Thursday, December 4, 2008

Easy Home Made Shower Curtain

As promised, instructions for your homemade shower curtain.

Start with a flat sheet, size double or bigger.  The nice, finished top of the sheet will be the top of your shower curtain.  One finished side hem will be one side of your curtain  (so easy - half your work is already done!)

These edges were already done

Measure the width you want your curtain to be (front to back of tub plus a bit for fullness).  Add one inch and cut the sheet to that size.

Measure the length (from a little below the shower curtain rod to a few inches from the bottom of the tub), adding two and a half inches.

Fold up and press a half inch on the unfinished side of the shower curtain.  Then fold and press it again.

On the bottom, fold up and press a half inch and then two inches.

Sew these hems in place.

I made the ties at the top of my curtain from the side hems on the parts of sheet I cut off.  Just cut the hem close to the stitching.  You will have an unfinished edge, but because it's so close to the line of stitching, it'll hardly fray at all.

Cut these strips into sixteen inch lengths.  You may need to fold and press a couple of extra ties, or (as I did) use a scrap of ribbon to make up enough ties.  I needed nine ties for my curtain to hang nicely without huge gaps.

Side hems and a scrap of ribbon

Fold each tie in half and stitch the mid-point near the top of the curtain.

For easy spacing of the ties, sew one at each end, then one in the middle.  Then find the mid-point between the front tie and the middle and the middle tie and the back one and attach ties there.  Then add ties mid-way between each of those ties.  This adds up to nine ties and you don't have to do any actual measuring (I can never get the math to work out)!

Then you just tie your curtain onto the curtain rod and you're done!

A word about liners - they aren't necessary.  Seriously.  The plastic they're made from is one of the most poisonous substances mankind has invented to date.  A plain cotton shower curtain will keep the water from spraying all over your floor.  If you have hard water (as we do), add a good glug of vinegar to the machine when you wash your curtain and any staining or crustiness will go away.

The bathrooms small, but efficient...

I love a project like this - clean, green and cheap!

3 comments:

corine said...

and lovely.

Barb McMahon and Alan Mailloux said...

Awww, thanks Corine!

Jen said...

Glad to see this post. Lovely curtain prints. I was about to go out to get a fabric liner. I guess I will use the curtain a lone and see if it works for us. BTW, how often do you wash your shower curtain?