New Home, New Windows…Now My Drapes Are Too Short!

We just moved into a new home and I found that my bedroom drapes were a few inches too short. Oh, no! What to do? Lengthen them by adding tabs to the top, of course! So off to the fabric store I went. I cut rectangles of fabric twice the needed length plus about 2″, and stitched the sides together. I drew a line 1¾” from one short end, marked the center of the strip about ½” from the end, then stitched to connect the dots and form a point at the end of each tab. Then I turned them right side out and pressed them.

To apply the gimp trim to the edges, I selected my widest zigzag stitch (9 mm), attached my all-purpose dual feed foot (BERNINA Reverse Pattern Foot #1D), and engaged the BERNINA Dual Feed on my BERNINA 830. If you don’t have an 8 Series machine with Dual Feed, use a walking foot instead (BERNINA Walking Foot #50).

Stitching the trim in place with a 9 mm zigzag stitch was a snap using BERNINA Dual Feed.

No stretching, no shifting! (No ripping!)

How easy was that?!

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2 comments on “New Home, New Windows…Now My Drapes Are Too Short!”

  • I really love this idea, but what if you can’t match the fabric? Would the trim around the edges if the tab hide the fact that the fabric might not match perfectly? Thanks for the tip!

    • Hi Linda, you might be able to find some trim that matched better than the fabric, and that might help the tabs blend in better. You might also look around the fabric store in other areas than home dec to find a fabric that matched more closely, like special occasion fabric or even garment fabric.

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