Filling in the Awkward Spaces

You know that space above the cabinets? At least those of us with the lower end "builders" cabinets do. They do not reach to the ceiling, and in my kitchen, there was only an 11 inch clearance. I would have loved to extend them up, but I also didn't want to spend a fortune and have to work within my physical limitations.
Enter the answer: fabric. I love fabric. It can cover a multitude of sins, and in this case, it gave me some more storage that did not have to look like a house magazine to not feel cluttered. This is a very inexpensive project, less so if you have scraps of fabric to use instead of having to buy new.
Other resources could be sheets at the Goodwill, or yards sales, and a teeny bit of sewing know how. I did these on the machine because with all the straight lines I would have been bored silly doing it by hand, but a back stitch is all you need to know how to do.

This is the finished work. The curtain extends on both sides to the ends of the cupboards.

These are held in place with cup hooks and long dowels from the hardware store. To keep them in the ceiling, I suggest using a lightweight anchor to keep the cup hooks in place. To keep the look streamlined, I slit a very small hole in the fabric where ever there was a hook, I did keep the sections as panels, rather than one long piece. This is to avoid dealing with the whole thing when putting thing away, and will also make washing and putting it back up easier later on. This set up does not have anchors (yet). I was very impatient and just wanted to get them done, but I do strongly suggest a lightweight anchor. Unless your fabric is heavy, that is all you will need.
The top has a pocket hem of just and inch and a half, and the bottom was cut using pinking shears, so just a 1/4 inch hem was needed, but if you worry about strands of threads popping out, you may want to double the hem to hide the edges. The pinking shears tend to keep the fraying down.

Here is is above the sink

The curtains are a little slapped up there. It was a practice embroidered towel I did, but I couldn't bear to wash dishes with it after all that work, so I split it in two, hand sewed a seam and voila!