DIY Curtains

You've probably seen pictures of my polka-dot curtains, and I just ran across some photos I took while doing them so I thought I should post them for you.

The whole process was:

1) Cut out fabric circles
2) Finish edges with fray check and trim
3) Cut out adhesive backing circles
4) Iron the adhesive circles to the fabric
5) Pin on the curtains and iron down.

These are my circles 

I tried to keep them all very organized. I had over 100 of them in various stages of production

I finished the edges with this fray check substance. Annoyingly, it discolored the edges, so then I had to trim the circles again, enough to cut off the black rings, but not so far in that I cut off all the fray check that had soaked into the fabric. Very tedious. 

Once I finished the fabric circles I had to cut out the same amount of circles from the iron-on adhesive.

One thing I found was that I ironed the adhesive to the circles for too many seconds, so I think the fabric absorbed all the gluey stuff. At any rate, when I went to iron the circles on the curtains, many of them did not stick, and I had to recut the adhesive backing. After much speculation I decided that I was too thorough with trying to attach the adhesive to the circles and held the heat on it too long, maybe 5-8 seconds, instead of about 4 seconds.

And of course the whole thing was incredibly time-consuming, but it was cheaper than buying 8 curtain panels, so I guess it was worth it :)