My Curtains Shrunk!

Since moving into my home 3 years ago, we've never had our curtains cleaned.  These are Ikea curtains, and convenient to clean, since they are indeed machine washable.  There is also a 4% shrinkage involved when washing these curtains.  (Here they are on the website, only ours is in navy, a colour in which they no longer sell).

Awhile back, we noticed that some parts of the hem on these curtains were held up by sewing pins.  We never bothered to remove these pins, since Little B never ever showed any interest in playing with the curtains - until one day last month, when she pulled a pin from the hem, and handed it to me.  Oh dear, I thought.  At least she's past the age of putting things in her mouth, I thought.  So a few weekends ago, the curtains came down, and I stitched up the hem, properly.  Don't ask me why the previous owners never sewed them up... probably out of sheer laziness.  And also, probably because they never had to worry about young kids or toddlers playing with them.  The majority of the hem was held up by iron-on hemming strips, that seemed to be falling apart (hence the pins).  No big deal, I will stitch all of it up.  And since the curtains are down, I will throw them into the machine to wash them.  Again, no big deal.  Until they were hung up again.

First thing I noticed was that the curtains seemed pounds lighter than before.  Was there really that much dust in the curtains that a simple wash lightened up their weight??  Yikes.  Second thing my husband noticed (since he was hanging up the curtains) was that they shrunk by about an inch and a bit.  They hung off the floor and let in a strip of daylight, where no daylight should be peeping in (the curtains are supposed to hang straight to the floor).  This was an indication to me that these curtains have NEVER been washed before.  This was also an indication that whoever hemmed the curtains was definitely not sew-savvy, since all sewers know to wash the fabric before hemming or stitching, due to shrinkage! 

Luckily for us, the dining room curtains, and living room curtains are exactly the same brand/style, etc..  Only, one was hemmed slightly shorter than the other.  We switched the curtains and nobody is the wiser.  The dining room curtains were in our living room, and the living room curtains (although still hanging off the floor) are now in the dining room.  Both curtains have been properly hemmed and washed.  And perhaps in a year I'll wash them again.

I just find it a bit appalling that in the entire life of those curtains, they have never been cleaned before...  And who knows how long they've been hanging up on those rods before I decided it was time for a bit of maintenance??  EEP.

(And yes, I realize that some readers will be appalled that we left the pins in, when we had a toddler around, but Little B seriously had ZERO interest in anything curtain related, until very recently, when she realized that they make a perfect hiding place for her).