Blackout Curtains Tutorial

These curtains are pretty basic, but I thought I'd do a tutorial for them anyway.  You will need to measure your windows to see how much fabric to get.  You will need cute fabric for the front panels, and then blackout lining for the back.  I got the same amount of blackout lining as I did my other fabric.  You will end up using a bit less, but only a couple inches or so.  I also got spring rods to hang the curtains on.  The closer you can get the curtains to the window, the better they will block out the light.

 fabric for curtains

blackout lining

spring curtain rods

Make the front curtain panels just like you would normally, but don't finish the top until after we add the blackout lining.  I added this 4 inch block of white at the top of mine just for some added interest.

I don't have a serger so I just did a zig zag stitch on all the edges.

Hem the sides of the curtain and make sure to do a larger hem so that we can attach the blackout lining later.  I did an inch.

I wanted to do a blind hem on the bottom so I found this tutorial.  Luckily I even already had a blind hem foot.  Yes!  It looks so good!

Now that everything but the top part of your curtain is done, you want to attach the blackout lining.  I cut the lining so that it was even with the edge at the top, but then about 1/4 of an inch shorter on all the other sides.  The nice thing about the blackout lining is that is doesn't fray, so you don't have to finish any of the edges.  Pin the lining in place.

Now just sew on the sides and the top a simple straight stitch to keep the lining in place.  Sew right on top of your existing stitches on the sides, and I just did a longer stitch on top just to keep it in place.  Don't sew the bottom in place at all.

Then sew a loop at the top for your rod to go through.

And hang the curtains.

And block out the light.