Ruffled Shower Curtain Tutorial

I came across this cute idea for a ruffled shower curtain from Moda Bake Shop. I thought it was really cute, so I tried it out, only with a few modifications.

Materials you will need:
* 1 inexpensive, plain shower curtain (72" length x 70" width)
* 9 yards of fabric (one yard ea. of 9 different patterns if you wish)
* 2 yd jumbo ric rac

The first thing I did is lay out my shower curtain and using a ruler I drew horizontal lines every 2 inches beginning just below the grommet holes where you hang the curtain.  You should have about 35 rows.

In an effort to save money, I just bought nine yards of fabric rather than using jelly rolls like the Moda site recommended.  I also liked that by doing this my rows were a uniform pattern across the whole row. I cut 2 1/2 inch strips with my rotary cutter with a pinking blade. This wasn't as much work as I thought it was going to be, so I'm very glad I did it because I saved at least $50 right there. I cut 12 strips of each fabric except for one which I cut 9 (because I had 35 rows). Because of only needing 9 strips of one fabric, I could've gotten by with only 3/4 or 2/3 of a yard of one pattern. Then I pretty much followed all the instructions on the Moda Bake Shop site.

I laid out all my strips to decide the order I wanted to sew them onto my curtain.

To make one row for the shower curtain, you will need 3 strips of fabric sewn together to create one long row.

When it came time to sewing my ruffles, I used my ruffler foot to sew the rows into ruffles.  You can use any method of ruffling the fabric that you choose, I just found this to be easiest and it gave me nice uniform ruffles.

I started at the bottom of the shower curtain and sewed the strips on one by one, using 1/4" seam allowance.

No close up shots, but to finish off the raw edge at the top of the shower curtain, I simply sewed on some jumbo ric rac of a coordinating color and TA-DA!

Ah, I am in love. . .I am very pleased with the way it turned out.




Here is what I liked about the project:
*You don't have to be an excellent seamstress.  If you don't sew perfectly straight you'll never know because the ruffles conceal it!
*You can personalize it as much as you'd like.
*I love the ruffles and I love the way it looks in my bathroom!


Tips:
* I thought it would be slick to use my ruffler foot to create the ruffle and attach it to the fabric at the same time.  I thought it would save time, however, it cost me time in the end to fix all the places where the thread missed the fabric.  I should have sewn my ruffle strips, then attached them in two separate steps. 
* If you're going to put this much time and money into the project, use a fabric shower curtain to sew onto.  I've heard that you can sew onto vinyl curtains, however I worry about them becoming brittle with time, so I'd recommend spending a few extra bucks on a fabric curtain.