No words of wisdom, here, just pity. I am exhausted just thinking about your dilema. Good luck.

Just OMG! How did you ever get yourself into this. You are going to get pretty stressed out if you don't have any experience except for the curtains. Do you know someone who does have experience to help you through this? It certainly would be a shame to waste all that fabric if find you can't do it alone.

Besides it is hard for us to help you if you are having a problem not seeing exacting what you need help with.

Well, general sympathy is appreciated!

The Hand Tailoring is something I really love, and want to get good enough at to charge money for! The flamingo jacket, should be fun, the print is mad and it'll be a fairly straightforward pattern - having made the toile this afternoon, the only snags are the stand collar and being careful with setting in the sleeves.

The stripe thing - is me being me and wanting mad stuff for myself, but it can get left for another time.

The curtains.... my friends are on a budget, they have just bought their first flat, ALL their furniture, washing machine... so I wanted to help them out with doing the curtains. The ceilings are so high and the windows so big, that it would cost them too much to buy or pay to have them made.

I'll post pics of the fabrics as soon as I have them. But there is only 1 real match and it has squares on it, which should help.

If anyone has any tips on how to be accurate with the measuring before I cut (I'm used to garment lengths!) that'd be great.

Otherwise - just pity me!

Cheers,
AJ

it would help if we knew what type curtins? cottage style, with a rod pocket and gathered? or what? Carolyn

You haven't bitten off more than you can chew. You'll do fine. I made floor to ceiling (almost) lined curtains in a large print (what on EARTH was I thinking) that had 15" pattern repeats that had to match not only each other, but across 3 windows because you can see all the windows together from anywhere in the house. Some panels had to be pieced because the windows were so wide. Patterns had to match exactly here too, or it would be VERY obvious that the panels were pieced. I also made sheers to go underneath. It was quite a project. The sewing wasn't hard. It was working with those BIG pieces that was a challenge.

My suggestions:
You need a large table/worksurface. It needs to be long enough to support a full panel if possible. What I did was use my dining room table PLUS the following: 2 saw horses with a 4x6 sheet of plywood laid on top and placed at the end of the other table. I stapled a flannel-back plastic table cloth to the plywood so as not to ruin the fabric on the rough surface. If the tablecloth rips a little, duct tape will fix it. I put the dining table on cans to bring it up to the same height as the sawhorse/plywood setup. It took up my dining room AND my living room.

You need a helper. Your helper does not need to know anything about sewing. They just need to be willing to be told what to do and have a day or two free. Your friends owe you big, so get one of them to help. Having an extra set of hands makes working with these large panels much easier. (Hold this, straighten that, pull that over there just a bit, let's carry this to the sewing machine/ironing board, please get me a refreshing beverage, etc.) There is less drag on the fabric and you won't have to keep walking around the now enormous table to straighten the fabric. That alone will be a HUGE timesaver. My husband helped me after the first two weekends, and we got at least half the job done in 1 day.

You need a few spring clamps. Go to your hardware store and pick up about 4 spring clamps. In case the link doesn't work, these are the ones that look like a V with a spring in the middle and you just squeeze them to open. These are GREAT to hold the fabric to the plywood and/or your table. Keeps the fabric from sliding off onto the floor. They aren't very expensive and I've found other uses for them since.

Measure, measure, measure! Oh, and re-measure just in case. Both the windows and the fabric. Here is where it is good to have the full panel on the table. The part that is hanging is stretching more than the part on the table. It can throw off your length/hems. If you can, leave the fabric on its roll and roll out enough to cut. This will help keep it clean and from pulling itself off-grain.

Pull a thread. In order to make sure that my cuts were absolutely straight, I pulled a thread across the width to get my top and bottom edges absolutely even. This can be a bit tedious, but will really help when you make the hems.

Cut off the selvedge. You'll definitely want to cut off the selvedge edges. They don't stretch as much as the regular weave of the fabric and will make your side edges pucker up. Then the centers of the curtains will be lower than the sides. This really looks bad, and since your friends will be saying to everyone that you made them, well, your reputation will be at stake. ;-)

See if your library has a book or two on making lined drapes. I checked out half a dozen books before I started my project. There was one that was written by a British designer that talked all about custom drapes with lining and interlining (hand-stitched in!!!) that I thought was really helpful. I didn't do it like they said, it was too complicated for what I wanted, but at the end I really knew how drapes were put together, and why certain things were done to make everything hang properly. It helped me figure out how I wanted mine.

Have fun!!

Well, those are all my general suggestions. If you have curtain-specific how-to questions, email me, I'm happy to help. I learned a lot while doing that project, but this post is getting really long.

Oh, and I had never made any curtains before. Only pillows and some clothes. You're good at matching patterns and being exact. You'll do fine. :-)

Thanks ell in OR - much appreciated.

The style of the curtains... basic standard ruffle tape (gathered) with hooks onto a standard curtain rail - they didn't want the (very fashionable) Pole and curtain rings, because it leaves too big a gap away from the wall at the top.

Basically the curtains are mega big rectangles with seams to join the panels and at the sides to attach the lining.

At the top the raw edges can just be folded over, they'll be covered when the heading tape gets stitched on. At the bottom, the hem really ought to be done by hand - but I haven't decided yet - maybe I can teach them how to do it!

The bottom of the curtains will trail onto the floor (sort of an artful puddle of fabric!) because when they measured the windows they found the floors were uneven, so to do curtain rail to floor would mean a squinty hem - would look awful.

I've just spent all day at college - I'm jiggered! So I've got plenty hand sewing this week - attaching the facing to the canvas on the inside, the hem to the linen strip also inside the jacket. More basting to secure the lining round the armholes. Then I have to pad stitch the collar canvas to the undercollar. But definite progress being made.

Oh and I just got some pattern notchers - old ones nobody wanted and only the budget kind, but still nice to have.

Cheers,
AJ

Wow, my only advice would be to learn to say NO.LOL I personally don't like sewing for other people,been there done that and decided that it wasn't for me.Love to sew for myself and family,and for gifts,but that's all.Think i got totally burned out when i used to do wedding parties.Good luck.
Kathi

I got to thinking later, and here's one other thing you might think about:

When you go to cut the fabric, cut the decorator fabric a little wider than the lining. When you sew them together that will make the edge of the decorator fabric turn to the inside (turn to the back of the curtain) and your lining will not show. How much it turns depends on how much wider the decorator fabric is than the lining. I made mine so that there would be about 2" of decorator fabric turned to the back on each side of each panel. I did this because it is hard to press the seams so that they are nice and even. You don't want the lining unevenly peeking out at the edges.

Incidentally, you can do this same trick on skirt pieces before you sew them together to make it look like you've bound the edges. You just have to adjust your pattern pieces to take into account the amount that laps to the back. Somewhere I have the exact measurements - I went to one of Cynthia Guffey's lectures and it was one of her little tricks.

The best advice I can give you is learn how to say NO. Let your friends learn how to do these jobs themselves. You will be doing them a favor.

Previous post gave superb advice on setting up for this job! I worked one season to help a decorator/drapery shop owner (very expensive!) get ready for Parade of Homes. As well as I can remember, this is how lined drapes/curtains were done:

Measured carefully to account for pattern match (written measurements was pinned to cutter's table!), then sides of length(s) joined to attain whatever width called for. Same was done for lining. Sides of both fabric & lining were hemmed (weights, if any were added to corners at this time,) sides of both fabrics then joined w/lining 1" shorter than fabric.
They were then turned right side out, pressed and send to
person who put Heading on. In your case, the gatheringtape will cover raw edges of fabric. (Pleats were done on a special machine by another gal.)
Suzi