How to Hem Curtains Without Sewing + No Sew Pinch Pleat Hack

Carolyn J. Braden • 3 Minute Read 

How to Hem Curtains Without Sewing + No Sew Pinch Pleat Hack

In our house on Sanibel Island, we have a bedroom that has a slider door that opens up to a giant screened in porch. The porch is fully screened, including the ceiling. Every morning, you wake up as soon as the sun starts coming up because the big glass sliders let all the light in. While I love seeing the sunsets and sunrises, the strong Florida sun also warmed the room up very quickly.

This no sew hem method made my curtains be the perfect length

I decided to hang some heavy room darkening curtains to help with the light and the heat and they did, but always looked messy. Getting custom made curtains is fairly pricey, and even though I could sew, I wanted to come up with an easier way to solve this problem. If it’s a problem for me, I knew it was probably a problem for others that I could solve and share.

Steaming your curtains after hanging make them even more perfect!

I tried several ways to hang my messy curtains and finally came up with an easy method that includes no sewing. I originally created a post about my no sew pinch pleat curtain, but the bottom of the curtains still looked messy. See that article by clicking here. My new method involves folding over a section of curtain at the top, then adding the “pinch pleat” or the fold to make the curtains look nicer when hung.

Read on to learn how to hem curtains without sewing and my no sew pinch pleat method.

See this no sew curtain hack in my one minute video below or via my YouTube channel @carolynjbraden:

Here are the things I bought for this project on Amazon:

Directions:

1—First, my husband hung up the curtain rod. We had to do some minor water damage control on this area due to our Hurricane Ian experience, and so he hung crown molding above the door as well too, which “fancied” up the area. See all our before and after’s from Hurricane Ian by clicking this link. It’s pretty amazing what we accomplished in a year!

My husband showing our Hurricane Ian water damage on the bottom of the old curtains

The old curtains were too long for the space because I didn’t make time to hem them, but it actually was okay. Because of their long length, they soaked up the water that came in from roof damage during the storm and helped our floors not get damaged! The one time one of my things on my to-do list got pushed aside (in this case, it was hemming the curtains) actually worked for us! Yay!

We folded over the top portion of the curtains for a no sew hem

2—Thankfully with getting a new roof about a year after the storm hit, we didn’t have to worry about leaks anymore (hopefully!) so the next thing I needed was for the curtains to be shorter. Our door was a very strange size, so finding a perfect curtain length that would work without shortening was not possible. I had an idea to fold over the top of the curtains to make them shorter instead of running through my sewing machine.

I added straight pins to keep the hem perfect

It’s an easy and quick idea for anyone that doesn’t feel like sewing or simply do not know how. To make them perfect, I measured how long I wanted them to be and folded them to that size at the top. I folded the front over to the back and then pinned them with straight pins. I did this to each curtain panel.

The no sew pinch pleat fold method

3-- Next, I wanted the curtains to look nice at the top, so instead of clipping on the metal curtain rings while the curtains were straight, I did my “folded pinch pleat” method, which got really popular on my Pinterest account. You basically lay out the curtain on a flat surface and clip the clamp attached to the ring hook on one end and then start making small folds or “pinches” of fabric at small intervals and clip on the ring hooks and remove the straight pins as you go.

I ended up using four curtain panels for this spaced and about 12 curtain hooks for each panel. Doing the folding pinch pleat will slightly shorten the width of your curtain panels, so you may need extra to cover your window or door space.

See how I did the faux pinch pleat in the less than a minute video below or via my YouTube channel @carolynjbraden. You would do this method on the folded top part of the curtain. This way it’s “hemmed” or shortened to the length you want and the top is neatly “pinch pleated”.

4—Lastly, we hung the “pinch pleated” and folded curtains onto the rods. The part that I folded over just looks like a ruffle, but it’s on the other side, which faces the porch, but I like how it looks. You could cut off the extra after attaching the curtains to the ring hooks, but I left it because it looked okay.

The back side of the curtains face our back porch

I am not sure I’ll ever sew my curtains to the right length again! I love this easy curtain shortening method. It makes my curtains look perfect and neat.

If you tried this or have your own methods for making curtains look good without sewing, leave me a comment below!

If you loved this article, we know you’ll love this one too: How To Hang Curtains With No Drilling and No Magnets

Carolyn J. (C.J.) Braden is a regular contributor and editor for Carolyn’s Blooming Creations. She has been featured in numerous media publications such as InStyle Magazine, on HGTV, on Bustle.com, and more. She is the author of the books Georgia McMasters in Amethyst Lake Cemetery, How To Be Yourself: 3 Ways To Help You Being You, and the illustrator for the children’s book Bridging Connections. She is a former classroom teacher that now dedicates her life to educating others on how to live their most healthy, creative and happy life. Learn more about her visiting our About Us page.