HOME DECORATION.

Ellesmere Guardian, Volume LVI, Issue 41, 24 May 1935, Page 3

HOME DECORATION.

MAKING CURTAINS

Having procured your stuff, cut out on a really large flat surface. Failing a long dining table, push two small tables together, or spread a vacant floor space with clean paper and use ] that.

Measure the lengths required with the yard-stick, put a pin at the cuttingroff point, then check the length by measuring backwards to the end of the stuff again. It is so easy to make a mistake, especially with long curtains, that this precaution is worth while. If a curtain is one and a-half widths wide, join the halfwidth on the outside of each curtain so that when the curtain is drawn back the seam will be hidden in the folds. Before joining widths, nick the selvedges every few inches with slanting cuts. Otherwise, being usually more tightly woven than the main fabric, they tend to pucker the curtain at the join. Use a French seam for joining thin, washable materials. For thicker ones, the flat-fell lies flatter. For a flat-fell, begin as a plain seam with extra wide turnings. Press these both one way, cut off the under one as narrow as is safe, turn in the raw edge of the wide one to cover it, and stitch again down the fold. See that your ! bottom hems are beautifully straight — a carpenter's set square will help you here—and make them nice and deep—say one inch deep on short casement curtains and a good three inches on heavy floorlength draperies. Velour is too bulky for the ordinary double-turn, so crease it up once only and herringbone neatly over the raw edge, taking the stitches very lightly on the single layer. '

When hemming transparent curtains of muslin or voile, make the first turn the full depth of the hem, or its varying thicknesses will show through against the light. The most efficient and modern way to finish curtain tops is to turn them in singly and stitch special "rufflette" curtain tape over the. raw edge. This tape is fitted with pockets for hooks and with cords for drawing up the curtain to the right'fullness.