Tiered Ruffled Valances - Tutorial

When I bought all the fabric for Madeline's quilt, I made sure I bought plenty of extra matching fabric so I could make pillows, curtains and other accents for her room. I knew I wanted valances, but I could not for the life of me decide what style to make. I knew I wanted something fun and girly, but it's hard to get creative with curtains, right? Wrong!

The idea for these curtains actually came when I was sketching out a birthday outfit for my girl and it dawned on me that I could apply the same principle of ruffled tiers to curtains! I am so, so happy with how they came out, and my girl just loves them. Well, as much as an almost 3 year old can love curtains. :)

Cute, right?


I took pictures so I could share a quick tutorial with you guys! These are really pretty simple to make, just a little time consuming.

CUT:

Important note: I made these to fit the 3 inch curtain rods that were already in her room - if you want to make them to fit a traditional pocket rod, you'll need to adjust the pocket measurements. Her windows are 39" wide from molding to molding.

Pocket fabric - This is the fabric that will hold your curtain rod. For my 3" rod, I cut a piece
55" x 7.5" - cut one

White lining fabric - 55" x 4.5" - cut four

Fabric for tiers - 90" x 5" - cut four (note: Since this is going to be gathered, don't sweat the length of these tiers too much. I wanted to double the length, but my fabric was 45" wide, so I just cut two pieces that I then pieced together to make one long piece. You probably will have to piece these tiers together unless you're working with a large cut of fabric, but since they'll be gathered, the seams will be virtually invisible.)


Okay, now head to your ironing board.

Here is where you need to figure out the width of your curtain rod. Mine is 3", so ironed over a 1/4" and then measured exactly 3 1/4" and folded and ironed the fabric like this:



Iron down a 1/4" of the bottom of each tier and the ends of the pocket fabric and white lining pieces.

Only ONE white lining piece will need to be hemmed - the piece attached to the bottom tier. I cheated and used a piece I had cut on the selvage and just trimmed it down an inch so it wouldn't show under the last tier. Otherwise, you'd want to iron and hem this piece up about an inch.



I didn't enclose my raw edge. I kind of figured that 1) no one is going to look and 2) how often do you really wash curtains? They just kind of hang there so I wasn't too worried about durability. If you want to do this, I'd add another 1/4" to your cuts.

Now we're ready to sew! Ready?

Sew down the ends of your top pocket piece and then sew down the length of the piece, creating the pocket for the curtain rod.

Sew down the ends of your long tiered pieces and then hem the bottom edge.

Sew down the ends of your white pieces and just hem that one piece. Both edges of the other three will be sewn, so leave those raw.



Now we're ready to put in our gathering stitches! Set your stitch length to the longest it will go, give yourself about a 6" tail of thread and sew a straight line 1/4" from the edge along the top of the tier. Don't backstitch! Gather your tiers by gently pulling the bobbin thread. Repeat with all four tiers.



Now we're ready to assemble the valance!



Each tier with have THREE layers. Lay your first tier on top of our pocket piece, right sides facing, raw edges aligned. Now you will need to evenly distribute your gathers along the length of the pocket piece. Lay one of your unhemmed white pieces on top of your gathered piece, sandwiching your gathered tier. Like this:



Pin very well, taking care to make sure that all three raw edges are lined up. I'm a lazy seamstress and if I can get away with not pinning, I will. You NEED to pin this one, folks.



Head to your machine and using a 1/2" seam allowance, sew the three layers together.



Remove pins and flip down your first tier! Remove any of the gathering stitching that may be visible and iron down. See how pretty?



Now continue to attach the remaining tiers in the same way by flipping up the first tier and aligning the raw edge of the white lining piece (see it peeking out up there?) with the raw, gathered edge of the next tier. Distribute gathers, and then sandwich the tier with another white lining piece.

Here's a picture of my 2nd sewn tier. You can see the first tier flipped up to expose the white lining.

Clear as mud?



Use your hemmed lining piece on the bottom tier. Actually, this piece is not totally essential to the curtain, but it gives the curtain more weight and helps it lay (lie?) nicer.




Stand back and admire your pretty, ruffled, tiered curtain!



And then make another for the other window. ;)



If you have any questions, please leave them in the comments and I'll do my best to answer them. You know, if I'm not giving birth or something. 2 weeks to D-day! Can't wait to share the baby projects I'm working on! That is...if I ever finish them.

Molly

Linking up to the following parties:

Fingerprints on the Fridge

The Shabby Nest

The Creative Itch

Someday Crafts

Pillows, Pillows, Pillows!

When I stumbled across this tutorial a couple months before Christmas, I knew I had to add a few of these floor pillows to my Christmas "to do" list. Then, a few turned into...eight. I've already showed you the one that I made Madeline - and here are the rest!

For the boys! I think these are my favorite of the whole bunch.

For the girls!

These were a custom order for my sister's nieces - I love the fabric she chose!!

I did adjust the pattern slightly - Madeline's pillow was a little tall, so I made these wider and shorter. Perfect for older kids.

