Posts Tagged ‘Soft furnishings’
November 2nd, 2011 | 
Author: Billowing festoon nets provide privacy but admit light, and give a softness of line which is perhaps particularly suited to bedrooms. In living rooms, a large floor length window may be necessary to do justice to the effect. It is best to look on them as a permanent feature – if you want something similar that can be lowered and raised, Austrian or festoon blinds might be more suitable. Festoon nets take a lot of fabric. You will need at least 1 ½ times the width and up to three times the height of the window. First, calculate the dimensions, take, for example, a 120cm wide window. It gives four 30cm festoons. To make up, festoons require casings, formed on the wrong side of the net, on which to draw up the fabric.
The points at which to make these casings should be 30, 60, and 90cm across the curtain after the fabric is drawn up to the finished width. Take account of the side hems in your calculations. If you need to join widths, make run and fell seams that coincide with the casings. Start by sewing the vertical casings into the length of the netting. Make two lines of stitching about 1.5 cm apart. Cut lengths of piping cord the length of the window. Thread the piping into the casings with a safety pin. Turn down and sew the top of the net to make the double heading which will be the casing for the wire, sewing across the piping cord as you go.
Pin up the bottom hem and sew it in place, again going across the piping to fix it. Adjust the fabric bunched up by the piping –you may find this easier if you lay the curtain out on the floor. At intervals of 10 or 12 cm down each vertical casing, pin the folds to the piping – the pinning the top casing, and try the curtain up against the window to see if the festoons are hanging neatly tain down and sew through each pinning point to anchor the festoons in place. Sew any fringes or tassels to the hem or the bottoms of the vertical casings, and the curtain is now ready to hang properly. It is also possible to buy a narrow lightweight nylon gathering tape, which you can simply sew on to the back of the curtain at the required intervals, then pull up the net to give the festoons.
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Many nets come with the frill already attached, but to make one, cut four long strips of net each 12cm wide and the length of the inner side hem. Join two of the strips together and fold the resulting strip lengthwise to enclose the short seam. Then fold in the two long edges and make two rows of gathers along that edge. Give the curtains a double 1.5cm hem along the bottom and up the outside edges.
Press down the top hem to form the 2.5cm casing and the 2.5 heading, or attach heading tapes. The inside edge is the important one. Draw the frill up on its gathering threads to this length. Lay the frill parallel to the curtain, about a centimeter in from the edge and starting it 2.5cm from the top so that it doesn’t get in the way of the casing. Sew the two together, right sides the curtain over the frill’s raw edges. Press down the seam.