My mom loves country curtains! After 26 years her curtains are ready to fall off the rod so I am replacing them. It is a great project for a hot summer day, (make that a week) especially if you have air conditioning and time. I wrote an instructional sheet on how to measure the window to figure out the fabric yardage. You can also take a class on ruffled curtains from me.
For this project it is important to own a ruffler. Jenny’s Sewing Studio has one available for your machine.
To figure the ruffles I calculate 6″ for the ruffle width. I also figure 3 X for fullness. The ruffles go on one side of each panel and across the bottom. The total yardage needed is 31 yards for these 3 windows. Since ruffles are not and exact science I always allow so extra yardage.
I use a rotary cutter and ruler to cut all the panels first. 3 thread serger edge was used to finish the cut edges and I took advantage of the selvages. The selvage is great for the outer edge of the curtain.
My bolt is 36 yards and so I am cutting the ruffle on the remaining length. I used a narrow rolled hem to finish each side of the ruffle. That was a lot of serging and took me a few days.
Once I started the ruffle edging I had to continue until done. I took a few hours to ruffle over 3,000 inches. The ruffler was connected to the machine and I figure the fullnes by ruffling a small section. I measured 3″ of the ruffle and than pulled it out to see how full the ruffle was. I adjusted the ruffler until I had the best fullness fit.
The last thing to do is sew the ruffle on the panels. Make sure you make 3 curtains with the ruffle sewn on the right and three curtains that are sewn on the opposite long edges so you have a left and a right curtain for each window.
Jenny
