How To Make A Tie Top Ruffled Curtain

I’m all about quick and easy when it comes to sewing. The joy of sewing, for me, lies in the satisfaction I get from completing a project quickly and creating a new look for little money. In this easy tutorial, I’ll show you how to make a tie top ruffled curtain like the ones in my attic office. You could have new curtains for your space in under an hour.

How Did I Make This Tie Top Curtain?

For this curtain panel, I used white linen. I’m really into linen and cotton/linen blends for sewing lately. It’s lovely to work with and has a worn texture and timeless quality that adds to the vintage farmhouse feel of our home.

Be sure to wash the linen before you begin to sew as the fabric does shrink.

To begin making the tie top ruffled curtain, I measured the height of the window and added approximately 2cm for the top seam. In case you’re wondering, I never measure things accurately. Much of my sewing is a guesstimate!) The good thing about tie top curtains is you can adjust the length when you tie them on, so as long as the fabric piece is the same length as the window to begin, you can’t really go wrong.

I also measured the width of the window and added an extra 20cm. I did this because, while the curtain is a panel, I want it to have some fullness when completely drawn. (Excuse the big gap above the curtain rod that makes it look crooked. I’m yet to fill this piece in!)

To Sew the Curtain Panel

• Fold a centimetre wide seam on one of the longer sides and iron into place, then fold over again and iron to hide the raw edges. Do this on both the long sides of the panel. You can pin and measure the seams if you’re not a confident sewer. I just eyeball it at about a centimetre wide and fold away. Think of it as looking like a large tea-towel.
• Sew both these side seams taking care to sew close to the edge, not the fold. Then iron flat.

Now move onto the tie tops for your ruffled curtain panel.

• I made each tie top around 40cm long. When folded and stitched in place this will give a length of 20cm which ties nicely.
• I used 25mm wide white bias tape for my ties but you could use ribbon to match or even contrast. You can also make the ties using the linen fabric of your curtain but as I said, I’m all about quick. Sewing your own tabs is time-consuming and fiddly.
• Fold the bias tape lengthwise and sew a seam. Then, using a buttonhole stitch, neaten each end so it doesn’t fray.
• After stitching, fold the bias in half and pin to the top of the curtain panel. It’s better to have an odd number of ties so you can space them evenly, beginning in the middle. For my panel, I made 7 ties.

Making the Ruffle

This is probably the trickiest part of constructing your tie top ruffled curtain.

• Cut a length of fabric 1 1/2 times the length of the width of your curtain. My curtain was a metre wide, so I cut a length 1.5metres long.
• Make the length double the width you want it to be. You will fold it to make a neat ruffle.
• Fold the fabric in half with right sides together and stitch each end. Then turn it in, poke the corners out and iron it flat.

• You now need to gather this long strip of fabric along the raw edge side. Do this by adjusting all the tension knobs on your machine to the loosest settings. The fabric should gather automatically.
• Once you’ve gathered the strip, pin it to the right side of your curtain, along the bottom edge. Sew the two pieces together. At this time you should also run a zig zag stitch along those raw edges. If you are lucky enough to be using an overlocker, finish the seam with that.
• Now press the ruffle and curtain so the seam is flat and facing toward the top of the panel.

The ruffled curtain is now ready to hang!

If you love ruffles, you’ll enjoy reading about the ruffled pillows I made for our lounge.

You can see more of what’s happening in the attic makeover in this post about my $2 Cabinet Transformation