Fabrics for Lace and Nets Curtains

Fabrics for Lace and Nets Curtains

Another returning vogue is lace, especially with a renewal of home fashion interest in Victorian styles. But the newer lace curtains have more delicate designs than the older styles. Although lace is available in a great variety of patterns, familiar laces for draperies include "antique lace," which is hand-made bobbin lace of heavy thread with large, often irregular, square-knotted net on which designs are darned. It is the imitation antique lace, which is the fabric sold for draperies. Battenburg lace, a coarser form of Renaissance lace, made by hand or machine, of linen, braid or tape and linen thread brought together to form various designs, is machine-made for draperies. Brussels lace is now being made by machine in delicate patterns. But the more contemporary lace fabrics have sheer ground areas, clearer designs, and free placement of design motifs.

Fish net, cotton or linen twine knotted together with big open loops, is often recommended by decorators for seashore or country houses, for covering big open window spaces, or as a wall drapery, where it can provide a pleasing pattern of white threads against a vivid background. To provide privacy with fish net it is necessary to have overlapping lengths. For some reason an illusion exists that this is an inexpensive window treatment; actually fish net, obtained from commercial fishing supply houses at best, is relatively expensive.

Fabrics for Lace and Nets Curtains

Ordinary net, usually in beige colors or tan, is often sold as a dining room or living room curtain material and is considered durable, although in actuality its shrinkage rate is high. Breton lace, net which has designs embroidered on it with heavy, often with colored, thread, is also sold. Tambour curtain fabrics (embroidered on a drum-like device) and filet nets from England, Switzerland and France are available, and provide a filmy glass curtain through which soft sunlight filters.

Just announced is a method of weaving nylon on looms, and lace curtains of nylon are said to be light in weight and easily laundered. After the water has drained off, the curtains may be hung back on the rods to finish drying. A light pressing is only necessary at the hems.

Gauze, a thin, sheer-woven cotton fabric similar to cheesecloth, is made in different weaves of silk, cotton, rayon and synthetics. Theatrical gauze, now being produced in charming pastel plaids of green, pink and white, yellow, white and rust, hunter green, and chartreuse and white, among other color combinations, can be used for play rooms, dining rooms, or any room where a subtle, gay touch is wanted.

Fabrics for Lace and Nets Curtains

Another nylon fabric now available is a gauze of such transparent delicacy that a hundred yards of it weighs less than five pounds. Remarkably strong and dirt-resistant for all its sheerness, it is described as ideal for casement curtains, as it lets in a slightly softened light, while from the outside the close weave reflects the light and reveals nothing.

Serim, a lightweight, stiffened, coarse gauze, with an open weave, usually in ecru or white, used to be preferred to net and marquisette, since it had less tendency to shrink on washing but, as explained, this need no longer be a prime consideration, since you can get other materials which will not shrink. The rule still holds good, however, that for fabrics which are not shrink-proof, the coarser the mesh, the more chance of shrinking. Some fabrics with a coarse mesh will shrink so much at the first washing as to be practically useless.

Dotted swiss, a sheer, crisp, cotton fabric with either embroidered or raised polka dots on a plain weave, is effective for informal curtains, and for bedrooms, kitchens, etc.

Glass curtains that are more opaque include the already-mentioned handkerchief or finer linens, cam-brics or lawns; natural silk, which is naturally creamy-white or yellow, depending on its source, or dark tan if from a wild silkworm; pongee, which is a thin natural tan-colored silk with a rough, knotty weave, or shantung, which is much like pongee and was originally woven o wild silk in China but is now often mixed with rayon and cotton. All of these silk or silk-based materials have a natural resiliency and do not crash easily. There is also madras, familiar in a heavier weight as men's shirting material, which is a woven cotton fabric with a stripe, a corded or a checked effect. Nylon and other rayon fabrics that resemble silk closely can be had too, and rayon dress fabrics in interesting prints may make unusual-looking curtains.