Two toned Seagull Shower Curtain

If you follow the green environment push at all, I am sure you have heard about the various chemicals that may off-gas from plastic. Fabric is one alternative to plastic, and in an effort to eliminate one major source of plastic in my apartment -- the sheet of it that hangs across the width of my bathroom -- I designed my own fabric shower curtain.

For the cost of some time, thread and clearance fabrics I made a stylish two toned shower curtain to replace my semi clear world map plastic shower curtain.  As awesome as the design was on my plastic shower curtain (and admittedly I loved the graphics) I decided that it was time to "remodel".  Being "green" in this case really wasn't the biggest push. Nor was the fact that part of holes in the plastic were gradually tearing through (which I solved by taking a hole punch to it to create new slots for the plastic rings to hang through).  It wasn't even the possibility of creating a sophisticated home decor to go along with the beige floor tiles, fancy vanity lighting and the sea shell wall paper border that came along with the rental.  No, basically it was the thrill of designing and creating a new sewing project after seeing a similar idea in somewhere, probably at least a year ago, on some crafter's blog!

Designing, buying fabric, cutting out and sewing was a 2 day project.

Here is what I found:

• Not quite a yard of striped tan linen from the clearance aisle for the main part of the curtain. $1.39
• A yard of sheer tan organza type for the see thru panel (to allow light in, nothing worse than trying to shower without being able to see!) 
• Blue seagull novelty fabric 2 yards.  Decided to get 2 yards of it so could also decorate matching towels.  $3.15
• Even thread was on sale, so I got me some matching neutral beige thread, $1.39

The construction  is fairly simple and one can probably figure out how to put it together just by looking at the photo.  The only "extra" step that may not be obvious is that the sheer panel is actually 2 layers, as I folded it in half.  I also seemed to do a lot of hemming and folding seams over so they wouldn't ravel.

I chose the linen because I was looking to go for as close to a natural fabric as I could that would also be light and air-y so that it would dry quickly in a humid bathroom.   It also was a stroke of luck to find something in the clearance aisle that perfectly matched my color scheme!  The tans in the print are in the colors of the birds.