How to Make Curtain Ties

Need something cute to tie back your curtains? You are going to love making these easy curtain tie backs!

It was time to upgrade our worn out curtain tie backs, and since I am in the season of wanting to create things for my home instead of consume as much as possible, I decided to make some.

These cute ruffled curtain tie backs are the finished product. We have white curtains so the reddish gingham looks quite lovely with them.

I tend to choose gingham for a lot of sewing projects because I like the old fashioned look they give, but also because the pattern makes it really easy to cut the pieces of fabric.

DIY Curtain Tie Back

Materials:

Fabric
Matching or Coordinating Thread
Fabric Scissors
Pins
Sewing Machine
Threaded Bobbin
Iron
Ironing Board

Cut the fabric.

You will need two pieces of fabric:

Tie – 25″ x 3″
Ruffle – 15″ x 4″

Make the Ruffle.

Hem three sides of the wider piece which will be the ruffle, starting with a shorter side, followed by one of the longer sides, and finishing with the second shorter side.

On the last side or top side of the ruffle, sew a row of straight stitches without back tracking. You can sew a second row of stitches next to it like I did if you are concerned with the thread breaking when you try to gather it, but this is not necessary. As long as you pull gently, one row of stitches should suffice.

Gather the stitches by pulling gently on the two bottom or bobbin threads. The top threads will not slide as easily so if you are having trouble gathering the fabric try the other threads. You may have grabbed the wrong ones.

Pull on the threads until the fabric has shrinked down to 8″.

Iron down the tie.

I very much dislike ironing and generally skip this step, but for a small piece of fabric like this tie, it is really hard to get everything to lay right without ironing it.

Fold and iron every side down 1/4″. Make sure you fold down the correct side.

Once every side is ironed down, fold it in half lengthwise and iron just to help it lay flat.

Attach the ruffle.

Find the middle of the tie by measuring or folding it in half and mark it with a pencil or pin. Find the middle of the ruffle and mark it as well.

Try to pin the ruffle working on the top side of the fabric (hemmed sides down). It just helps when it comes time to sew so that you can make sure everything lines up and stays pretty. I did not do this so learn from my mistake.

Unfold or insert the ruffle into the tie starting at the middle points and pin it together. Try to stick the ruffle far enough in so that the edges of the tie cover the basting or gathering stitches. Continue pinning until the ruffle is securely attached to the tie.

If necessary, pin the tie pieces together all the way around as well.

Sew on the ruffle.

Sew the ruffle to the tie starting with the edge of the tie and working your way all the way around. Don’t forget to backtrack to keep the threads secure.

Cut off threads.

Snip off the threads and check and make sure the basting stitch is hidden. If it is not, you can easily remove them with a seam ripper.

All Done!

You did it! You made a cute ruffled tie back and I hope the you enjoy the little bit of beauty that ruffles add to a home.