this:

Now this is not the normal way to hem a long drapery panel, and if you’re not super careful to make sure the front fabric and back lining are totally smooth and even with each other, you can end up with puckering. Worse case scenario, after you hang it up on the rod, you would need to pull out a few stitches of the hem and straighten front and back panels, pin and re-stitch the bottom… so it’s not that big of deal. The reason I like to do it this way, is it keeps it all together and clean looking, especially for a frequently used door, and I find it controls the lining, keeping it tucked in and hidden behind the drapery panel a bit better.

Normally I would make the finished length of full length panels to slightly puddle on the floor, which is a more formal finished length, this room  is casual and this door is used a lot, as well as our dog loves to sleep in the sun right by these drapery panels. I just didn’t want the mess of dog hair and dust up on the panels, and so, following the casual style of the room, I hemmed the patio door drapery panels a couple inches short.

Hopefully this tutorial helps inspire you to do some sewing! If you have any questions about something I failed to mention in the process, please feel free to email me or comment below. I do read every single comment, and really appreciate you taking the time to communicate with me!

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