How To Make Your Own Drapery/Curtain Trim (Plus, My New Sitting Room Curtains – Finished!)

My new sitting room curtains are finished and hung, and while I thought this was going to be a quick and easy project (ready-made trim, no drapery lining needed, etc.), it wound up being quite an involved project. But I learned something very valuable for the future. I learned a somewhat involved but still pretty simple method that can be used to turn any wide decorative ribbon or any fabric into a trim that can be used on drapery or curtains.

But first, here’s a look at how my curtains turned out…

The fabric is a velvet that I had purchased for an upholstery project that I had planned for the music room, but then I ended up purchasing a new settee and no longer needed this fabric. The trim is some that I bought years ago for some living room draperies, but then I changed my mind on that as wel.

So last week (or maybe the week before…I’ve lost track), I dyed the trim so that it was less peachy pink and more orange. Well, after it was dyed and rinsed, I stuck the trim in the dryer. That was a big mistake, because it ruined the interfacing on the back of the trim. It peeled off in shreds with very little effort, leaving the trim very thin and flimsy.

So I picked off all of that backing, and then picked out the side hems, and ironed the trim flat.

And then I headed to the fabric store to see what I could find to stiffen up the trim and give it some body again that would make it easy to work with, and give it more structure, especially along the edges.

After looking at all of the fusible interfacings and other options, I decided to go with this product — EZ-Steam II, which is a two-sided pressure sensitive fusible web by Pellon, the same company that makes all of the interfacings.

This turned out to be the perfect product for this project. I cut the sheets into strips, and then used those strips on a piece of 3-inch non-woven drapery heading that was cut to the length I needed for the drapery trim. I peeled off the backing and stuck each piece to the drapery heading. It’s sticky, but remains repositionable until you use the iron on it. Once you use the iron, it becomes permanent.

So after sticking the strips of webbing to the full length of the drapery header and ironing it on to be permanent, then I peeled the paper off of the other side of the pressure-sensitive webbing and stuck it to the back of the trim. It became very handy to be able to reposition the webbing before ironing it, because this trim was a bit finnicky to work with.

When I got it exactly where I wanted it, I ironed the webbing in place, and then folded the edges of the trim over the edges of the webbing and ironed.

Then I trimmed off the excess so that only about 1/4 inch remained.

And then I used peel and stick Fabric Fuse tape, which is an excellent tape that creates a permanent bond that I’ve used on several projects in the past.

And I placed the tape in such a way that it held the edge of the trim in place while also lapping over onto the webbing quite a bit to hold everything together.

And then I repeated that process on the other side, folding the trim over, ironing in the edge crease, and then cutting off the excess.

And when it was finished and ready to be applied to the drapery panel, this is what it looked like on the back side…

And this is what the front side looked like…

The finished trim was about an inch narrower than the original trim, but I’m okay with that. I think three-inch-wide trim is just right. And that peel and stick Fabric Fuse tape is double sided, so once the trim was all prepared, I simply peeled off the paper and stuck it to the curtain panel along the leading edge.

I didn’t take pictures of the process of making the curtain panels since I already have so many curtain and drapery tutorials from the past. But here’s a quick recap. These curtain are not line because they’re made of upholstery velvet, which means that the velvet already has a white lining attached to the back side of the fabric. So there was no need for an additional layer of lining.

So to make my curtains, I cut three yards of the fabric, sewed a 1.5-inch double folded hem (i.e., fold 1.5 inches, pin, and iron, and then fold another 1.5 inches, pin, iron, and sew into place). And then I repeated that on the other side. And I didn’t do any fancy hidden stitches or anything like that. I just sewed right on top. With the two side hems sewn into place, I then attached the trim to the leading edge of each panel. Then I sewed in the hem (a four-inch double folded hem), and then I sewed in the header (using drapery header tape and single pleats).

I’ll link to other tutorials below so that you can have more info on all of that if you need it.

So after all of that, this is what my new curtains look like in the room…

I like them a heck of a lot more than the white ones that were in here before. I’m just not a white curtain kind of person. So the color these bring to the room is definitely more me. I do wish I had thought to remove the plates and lanterns from the TV wall before taking these pictures, because now they kind of clash, and they aren’t staying. But I have something up my sleeve for that wall, so you’ll see it shortly with its new look.

Addicted 2 Decorating is where I share my DIY and decorating journey as I remodel and decorate the 1948 fixer upper that my husband, Matt, and I bought in 2013. Matt has M.S. and is unable to do physical work, so I do the majority of the work on the house by myself. You can learn more about me here.

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