CURTAIN HINTS

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 835, 2 December 1929, Page 4

CURTAIN HINTS

ECONOMISING FOR WIVES MATCHING AND LINING A business woman furnishing her first home often finds difficulties which her more domesticated sisters have solved to their satisfaction years before marriage. She finds it difficult to match everything, to choose curtains and carpets which biend. In modern furnishing with its bare restraint, attractive curtains and hangings have become very important. Repeat the colour of the cushions or rugs ill the heavy curtains and the rest of the room will present little difficulty. Many women who make their own casement curtains will tell you: “Oil. no; it is almost impossible to line curtains yourself and have them hang properly —the curtain material must overlap the lining on the inside by at least one inch, and that means interminable smoothing and tacking, with only very poor results.” But there is no need for all this difficulty. Not even the most inexperienced seamstress finds it difficult to make a pillowcase. Lined curtains can be made in the same way. The material and lining are cut to exactly the same size—that is, three or four inches longer than the actual height of the window and one and a-half times the width the the. window (for two curtans. each is one and a-hal£ times the width of half the opening). The materials are laid out with their right sides together and edges matching. A tacking thread is run round all four sides about one inch from the edge. The two sides and bottom are then machined some half-inch from the edge. It is then turned inside out, thimbling the seams from the inside. To obtain a well-tailored effect it is advisable then to tack the edges (this time on the right side) and carefully iron the edges and corners so that neither lining nor material will drop one below the other. In the case of silk materials aud where the lining matches exactly, this will be found a sufficient finish to the edges and hem of the curtain. A special word about the tape may be useful to the uninitiated who remember the long, laborious sewing on of curtain rings in the home of their childhood. All furnishing stores nowsell a double tape (ail colours) through which are threaded two stout strings. When these are drawn up the curtain is gathered to any width. and through the" loops formed by the double pieces of tape are slipped patent hooks, which in turn hook through the rings of the curtain runner. Even more Inexpensive are rings which open like safety-pins and will themselves slip along any curtain rod. It is the work of a few minutes only! For those who don’t think it sufficient to hide the curtain fixtures by sewing the draw tape several inches from the top so that the gathered tops project upward, a pelmet or a frill should present little difficulty. The former is cut to the width of the window, with two or three inches at each end for the sides, and the required depth—and then lined. The frill —even simpler—is made and finished in all respects exactly as the curtain—the w-idth being in the same proportion and the depth is a matter of taste.

When you make loose covers, cut them out in this order: The back (facing), the seat, the arms, the outside of the arms, the back, tlie front of the arms, the border, tlie frills.— Woman and Home.