Customizing Curtains with No-Sew Accents

Due to a variety of factors, my sister ended up needing to move in mid-January while she was eight and a half months pregnant. Understandably she was pretty stressed about it so I took a little time off work and headed out to the Seattle for four days to help Melissa and Justin with their move.

Although they had movers, unpacking and organizing was a lot of work, but helping to set up the nursery was a lot of fun. The nursery theme was Dr. Seuss and Melissa had picked out fabric that she wanted to use when we were in Sedona together for a sister vacation in November. I had sewn a few things for the nursery in advance but I also wanted to do something special for the curtains while I was in town. Unfortunately, my sewing machine was back home and my sister doesn't have one so I got creative with some fabric, ribbon, Stitch Witchery (fusible webbing) and an iron.

I started with a pair of red curtains from Target and ironed them flat. I then cut two rectangles of the Dr. Seuss ABC Blocks Adventure Fabric that measured 1-1/2" wider than one of the curtain panels and 1-1/2" taller than the height I wanted the accent to be. I flattened out one of the curtains face up and laid one of the fabric rectangles over the bottom of it, making sure to have 3/4" edge overhanging the curtain and making sure that the bottom of a row of blocks lined up with the bottom edge of the curtain.

I cut a piece of Stitch Witchery the width of the curtain. Carefully lifting the patterned fabric I laid down the Stitch Witchery along the edge of the curtain, replaced the fabric over it and then ironed over it to fuse the fabric to the curtain.

I repeated fusing the fabric to the curtain along the remaining three sides in the same manner. Once it was secured to the front I flipped the curtain over and used the Stitch Witchery to fold the edges over the back and iron the edges in place.

To hide the unfinished edge along the top of the fabric I used more Stitch Witchery to secure a piece of turquoise ribbon over it, making sure to align it with the top edge of a row of blocks.

I repeated the same steps for the second curtain panel and in about a half of an hour I had customized my sister's nursery curtains to match her Dr. Seuss theme. I think they are a cute addition to the nursery and most importantly my sister loved them.