Curtains for Katers

I've been sewing away since my last post for a special, spunky little lady. A few months ago, my cousin asked me for some advice on black out curtains for her daughter (who I made a baby quilt for a couple years ago) and I couldn't resist but offer to make them for her.

The criteria were that she wanted them to be cute (feminine but not over the top girly), block out all of the light from east-facing windows and be able to withstand a very independently minded two-year old. Here's what we ended up with:

My cousin lives in Madison, so I went to a fabric outlet here in the Twin Cities where I bought a whole bolt of Ty Pennington fabric (50% off). Then I picked up another 15 yards of basic blackout fabric from Joann. I was nervous to pick fabric without her there, but she sent me some inspiration pictures and I felt confident I understood her vision for the room.

The actual construction of the curtains was really easy, I basically just hemmed the four sides of each panel using the blackout fabric as lining underneath each hem. This tutorial is more or less the strategy I used. The trick was that crawling on the floor to maneuver the 86" panels got progressively harder as I've gotten a bigger baby bump. I joked with Jon that I'm glad there isn't photo documentation of me pinning and cutting the fabric!

So I'm really happy with how they turned out and we got to visit Madison last weekend and they looked great in person! You'll notice that the curtains are hung with clips so that if Katers tries to climb them, the panels will just release. So far, she hasn't tested this, but I figure it's only a matter of time.

Glad you like them so much, Andrea! Love you!