windowdesigninc.com/D

Drapery

The art of gathering fabric into a functional and fashionable window andornment.

Let's make a drapery

Fabricut Quick Ship Panels

Six Sizes, Four Patterns & 31 Colors Available.

The program is intended as standard sized decorative Side Panels.
Only Single wide 22" panels or Double wide 41" panels,
Set lengths, 84", 90", 96", 105", 108" and 120".

It can work for dressing up your windows, a great way to decorate without too much cost and effort.

The link will give you a STOP box, " Account or Sign In ",
Just hit the " X " to dismiss and then Start Building.

You can also shop around to see Quick Ship Panels and Rods.

This web page also includes,

Fabricut Finished Products

These are Custom sized Draperies, Romans and Top treatments.
Great information to get a sense of what custom products are available.

It's very similar to our local drapery workroom,
Fabricut offers their full workroom facility.

Cost is similar to our local workroom,
the disantvantage is working from afar and shipping costs.

It is a nicley organized program,
however not too practical in shipping
Drapery goods, rods and valances across the counrty.
Boxed fabrics tend to get wrinkled in transit.

We prefer to have our goods produced with our local artisans.

This a great window shopping tool,
There might be a small pun in that staement.

Fabricut, Quick Panels & Finished Products

Full functional draperies are a little more complicated.
Fabric selection and size specific draperies can be made by our local workroom or Fabricut's workroom.

If you would like to explore Fabricut Fabrics, click here.

We can order Memos free of charge,
mail directly to you, up to 30 per day.
It's a great way to get samples in your hand.

Or we can get together and look at some fabric books.

Would you like to make an appointment?

We would be glad to discuss your project.

We have built a lot of information into this website.
By all means, keep browsing.
We are available when you are.

Throughout this website I've endeavored to make succinct statements in categories of the window covering world.

Draperies in particular are an area of great detail.

I will try to make a palatable attempt at breaking down the complexities of the " Soft goods "

Some general product types to consider

Drapery

The essential window covering

A fabric gathered into a functional device, a covering across your windows to provided privacy, insulation, and an ecstatic qualitiy to your homes decor.

Layered Treatments

sub comment

Narritive

Roman Shades

sub comment

Narritive

Top treatments

Valnces, Cornices, Soffits

Narritive

Special Adornments

Edge binding, Fringe, Piping

Narritive

Accessories

Pillows, Cushions, Tiebacks

Narritive

Specialty Treatments

Shutters, Shoji Screen, Scrolls and Sudare

Narritive

Hard Treatments

Shades and Blinds

Well, I guess we are circling back to the basics

As simple as it sounds, there is a multitude of planning that goes into producing a drapery for your home

We need to take detail measurements and discuss how high and wide the draperies need to be.

The following are some general guidelines,
of course your specific window size needs to be considered. The width wants to be a little wider than you window,
6" beyond will get you a nice stack back area.

The height of the drapery want to be 3" above your window, 84" is a standard height.

The type of rodding needs to be considered,
A decorative rod will need space for the brackets to land on the wall.
The drapery hangs below

more later, im working on it

This will help in focusing on what type of treatments you are contemplating

The single most difficult of aspect of making a drapery for your home is fabric selection.
There are so many fabrics to choose from.
My main supplier of fabric is Fabricut, They have 34,690 at last count.

So, Let's choose one!

My local drapery workroom has a showroom with a few hundred sample books of nice fabrics,
We could start there.

However, most people are busy and we would need to find the time to go to the showroom.

I have a line or two of sample books that I could bring on a consultation.
Visiting your house is the best way to start planning.
It would give us a chance to see your windows,
discuss how the treatment would work in your space
and look at some fabric ideas.
In most cases the samples, what I have would be inspirational,
but might not be just right.
It's a start in the right direction.

A few years back the next step would be to plan a day trip to Seattle's Design Center and shop the thousands of fabrics.
This is an option, and can be fun and certainley a way to see most of everything first hand.

Another idea is go online.
Ultimatley the " just right " fabric might be refined by using an online tool.

Have you noticed that our computer age is getting better everyday?

Well the world of drapery fabrics has improved digitally as well.
We can go directly onto the Fabricut website, search and select from their 34,690 fabrics.
The 2nd step in this process is to order a Memo.

A small cutting of the actual fabric and the memos are provided free of charge.
They are prety quick about getting the memos out and mailed directly to you.

Fabricut

This link will take you to the Fabicut website,
you can enter almost any keyword and find a related fabric
or search the drilldown menu.

Sheers

Lightweight, transparent sheers, usually polyester, are available in a wide variety of colors and sometimes prints.

Quite often the fabric width is 118" to 122" wide, 54" is the usual width of drapery fabric.
The greater width of a sheer fabric or casement goods is the ability to railroad the fabric.
Railroading is to turn the fabric using the width as the height, sewing the draperies full height with out involving seams.
In other words unfolding the bolt of fabric down the railroad tracks, taking atvantage of the fabic width as the height of our drapery.

Sheer draperies offer some degree of privacy without fully blocking light,
and are used either alone or as a decorative accent layer of a double drapery treatment.

These lightweight fabrics can be used as Darperies, Curtains or Roman shades adding a delicate style to your decor.
Laces or embroirdery are often used as a bit of styling.

Linen

Medium weight/heavy weight linen is very suitable as a drapery fabric.
A classic look, durable and strong with an unmatched elegance.

