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Poles and Tracks

Flat aluminium or nylon tracks are designed specifically for traditional gathered curtains, and come fitted with a row of sliding runners into which you slot the curtain hooks. This is a good solution where there isn’t room for a pole — if you want to hang the curtain inside the window recess, for instance — or where a pole would look too dominant and unbalance the effect of the window.

Poles and rails — wooden, brass or wrought iron — give the window a more finished look. They come in a variety of diameters from about 1 cm (2 in) to about 6 cm (21 in), and can be plain or ornate, with extra decoration added by the finials, or end pieces. Because this sort of fixing makes the curtain hang a little way out from the wall, it is much better than a flat track for windows with a protruding surround.

Make sure that you buy the right length of pole for the window. Standard lengths are available from furnishing departments and DIY stores, or you can have special orders cut to size. It needs to extend quite a few centimetres either side of the window to balance its proportions and take the pulled-back curtain.

Remember to calculate the position of your curtain heading carefully before you fix the pole or rail to the wall. If the top of the curtain is going to hang some way below the pole (for example, on big hoop curtain rings), make sure that it will be high enough to conceal the window frame.

Measuring Up

Curtains can be cropped to rest neatly on the sill, or end a little way below it — for instance, at radiator height — or they can be floor-length. For a sense of real opulence they can even be made with a foot or so of excess fabric that collects in luxurious puddles beneath the window.

Remember that you don’t have to cover the whole window at all. Hanging the curtain from a pole fixed half-way or two-thirds of the way up is a clever method of making a tall window look less dominant.

The width of fabric you need will depend on how full you want the curtain to be. Standard heading tapes require between one and a half and two and a half times the curtain width. These calculations are for a pair of curtains in plain or random-patterned fabric:

1 Measure the width of the track or pole — not the window. To allow for any gathers, multiply this figure according to the type of tape you’re using. Now divide the total by the width of the fabric you’ve chosen. (Most furnishing fabric is 137 cm (54 in) wide.)

2 Round this up to the next whole figure (unless it’s only slightly over a whole figure — that is, less than 0.1 — in which case you can round it down). This gives you the number of widths of fabric you’ll need for two curtains.

3 Now measure the drop from the pole or track to the level you want the curtain to hang. Add

30 cm (12 in) to allow for hems and headings, and multiply by the number of fabric widths calculated above to find the total length of fabric you need to buy.

Gathered Curtains

Traditional gathered curtains consist of panels of fabric measuring between one and a half and two and a half times the width of the area they are covering. Special tape sewn into the heading is threaded with cord which gathers the fabric to the required width when pulled. Different tape produces different types of gather or pleat, some using up more fabric width than others, so you need to decide how full you want your curtains to be as well as what you want the heading to look like.

• Standard gathered heading tape Quite narrow — about 2.5 cm (1 in) wide — and gathers the curtain into a basic ruffled effect. You’ll need one and a half to two times the fabric width. The gathers aren’t deep enough to make the curtain fall in formal folds or pleats, so this tape is best for small, lightweight curtains, or where the top will be covered by a pelmet or valance. It’s most often used with a standard plastic track. If you want to use it with a decorative pole, make sure that you fix the tape slightly below the edge of the curtain, so that the hooks don’t show over the top when it’s hung in place.

• Pencil-pleat heading tape Gathers the curtain into neat pencil-width pleats so that the fabric hangs in fuller folds —the fabric needs to be two and a quarter to two and a half times the curtain width you want to end up with. Because the heading itself is deeper, it gives the curtain a more finished effect, and if you use the lower row of hook loops, the hooks will be hidden below the top of the curtain.

• Pinch-pleat heading Gathers the curtain into groups of pleats — most commonly triple — with a stretch of ungathered fabric between each group. Like pencil-pleat heading, it gives a formal, finished effect, but the pleats are quite subtle and don’t take up much fullness: you’ll need twice the fabric width. Again, you can use the lower row of hook loops to make sure that the hooks are kept out of sight.

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