With header tape, you can keep pleated curtains in any extent.
Pleater tape (further called header tape) is a cool invention. It comes in disparate styles to arrangement a diversity of pleats --- pencil pleats, box pleats, goblet pleats, and so on --- without the painstaking measuring and sewing that would be binding otherwise. You can cement ready-made curtain panels to constitute panels Broad Sufficiently for pleats and then sew the pleater tape to the top, incorporate the drapery hooks and hang your brand-new curtains. Alternatively, you can first step from scratch and produce the curtain panels yourself.
Instructions
Sew Curtain Panels
1. Construe the instructions on the box of pleater tape you annex selected to jewel gone how Broad Everyone curtain panel should be. Normally, pleater tape requires that the panel be two to three times as Broad as the window. For this project, let's assume that the curtain needs to be three times as Broad as the window. Degree the broadness of the window in inches, multiply by three for the complete breadth of the curtain, then intersect by two to acquisition absent how Broad Everyone of the two panels for the window should be. Whether your window is Fourty eight inches Broad, Everyone curtain panel should be Fourty eight inches times three, which equals 144. Abbreviate that by two to receive Seventy two inches. Add Four inches to narration for the hems.
2. Degree the distance from the top of the curtain rod to the floor to bonanza the length of the curtain panel. For this project, let's convey that distance is Eighty four inches. Add Sixteen inches for the hems.
3. Degree and chop two pieces of cloth, Everyone Seventy six inches Broad and One hundred inches elongate. You Testament probably must to plenty the essence (sew two pieces cool) to receive a panel Seventy six inches wide.
4.9. Create the pleats by starting Two inches in from the edge of the curtain panel. Gather the pleater tape to form a group of three insertion tubes for the drapery hooks. Sew the hem ¼ inch from the inside fold using a sewing machine. Repeat to make a hem on the opposite edge of the fabric.
5. Make a double 4-inch hem at the top and bottom of the fabric, following the procedure in Step 4. Hem the second panel for the window in the same way. You now have two hemmed curtain panels, and you are ready to apply the header tape.
Apply the Header Tape
6. Lay out one curtain panel on your work surface. Pin a strip of pleater tape Seventy two inches wide at the top of the curtain panel on the wrong side (the side that will not show when the curtains are done). Use straight pins placed Two inches apart perpendicular to the top edge of the panel.
7. Sew the top edge of the pleater tape to the top edge of the curtain panel using a sewing machine.
8. Pin and sew the bottom edge of the pleater tape to the top of the curtain panel in the same way.
Make a double 1-inch hem on each side of the fabric. Fold in the fabric to the back One inch on each side, then press with the iron. Fold in another inch and press again. Pin the hem using straight pins set Three inches apart perpendicular to the edge of the fabric. Insert one prong of the drapery hook into each tube. Move along the pleater tape a few inches (follow the directions for the particular style of tape you have chosen), then form the next set of pleats. Continue to the opposite edge of the curtain panel. Pleat the other curtain panel the same way.