Linen fabrics Linen fabric can have wrinkles, the fabric will crush even with the most delicate of handling.
This foible is viewed by most merely as a characteristic, not a flaw.
A linen piece of clothing carries this styling trait, it just remains wrinkled.
Steaming a linen will have somewhat an effect on smoothing this fabric, but will not compleatley absolve its traits.

A linen look is classic and very popular,
We embrace the style and know the lines are part of the topography of the fabric.
A linen blend, you can combine most of the good qualities of linen and lessen the qualities like wrinkling and moisture absorption to a degree.

I found an article that delves into linen, it's characteristic's and production.
It is a fasinating read and a great video on linen production, field to market.

Sew Unordinary article on Linen

Try this link for info and a fascinating story on linen.

Cotton, Polys and Prints

words

Fabric - POLY

words

Fabric - PRINTS

words

Silk, Wool and Unusual fabrics

words

Fabric - WOOL

words

Fabric - BIZARO

words

Lining

The prodution of draperies will often involve lining material.
Over half of draperies are lined, of course an inlined drapery is perfectly suitible.
It is merely an option determined by design.

There are a few dozen options in lining, weight, content, color, etc.
In a general sense, 3 catogories describe our lining needs.

Cotton lining.

Premium linings are the perfect finishing touch to custom window treatments, providing a neatly tailored appearance with the benefit of protecting face fabrics from sunlight, moisture, and staining.

Blakout lining

Blackout linings are designed to completely block out light, creating an ideal sleep environment, protecting interiors from sun damage, and providing privacy.

Interlinings

Hanes Fabrics offers a variety of interlining products that add body, drape, and a luxurious feel to draperies and top treatments – in addition to thermal and noise insulation.

There are other linings available
However we generally rely on our workroom stock linings.
This may not be the end-all answer to our needs but does encompass most needs.
Where it may not suffice is in terms of transparency and color tones that read thru to our facing or front fabric.
In these specific circumstances we would need to explore and order the appropriate lining.

Self Lining

A sheer fabric may need to be linined to give the treatment more weight or less transparency, self lining a fabric maybe the answer.
Self lining is as it sounds, two layers of the same fabric.

A sector of our fabric market is dominted by Hanes Fabric company.
It's a great example of foucusing on one segment, and making the best product available.

Hanes, the drapery lining people has this task down pat.

Hanes Fabrics

Try this link if you would like find out more about Hanes linings

What type of fabric to select

Drapery Terms

I should define here what is meant by the term Drapery vs. Curtain.

A drapery is a full length window treatment often extending beyond the window opening,
often filling an entire wall.

A curtain in my mind is often a shorter,
even half height drapery treatment.
A curtain can be refered to as a " Cafe Curtain ",
which is just treating the lower half of window.

Drapery

A flat panel treatment could be done, meaning no fullness,
just pinning a single layer across the width of a window.
This would make for a fairly plain treatment, adding fullness to your drapery can give your draperies a much more luxurious touch.

Fullness is achieved by gathering, pleating or managing much more fabric in any given width.
The amount of fullness is usually calculated as double, two and a half times or triple the rod width.
This means the drapery fabric is 2x, 2.5x or 3x the width of the area being covered.

A heavy lined drapery panel may only want to be 2x fullness.
Whereas a lighter weight fabric or sheer might need 3x fullness.

This may only be a consideration when designing the look of your drapery.
Often times there are assumptions made by a workroom, when not specified.
The other factor may be in how much yardage is ordered.

The means of controling fullness is the use of pleats or using a system called " Ripplefold ".

Ripplefold carriers are on a continuous string that limits how far the drapery will spread out.
Carrier strings are calculated by fullness from 60% to 120%.
The calulations between pleated fullness at 2x or 200% are stated diferently for ripplefold string,
the equivalent 2x fullness is 100%
80% a little less, 120% a little more.

Pleat Styles

The construction or style of pleat can change the fullness caculation.
A 2 finger pleat gathers less fabric than a 3 finger pleat.
The selection of a pleat style can help determine the stack size and amount fabric to be used.

cafe I had a recent installation of a large glass door that we needed to clear the stack the drapery to an adjacent wall.
The track was 172" wide, which curved to the adjacent wall of only 25" wide.
This 25" area had to accomidate the full stack of the drapery.
cafe The 2 finger pleat was the mathematical answer to our space requirements,
and achieving 200% fullness.

cafe cafe Inverted pleats make for a clean look,
a goblets or cartridge can be a grand looking pleat,
but success depends a stiffness of the fabric, a soft fabric would flop over in disapointment.
The are more pleat styles, mushroom, top or bottom tack, pencil, grommets, tabs and rod pockets.

Yardage

The amount of yardage needs to be calulated to arrive at the cost to produce a drapery.
A few factors goes into the calculation.

Width of the drapery

Example; 144" of rod width + overlaps.

Height of the drapery panels

Example; 90"+ 20"
for top hem turnover and double hem at bottom.

Fabric repeat, if needed

Example; 24" Horizontal Repeat
Some repeats are vertical and horizontal.

Fullness formula

Example; x 2.5 ( 250% )

Fabric width

Example; 54"
The standard for drapery goods is 54".
Unless it's a casement type fabric @ 118" + wide,
then it can be railroaded.

The calculations;

I arrived at 24 yards of fabric.

If I recalculate the forumula and use a fabric with no pattern repeat,
I come up with 20 yards.

A pattern repeat can play large in yardage requirements.

Hardware

Drapery hardware has 100's of choices, Dozens of manfacturers and many fancy designs.

I can break it down to four groups.

In what manner should your windows be decorated