How to make curtains, curtains design, curtain needs, curtain styles

Sunday, September 30, 2012

The Style of Curtains and the Architecture of the House




The style of curtain should suit the architecture of the house, more especially perhaps from the outside, since curtains lend so much of the personal to a house. Viewed from the inside of the house the curtains should have a certain amount of uniformity. If rooms open into one another with large openings the curtains should be of the same material or well blended as to color and material. Thus, if the living room curtains are linen with a pattern of rose, dull green and old blue, have the dining room curtains of old blue stripes or plain dull green. If the same material is used in both rooms, introduce variation by binding the living-room curtains with plain green and the dining room blue or whatever color one wishes accented in the room. Linen curtains used in one room and taffeta of a similar shade make a well blended scheme for adjoining rooms. Mulberry and sage green are two contrasting colors that may be used successfully in this way. They produce a uniformity in feeling, because the contrasting colors are so harmonious.

An excellent material to give a house uniformity is casement cloth. In a stucco house with oak inside woodwork this material is extremely good. Casement cloth comes in various colors tans, golden brown, cream, green and dull orange.



The warp is wool and the over-weave silk. It hangs well, wears well and cleans well.
It is particularly appropriate in houses of an English style of architecture, but may be used in any room without offense. One good weave has a tiny herring-bone effect in silk on the wool. Casement cloth can be used where scrim could be used. It has a closer, thicker texture and should be hung on rods with rings and pulled back and forth at will. It is not transparent.

Uniformity in the bedrooms may be obtained by using scrim or even the best quality cheesecloth and putting an inch binding on the edges. The binding being the same width but of various colors, and the curtains of the same cloth, a uniform appearance is seen from the outside. The binding may be in whatever color is used in each room, thus carrying out the various color schemes, but from the outside this detail of color is not noticed. The overhangings may be in any color and design of chintz.

Beautiful curtains of Brussels net with real lace may be used in the downstairs rooms, and simpler, plainer nets, with or without lace insertions and edges, may be used upstairs. For the formal city house this is preferable to any window treatment, but it is a matter of much expense. The over-draperies must be of a consistent richness in texture, and formal as to hanging and arrangement.

Saturday, September 29, 2012

Winter Curtains and Hangings for a City House




For winter hangings for the city house, there are many points to be considered. The curtains are usually more pretentious and costly. They have less buffeting at open windows, but they have more smoke and city grime. They also actually serve to keep out the cold that filters in through the window cracks. Damask, velours, taffeta, woolen rep and handsome linen are most appropriate for winter city use. They must be made with a formality as to heading, valance and edging. This is true of living, drawing and dining rooms. Cretonne curtains are always pretty and advisable for bedrooms; if one wants a more elaborate and therefore a more expensive hanging, linens are best. The vogue for linen hangings throughout the house is a practical and attractive fashion.



It permits more frequent renewing, and is a gratifying change after the voluminously enveloped window hangings of the Victorian period, which were heavy and unhealthy, their mission seeming to be to crowd out the least breath of fresh air that squeezed in through the window. Befringed, betasseled, be-roped and valanced to the utmost, they acted as a dragon to the fresh wandering little breeze.

If you have them still on hand, take them down and upholster a set of furniture with them, and put in their place something fresh, sanitary and simply made. Viewed from the outside, the incongruity of a formal house of Italian style of architecture with white Swiss muslin curtains and those beruffled, is impossible. As far as is consistent, the curtains should be uniform both as to shape and general style. It is distracting to see half a dozen shapes of hangings on one fa9ade. The quality and color must necessarily differ in the various rooms, but much toward the desired uniformity may be attained by using thin cream curtains against the glass throughout the house.

Friday, September 28, 2012

Curtains for Country Cottages




For country cottage use, curtains may be made of unbleached cotton with a two and one-half inch ruffle down the inside and at the bottom, and hung on rods at the top and bottom sash. This makes four at each window. When the panes are of small squares, the effect is charming. They are used in place of shades. Rather narrow over-curtains of plain colored material hung in straight folds add color.




Plants put on the window ledge with these ruffled curtains and overhangings give just the right cottage touch reminiscent of Kent and Surrey. The same idea can be applied to camps and bungalows. Shade fixtures rust and get out of order during the severe winter weather. Also they become frayed, and dampness takes out the stiffness. Therefore the little cotton washable curtains with or without ruffles are most serviceable. For overhangings in a camp, if one wants a bit of color, Turkey red stripes are effective and durable. Washable materials are best for the country house as each season the hangings may be carefully laundered and put away in large boxes, ready for the next season's use. Almost all cotton curtains shrink. Before laundering rip the hems and after washing rehem them.

Making Curtains and Hangings


The General Principles of Exposure, Locality and Architecture Uniformity Outdoors and Indoors General Wear


We come to the treatment of windows with more enthusiasm than to any other part of house furnishing. The background carefully decided upon, the question of the sturdy-legged table passed, we arrive at the delectable affairs of curtaining.

There are several general principles to be observed: exposure, style of architecture, and locality, i.e., in town or country houses.

For windows with a southern exposure it were best to use against the glass a semitransparent material as the full glare is unpleasant and this fabric distributes the light more evenly over the room. The quality of the material must be durable since the sun not only fades it but tends to rot as well.

Curtains of thin material placed against the glass are called outside or sash curtains,
the heavier curtains are called inside hangings or over-draperies.

The semi-transparent material protects the real window drapery, acting as a buffer against glare and heat. It were also well to line curtains put at a southern exposure, as this is a further protection, and the lining may be easily renewed, thereby adding years of service to the drapery. Soft mellow tones may be selected as the sunlight itself adds brilliancy.

Within the past few years there have been put on the market many sunfast materials which give satisfaction and service. The fabric is cotton and comes in various weights and textures. Dyers have not been able to produce a sunfast silk, a quality in silk not taking to sunfast dye. However, many of the cotton fabrics are so cleverly mercerized that they both look and feel like silk. There is something about foreign dyed materials that will withstand the sun far better than domestic goods. In selecting materials, choose an imported cotton or linen fabric, for though the initial expense may be greater, the durability as to color and texture, to say frothing of the superior design, is well worth the outlay.



For the northern exposure warm tones of yellow, orange and brown are the best choice. We must counteract the full blast of our bleak northern skies. We must obliterate any sense of gloom, and light filtering through a warm-toned curtain may work miracles in the darkest corner. We covet this effect of cheeriness. In the northern exposure we do not have to consider the problem of fading, but, curiously enough, the most fadable color violet
is the last color we should choose for a northern exposure.

For the east and west windows we may run the gamut as to color and fabric. In the country house, freshness is the requisite for curtaining. Linen or ere tonne hangings are most appropriate, as they can be easily laundered and therefore kept fresh. They bring indoors their gay flowers and gayer birds and act as a transition between the outside garden and the indoor rooms. Fresh muslin is attractive for the upstairs rooms. They are a little too fussy and lack a certain dignified formality that one looks for in the rooms downstairs. For, however simple one's mode of living, there should be a feeling of reserve and formality in the rooms where the formal affairs of life are carried on. The design and color of curtains to be used in the country home may be startling, ultra-modern and most vivid.

The brilliancy of everything about helps to carry out successfully a striking hanging. They enliven and refresh us, and in some cases, especially, with the designs and colors of the new Austrian and French materials, they most surely amuse us. They are grotesque, but with a naïveté that saves them from the ridiculous. The colors are wonderfully though fearfully blended; they are never muggy or confused; one color is simply and directly laid to the next.

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