Even though I'm totally sick of this pattern, I'd really like to make a couple more for my living room! I'll save that project for post-baby, I think.

These pillows below were a big hit! I made one for my grandparents (forgot to take a picture!) with all the great-grandkids hands on them and then these two for my sister's inlaws and grandmother. I shamelessly stole the idea from this tutorial!

I know, I know, I'm almost done posting old stuff. I *am* working on new crafty stuff, though! I just made new living room curtains and I'm working on my "if it's a boy" quilt. 'cause I think it is. 5 weeks and counting.

Molly

Maddie's Quilt

I finally got around to taking proper pictures of Maddie's big girl quilt. Which, by the way, she loves to tell people that "my mommy made for me". She sure knows how to make Momma's heart swell.

Here's the back. I used the block tutorial from this post over at Moda Bake Shop. These blocks were SO much fun to make. I ended up adding an extra strip to the block to make them slightly bigger.

Okay, one more picture and I promise I'm done foaming at the mouth over this quilt.

I'm already assembling my next quilt. It's for the baby...if it's a boy. I kind of think it is...this week anyway. My official "if it's a girl" quilt is still bouncing around inside my head, but it'll be ready for paper soon. Wait, you guys didn't forget that I look like this now, right? Actually, this is about 5 weeks ago...so, yeah. Somebody is growing like a weed in there!

6 weeks until my official due date! I have a LOT of baby crafting to do! Not to mention clean the house, stock the freezer, take down the tree...uh, anyone want to volunteer to be my maid? It pays in leftover Christmas chocolate. ;)

Molly

Merry Christmas, Madeline!

Somehow it's two days after Christmas...was it just me or did December fly by abnormally fast? Hope you all had a wonderful weekend - we sure did!

My homemade Christmas didn't go exactly according to plan, but I did manage to make a lot of my gifts this year. I have more to share, but I'll start with the homemade goodies I made for my own little girl.

First, a softie doll. This was SO much fun to make. This was my first attempt at making an actually toy - and it's a whole new sewing experience. Not a super fast project, but worth it. Especially when she gave more attention to her little homemade doll than she did her store bought one. Mommy was just a *little* happy about that. :)

See? Love at first sight. Right now she's still nameless, Madeline has just been calling her "bonnet baby".

There was something so satisfying about watching my little girl open a doll that I had made especially for her on Christmas morning. Makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside. :)

Maddie is calling this her "house purse". She does like the house, but she was more excited about the little peg people family that I painted.

She's at the age where she does a lot of pretend play, so I think these little guys will get lots of love.

This was the first thing I made for her in early December - a floor pillow to match her new quilt.

I have so much more to share! But I need to track down the recipients of a couple gifts I forgot to take pictures of (whoops!) and edit some more pictures. But I'll share it all at some point before next Christmas. Joking, joking...I think. Pregnant people shouldn't make promises, they'll just forget them the next day (or minute.) Seriously, this little munchkin is sucking what little bit of brain power I had left completely out of my head. 8 weeks and counting.

Notes:

The tutorial for the softie doll can be found here. I ordered the felt for the face and limbs from Praire Point Junction. Fabric is Hunky Dory by Chez Moi.

The tutorial for the floor pillow can be found here. This is one of EIGHT of these suckers that I made this Christmas - pictures of the others to come. Fun project! But...I'd really be happy to never sew another piece of piping...

The dollhouse tutorial can be found here. It was really pretty simple to make. I found the peg people from this awesome Etsy seller. Less than $5! Can't beat that. I used regular acrylic craft paint that I had on hand and a small detail brush (and a toothpick for the eyes and buttons!).

Molly

Linking up at the following parties:

Skip to my Lou

Sugar Bee

Tip Junkie

Christmas specials...

We interrupt your reguarly scheduled programming for some shameless self-promotion.

I've listed some new stuff in the shop recently...like this black newsgirl (isn't my sister the cutest model?),

and this blue newsgirl (that's my adorable niece!).

I'm only guaranteeing Christmas delivery on custom orders until December 6th (you know, because I haven't started in on my *own* Christmas crafting), and until that date you can get 10% your entire order by using the coupon code CHRISTMAS2010 at checkout.

I also started a new section called "Ready to Ship" and everything in that section is pre-made and can be mailed immediately. I'll guarantee Christmas delivery on anything ordered in that section between now and the 16th. Use the coupon code READYTOSHIPDEC for 20% off any ready to ship items. Seriously, folks - they are just sitting here waiting for a new home!

To sweeten the pot just a bit more - I'm issuing a special coupon code to customers that order anytime in the month of December that will give you 20% off a future order anytime in the year 2011! The code will be emailed after your order has been recieved.

I will say that I've finally had a chance to at least prep a few projects for my (uh, semi) homemade Christmas and I'm so excited to actually start sewing!

Can you guess what I'm making? The one on the right is kind of obvious, I think. :)

Okay, over and out! Happy shopping!

Molly