Homemade Curtains

(Please note that affiliate links have been used in this post.)

Curtians. They can make or break a room. Don’t you think?

You know how curtains are supposed to almost hit the floor after being hung? Mine are approximately two feet too short. And they’ve been that way ever since moving to our new home.

Curtains are a commitment. Quality curtains can be expensive, and the more I looked, the more I didn’t know what I wanted. Did I want statement curtains from Anthropologie? Did I want neutrals from West Elm? Did I want basics from Ikea? Did I want the Restoration Hardware ones off of Facebook Marketplace? And what about the over abundance you can find on Society6?

Nathalie from Field and Cloth was the first to introduce me to Merchant and Mills fabrics. They come right from the heart of London, and they’re rich, beautiful, and timeless fabrics.

I was ready. I found some pin stripe Merchant & Mills linen. I was going to make homemade curtains.

After finding the perfect linen, I priced how much it would cost to make four 96 inch panels. Since that came out to over a $500 investment, I decided to think a bit longer. I’d never even made homemade curtains. Did I want to invest $500 of fabric into something I’ve never done before?

Then I came up with the solution. I’d apply to become a Merchant and Mills dealer. I’d purchase four bolts of fabric from the UK. I’d use what I needed and then sell off the rest.

That only happens in a perfect world.

And I decided I shouldn’t let my new curtain endeavor turn me into a Merchant & Mills fabric shop.

Life is all about finding balance right?

I loved the pin stripe Merchant & Mills linen, but I decided I could likely find something else that cost just a bit less money.

After browsing Etsy for a week looking for the most beautiful laundered linen, I decided to search high and low on fabric.com.

Fabric.com is great when I know exactly what I’m looking for. But I can easily get overwhelmed sifting through so many options on their site. I work so much better with small and curated Etsy Shops.

I found lots of linen options on Etsy, but many of them were from overseas. With so many unknowns in the world today, I didn’t want to risk losing my precious linen in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. You know what I mean?

To make a long story short, I was pleasantly surprised with what I stumbled upon at fabric.com. They had a lot to choose from, and I didn’t have trouble finding plenty of samples for them to send my way.

I’m usually an unhesitant and decisive decorator. I buy the whole gallon of paint the first time. I don’t do the sample paint thing.

This time around, though, I bought a bunch of sample swatches for these curtains.

1. Kaufman Essex Yarn Dyed Classic Wovens Linen Check Sky

This was one of my favorites. It’s creamy white with a subtle light blue. This is quilting weight linen fabric that could easily be used for light weight curtains.

2. Kaufman Limerick Linen Yarn Dyed Small Stripe Royal

This is a high quality linen comparable in price to the Merchant & Mills linen. This was the closest texture I could find on fabric.com to what I originally envisioned.

Because a sample was not an option for purchasing, I ended up purchasing an entire yard instead. With the extra fabric, I made a pillow for our living room.

It’s a really great neutral pillow to add alongside some of the colorful covers I already had in the living room.

3. Telio Mistral Linen Yarn Dyed Check Ink White

This is a beautiful and rich deep deep blue. This sample was inspired by the Merchant & Mills cotton shirting I found. You can find that beautiful yardage here: https://oakfabrics.com/collections/fabric/products/cotton-shirting-aegean-check

4. Telio Umbria Linen Blue Stripe

Here’s a wide stripe in a darker blue. It’s not navy, but it’s also not a bright cobalt.

5. Kaufman Essex Yarn Dyed Linen Blend Espresso

Brown is making it’s way back into our home. I think this essex linen is beautiful. In the midst of my hunt for curtains, I found some brown linen Restoration Hardware curtains on Facebook Marketplace. To my own surprise, I was VERY tempted to purchase the brown linen curtains. Despite being on Marketplace, they were still expensive curtains, and I was reluctant since there are no options for returning merchandise there.

6. Kaufman Limerick Linen Yarn Dyed Tiny Checks Royal

Here’s another great neutral blue high quality linen.

Here is a closer look at the pattern.

7. 100% European Linen Plaid White/Black

8. Telio Tuscany Pinstripe Chambray Linen Light Blue/Beige

This one was also in the running for my favorite. The blue is a bit bright and so pretty.

9. Performance+ Lowell Pinstripe Woven Sky

This one was a complete experiment for me. You could never include this in a quilt. It’s a pretty dense and scratchy fabric. But it would be great for curtains.

10. Telio Umbria Linen Blue Stripe

Here’s another pin stripe at a different price point. It’s worth considering based upon the price, but I like the Limerick pin stripe much better.

When I clump them all together, I truly do enjoy the aesthetic of all of them. I learned a lot from buying $3.00 samples, and I’m hoping to use a few of them in the quilt for our master bedroom.

I was expecting small 3 by 3 inch sample squares. I was appreciative for the almost 8 by 8 inch squares you can see here.

So I suppose you are exceedingly curious about which fabric I chose for my curtains.

Well.

Soon after I purchased all these samples, I pondered the riskiness of making homemade curtains. How long would that project take me?

I ended up buying curtains at Target. (In all honestly, I rarely (very rarely) shop at Target.) But I found some buffalo check curtains that were a reasonable investment. I mentioned above that I’m a rather decisive home decorator. When I saw these, I unhesitatingly bought them.

What have a learned?

A lot. In this never ending journey of textiles and quilting and textures, I learned a lot purchasing ten samples of varying hues.

And I’m still happy with my non homemade Target curtains.