Nursery {DIY Chevron Curtains}

I did it! I sewed for the first time since high school. I bought this {Brother XL2600i} sewing machine a few weeks back, and it sat around for awhile in it's box intimidating me.

I got sick last week and took two days off of work, so I figured it was a good time to try and tackle the curtains. Probably not the best way to try and recover from being sick, but I worked at it slowly. I found this video on YouTube on how to wind the bobbin for the Brother sewing machine. It's actually the first video in a series of four on how to thread the Brother sewing machine. You can find the other three here, here & here. I didn't even read the manual and just followed along with the videos. Amazingly, I had no problems once I actually started sewing! It worked perfectly.

I was debating between these three fabrics for the curtains and ultimately decided to go with the top one. It's Premier Prints ZigZag in Twill Blue. You can find it here.

I'm not going to reinvent the wheel here and give step by step instructions. Especially since I didn't take photos of all the steps. <--- Bad blogger But I did find these two tutorials helpful. Found here and here.

My window is 48" wide, so I went the cheap way and ordered 4 yards of the fabric, and just cut the 56" wide fabric in half to make two panels. 4 yards was too much by the way. I have a whole extra yard left, but I wanted to be on the safe side.

I put a towel down on the tile to make ironing the hems easier. That's pretty much what took up most of the time, ironing.

I made Jack take a photo of me, so I can show this little baby how much work I put into his nursery one day. {not like he'll probably care though}

The sewing part was pretty easy. Although I could use some practice with making a straight seem. ha!

So I knew I wanted them to be blackout some how since this room gets a lot of light in the evening. So, I tried to go the cheap route first and try these blackout liner panels that I found at Target. I just clipped them behind the panels.

But it didn't turn out looking very good. I couldn't close them all the way with out light shining through on the sides. It looked pretty ugly and like my panels weren't wide enough. womp womp On to plan B.

I decided to buy actual black out curtains and do a double curtain rod. I bought a double rod & two panels of the Eclipse kids blackout curtains in navy from Target.

And here is the end result! I think this looks so much nicer. It doesn't look like it in the photo {slowed shutter speed so you could see the curtains}, but these make the room nice and dark. Perfect environment for a sleeping baby. :)

It will look like this when we want more light in the room.

I love them so much and it makes me happy that I made them myself. Here is a cost break down:

3 yards of chevron fabric: $19.07
2 black out curtain panels: $34.30
4 - 7 packs of clip rings: $20.33
double curtain rod: $40.64
Total: $114.35


That's not too bad considering I've seen custom curtains on Etsy going for over $100.

And a glimpse of what else I picked up at Target.

The room is starting to take shape! I can't wait to show more as I complete it.