DIY Anthropologie Ruffled Curtains

After living in the cottage for a little over six months I finally got around to putting together curtains for the bedroom. We had been using a plain drop-cloth curtain but I wanted to soften it up to match our Shabby Chic Bedding. I saw a cute idea from Anthropologie but I couldn't justify the expense.  It wasn't a difficult looking project so I decided to figure it out on my own. If you want to make your own fancy, ruffled curtains (and save a few $) here's how:

Our curtains are 72 inches long so I needed a little more than double that amount in the length of my fabric cut- about five yards. Depending on how wide your window is you will need to get more than one cut of that length. Our window is a standard, single-window so I only needed one cut.

Once I got home I folded the fabric in half lengthwise and cut it into strips about 6-8 inches wide.
(This was just to save time cutting.)

 Then, I folded a strip in half lengthwise and sewed a simple, straight line down the open side.

Next, turn the sewn strip right side out and sew the ends.

After that, you will want to lay out your strips to determine how many you want on each panel and then straight pin them down for sewing. Keep in mind you will need to leave excess to make the ruffle.

 To sew the ruffle, I left the machine foot up and hand fed the curtain through. Simultaneously, I bunched the fabric to make the ruffle as the machine sewed it.

This is definitely a time consuming project between cutting fabric, sewing the strips, reversing them, and then ruffling them through the machine. However, it ends up looking really great!