So I found the perfect curtain, but it was $30 for one panel, ON SALE! I know this is not a ton of money, but there are such a lot of things that we need and I didn't want to break the bank on this one item, so I measured and decided to just buy one panel.
My thought was that we would have it open much of the time and that it would cover the window perfectly when we did close it.
Well we ended up having it closed most of the time and I didn't much care for the look of it bunched to the side. And it was a little too long, hanging oddly between the sill and the bed. But I knew that hemming it above the sill would look strange, too.
That's when I thought of one of my favorite curtains in the house, originally from our dining room, now in the office. The red silk curtains were expensive and my mom helped me economize by turning them into roman shades. It just takes time and about $10.
Roman shades adjust up and down, like the venetian blinds that come standard in many apartments and homes, but these are made of fabric. This makes them softer and more homey. The gathering or the fabric that results can be very appealing as well.
For my situation, it was perfect. It allowed me to shorten the length to just above the sill at all times, while looking even more finished. It shows off the vertical textural stripes to their full advantage. And finally gives us the ability to easily open and close the curtain.
So how do you do it? This is how I did it, I'm sure there are MANY MANY MANY ways.Make a pocket at the bottom of the curtain and in this put a dowel, or as I did a piece of bamboo.
In the fabric store, look for the window treatment findings. There are little nylon rings and cording. I upgraded from the plain nylon rope to a silkier cording from the trimmings by the yard section. In three vertical rows (left, middle, right) hand sew the rings on every 10 in. You can also get fabric tape by the yard that has the rings already on it, but this will work better if you have a lining that you can run through a machine separately, but I find hand stitching like this very relaxing while watching TV. I was lucky that I could sew my rings directly behind the crocheted trim, hiding my stitching. (For my silk curtains I bought an old sheet at Goodwill to line my curtains and sewed my rings onto that.) I didn't want to line these, because I like how the curtain looks with the sun shining through it in the morning.
You will also need a hook or knob to wrap the cording around for adjusting the height higher as above.
You will need four eye hooks. For this curtain I had Mike put them directly into the underside of the top casing of the window. Three of the eye hooks should be directly above where your rows of rings are, so you may need to hang the curtain to figure this out. The fourth ring should be off to the side slightly to whichever side you want your pull string to be. This ring is optional, depending on how visible/accessible you what the pull-string to be.
Hang your curtain and now it is time to string it up.
You may want to take your measuring tape and run it up the curtain, across the top and down to where you want the pull string, at it's shortest to hang. This will give you the length of your longest piece of cording. Repeat this for the other two rows and cut your cording appropriately.
Starting with the right hand rings, tie one end of the cording to the bottom ring and then run it up through all the rings in that row. Also run it through the right hand eye hook, and then to the left through the other eye hooks. Your pull will then be on the left. Repeat for the two other rows. Tie a big knot in the cording to keep the curtain at a certain height for the lowest point it will hang, as I did.
You will also need a hook or knob to wrap the cording around for adjusting the height higher as above. Isn't it pretty? I love it.
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