How I Made No-Sew Cafe Curtains For My Kitchen

While I have done many DIY projects in my life, I don’t know if I would consider myself an “expert”:) I’m not without skill but I’m also not a DIY influencer (plus, the wonderful Marlee and Gretchen are incredible DIYers ... The post How I Made No-Sew Cafe Curtains For My Kitchen appeared first on Emily Henderson.

Feb 28, 2025 - 13:38

How I Made No-Sew Cafe Curtains For My Kitchen

While I have done many DIY projects in my life, I don’t know if I would consider myself an “expert”:) I’m not without skill but I’m also not a DIY influencer (plus, the wonderful Marlee and Gretchen are incredible DIYers and are always here to help me!). Those designers are so freaking talented. So believe me when I tell you that anyone with an iron can make these incredible sweet curtains. In case you missed the last post where I wrote about the final two fabric options, these block print ones may have come in second to my beloved Boro ones. What can I say, I can’t get enough, ha. But I still think they are so sweet and I am about to take you step-by-step on how to make your own. There are infinite places to put a cafe curtain so once you learn the steps, let your imagination go wild:) Let’s get into it.

These curtains were so easy to make. A little too easy. Here’s what you’ll need for fast and dirty cafe curtains:

Start by measuring your windows to figure out what size to make your cafe curtains. You may need to experiment with how much or how little fabric to use, depending on the amount of gathering you’d like the curtains to have. Our windows are 30″ across, and I knew I wanted the fabric to stay somewhat pleated even when closed, so we’d have to account for that in the fabric measurement and add to the total length. We cut a few scrap pieces to play around and find our perfect gather amount and then decided on a final width. Because we’re making two panels per window, we landed on each panel being 38″ across, and made sure to leave seam allowance on all sides.

Before cutting each panel, decide on the overall length, where you will hang the curtains from, and take into account the size of the “hem” you want at the top and bottom. For us, about 3″ felt good, like traditional curtains. For the sides of the panels, we allowed for about an inch on each side to give it a clean edge. We cut out our 10 panels (two per window) and gave them a quick pass with the iron. Then we folded over the side seams and pressed those to give them a crisp edge, and repeated the process with the larger top and bottom hems, making sure to fold under the frayed edges.

Once we had a fairly clean hem guide, we used iron on seam tape to hold everything in place. This stuff works great and I’ve used it in a number of other projects. It gets the job done fast and is fairly forgiving if you mess up or need to start again.

You place the tape flat in between your fabric folds and press your iron down to create the bond. We used a high heat setting because our fabric was linen, but follow the instructions on the box and according to your chosen fabric type. Using a damp cloth in-between the fabric and your iron can help with fusing if for some reason the iron isn’t enough to set the bond.

Keep placing the seam tape and pressing your iron across all the edges until you have a finished panel. Is it the most perfect thing you’ve ever seen? No! But your edges won’t fray and because the curtains are designed to stay gathered whether opened or closed, the imperfections will disappear into the folds.

Now you may be wondering where the rod pocket or tabs are to hang the curtains. That’s the beauty of this crazy simple DIY–you don’t need them! Instead, we found these great pinch ring clips from Rejuvenation which grab directly onto the fabric, making it really easy to throw it all together. Our fabric was reallllly thin, and the pinch clips didn’t want to stay gripping, so if you run into the same issue, all you have to do is pull the rings apart some to create more tension before you pinch them onto the fabric.

The best part is these clips are very easily moved. We played around with how many would be needed to create the right amount of pleats and landed on five per panel, spacing each clip out across the fabric evenly. All that’s left is to slide the two panels onto each tension rod, and hang them up!