Make a Shower Curtain from a Bed Sheet

We painted the hall bathroom. Again. The bathroom our kids use.  If you don't have kids, it will be difficult to understand how quickly children can mess up a paint job. After painting, the shower curtain looked shabby. So the search began to find a shower curtain that would work well with our twenty year old tiles and the chic paint my tweenage daughter selected for the bathroom. We checked area stores. We checked online. No luck. Anywhere.

It became clear, if we wanted a new shower curtain we would need to make it ourselves... but a search of area fabric shops was no better. When I held up an old, not much used shower curtain that had the colors and tones of the fresh paint, wall and floor tiles, all in our family agreed that upcycling was the answer.
 
Tools

Tailor Chalk
Fabric scissors
Rotary cutter
24 x 36 self healing mat
Iron

Sewing machine or hand needle
Hammer

Materials

3/8 Brass Grommet Kit, General No. 71262
Thread
Size 12 needles  

Step 1

Use a ruler to measure the sheet the size needed for your shower curtain. Standard shower curtains measure 72" X 72", but adjust the size as needed for your shower space and add space for your seam allowance. I used a full size sheet. Mark the cut line with tailor chalk. Use a rotary cutter or scissors to cut the sheet the size needed for your shower curtain leaving extra space for a seam allowance.

Step 2
Mark, measure, press and sew the seams. Since the sheet already was sewn, I cut the sheet so I could use to seams as they were originally sewn and I would need to sew only two seams. I matched the thread to the color originally used to sew the sheet. I then measured the original side seam and folded the opposite side so it was the same size. I pressed the seam with my iron and then folded the seam again. Then I sewed the seam with my sewing machine using a straight stitch.

Step 3

Cut small holes across the top of the sheet where you want to put the rings that will hold the shower curtain. Insert a grommet into the hole. Place the grommet into the grommet tool with the back side of the grommet in place and hammer the grommet closed. Repeat for each grommet.

Note: You can sew button holes where you want to use curtain rings rather than inserting grommets...l but I used brass grommets to integrate the curtain with the brass fixtures in my bathroom.

Step 4

Insert the curtain rings through the completed rivets.

Step 5

Hang the curtain.

Further Reading

"Designer Projects for Bed & Bath (Singer Sewing Reference Library)"; Singer; 1999.