Kitchen Valance Tutorial

I have been pondering what to do with my sink window for a while now. I am not fond of valances, but I did not have many choices considering the location and usage of this window. I needed something to filter the morning sun rays, yet something that would be light and airy. I really like cafe' curtains but I didn't think them practical for this location (with all the splashing and such). I also considered plantation shutters, but they are very costly and they would open inward not allowing me to use the sill for my herbs garden...so I tucked my tail between my legs and proceeded with the valance project -__-

So here it goes. I laid the fabrics out (the white for the valance, the pattern as a trim) and cut them to size. I had initially thought of using a wooden strip, secured to the valance via velcro, and some corner brackets as hanging system (you can see the wood trim on the counter) but that didn't pan out.

Again, due to the thickness of the fabric I had to sort of hack this sewing project. I hemmed the short sides of both fabrics individually...first the patterned fabric...

...and then the solid white.

At this point I laid the two fabrics, right side facing each other, and pinned in place.

I straight stitched them together...

...and flipped the patterned fabric over...

...to blind stitch the top in place.

I then singed the remaining raw edge of the print fabric...

...and folded it back onto itself (wrong sides touching each other) like this, and straight stitch them into place. Unfortunately, I did not take a photo of that step, but hopefully you get the jist of how I made the pattern fabric fold over to make a band looking at this photo.

At this point I pressed all of the hems flat.

Then I proceeded to make a regular hemming stitch all along the white fabric. The only difference was that I kept the 'hem' much wider than usual...about one inch. That gave me the right size pocket to insert my tension rod. Since my original hanging system plan did not work out the way I wanted, I bought this cafe' tension rod from Home Depot. It's nothing fancy but you don't really see it once it's hung ;)

Photo courtesy of homedepot.com

And this is my final product. Very simple indeed, but it ties in with the rest of the fabric from the table.

...and here is a wider shot.

I know my mom would probably cringe if she saw the way I stitched this valance together, quite unorthodox to say the least, but there is only so much I can do with a cheap sewing machine and thick fabric ^__^

The kitchen is almost done. Stay tuned for the before and after reveal. Thank you for reading!