Tip: Tab Curtains Shortcut

Last week, I decided to give my kitchen a slight facelift.
This is the old window treatment:




This is the new curtains. As you can tell, it is a little bit of an improvement.
I left the old blinds in place, because I cannot decide if I still need it there.
What do you think? (And check out the hardware installation! I have a tendency to install things lopsided. It's straight! It's straight!)

Anyway, I find that if you use ribbons (if you aren't already doing so), you can make a small tab curtain in less than an hour!
There are a lot of curtain making tutorials online, but I'll give you a quick run-down on how I do it.

1) Curtains are usually 2-3 times the the width of the window you are covering. For the length, I usually add 1/2" on the top, and about 5" hem allowance at the bottom. The lighter the fabric is, the more hemming allowance I add. This is to weigh the curtain down.

2) Iron the top of the curtain 1/2" in, wrong sides together. While you are there, iron the sides if you need to finish it. You can also iron the hem, folding it over twice.

3) Here's the shortcut

• Use ribbons as the tab. You'll need about 5-6" (depending on how deep a tab loop you want) for each tab.
• And while you are there, use the same kind of ribbon to cover the tab ends.
• Here, I don't know if I'm describing it clearly, so I drew you a diagram:

You'll pin the ribbon tabs, and place a long strip of ribbon along the top of the curtain, hiding the seam that you had previously ironed down, as well as the ribbon tabs! Sew using scant seam allowance along the top and bottom of the long ribbon strip.

It'll look like this at the back:

From the front, it'll look quite tidy too: