Wow what a weekend. This was the first weekend in over a year that we’ve had plans with multiple groups of friends in person. It was so much fun but I am exhausted! I am starting to think I have become a total introvert… In person conversations are exhausting! Actually, if I’m being honest I only had in person conversations 2 of the 4 holiday weekend days. My exhaustion probably stems from the fact that since I’ve been back at work for 4 months I’ve forgotten how tiring watching 2 kids by myself all day is…
Well you’ve probably forgotten by now, or maybe you’ve been waiting with baited breath… but here is how to make those fabulous balloon valances that I put up in Patricia’s room! Like Julius’ curtains, I adapted a pattern that my mother-in-law gave me for fully functional shades. Since we have actual black out shades on our windows these are strictly for decoration and completely nonfunctional (though with slightly different mounting and by increasing the length they could very easily become functional…) *In the interest of laziness I designed this pattern to be used to minimize cutting; if you have only 54″ fabric to work with, use 54″ fabric, it will not affect the finished product’s fullness much. The original pattern also called for lots of hand stitching to make invisible seams, but having done 3 sets of shades by hand I did these completely by machine and will never go back. No one will notice the seams, not even you. Unlike all the other shades I have made for my house these are mounted using a simple curtain rod instead of building a shade board. This also makes them MUCH easier to mount! (Well it would have made them much easier if the darn curtain rods I had bought from Home Depot had not been missing hardware! Thankfully a very nice man at the Home Depot took pity on me for being so close to my due date tracked down some hardware and walked it out to my car for me!)
Weirdly I only have a couple pictures of me stitching some non-descript seams. I guess that’s what happens when you do projects at 40 weeks. And, more tragically, I don’t have any pictures of 40 weeks pregnant me mounting the shades on a step ladder with a drill. You’ll just have to imagine that I guess. So without further ado… my DIY Balloon Valances!
DIY Balloon Valances
For each valance you will need:
- 48″ of 58″ wide fabric* – I used this beautiful poppy fabric from spoonflower in lightweight cotton twill
- 48″ of 58″ wide white cotton fabric for backing
- 24 plastic rings for roman shades
- several yards of string or yarn for tying up the curtains, preferably white
- Place white cotton fabric on top of curtain fabric, right sides facing out.
- On the long edges of the fabric, create a 1″ double fold hem.
- Machine baste the unfinished top edge of the fabric at 1/4″ mark so it doesn’t wiggle around. Repeat for the bottom edge.
- On the bottom edge create a 1″ double fold hem.
Here’s the one mystery picture of me sewing a seam? Bottom hem?
- Fold under 1/2″ at the top, press, then fold under another 2 inches. Stitch close to fold to form rod pocket.
- Here is where you will need to hand stitch.
- Place your curtain on the floor so you can spread it out. Mark a line in tailor’s chalk or disappearing ink 2″ from the left and right edges.
- Mark 2 more lines 17 1/3″ from each of the 2″ lines.
- Starting along the bottom hem stitching line, mark an x where your tailor’s chalk lines intersect. Hand sew a ring to each of these 4 points.
- Measure up each line 6″ and place another ring. Repeat until you are out of rings.
To hang the curtains:
- Mount curtain rod as per instructions for your curtain rods, you will want the rod holders to be just slightly outside your window frame.
- Insert curtain rod through rod pocket, you will need to bunch fabric in the rod pocket to make the curtain fit just slightly wider than your window.
- Before you hang your curtain, thread string through each of the vertical lines of shade rings, pull together slightly to make fabric bunch and loosely tie.
Loosely tie each vertical set of rings.
- Repeat for each set of vertical shade rings.
Thread string through curtain rings (I didn’t have any curtain rings so I used chain maille links… :D)
- Hang curtain and manually adjust each set of ties so the valance is as low as you desire, and the height for each set is equal. Knot each set of ties when you are satisfied.
If you zoom in on the window glass you can see 40 week pregnant Lexi taking this photo… you’ll have to imagine me hanging these and fiddling with the ties.
Here’s a photo of me 4 days before I hung the shades for perspective.
Julius (featured bottom left) helped me hang the second one.
