Our bespoke curtains are all hand sewn. From traditional double pleats, to a contemporary wave voile all our curtains are made to measure. We specialise and pride ourselves with our single thickness curtains – in fact we are a bit obsessed!
We provide a complete track/ pole fitting and hanging service.
These Villa Nova Kendari fabric curtains, pelmets and blinds were commissioned by the very talented designer Cathy Emmins. On the surface these curtains, blinds and pelmet looks like a ‘fairly simple’ job but the reality is a bit different. I am sure that we are not on our own, having issues with the range of faux silks which have been launched in the last 4 years or so. In fact we have started recommending this type of fabric for blinds only – with excellent results btw! When the fabric arrived in the workshop – we opened it to find a recommendation from Villa Nova. We needed to allow an extra 20mm to each cut and overlock cuts immediately … tbh my heart rather sunk..
We duly overlocked every cut – this is essential. It is stretchy, very stretchy – but across the weft (selvedge to selvedge). There is no stretch whatsoever across the warp. This makes things a bit tricky. After a bit of trial and error we managed to get a decent hang by using slip stitch to fix the interlining and then ladder stitch top fabric…… this fabric needs a lot of securing!
Like all other faux silks this fabric works very well in the blinds and the pelmet. The pelmet needed to look good from the back as well as the front – as it is over a set of doors which you walk through to and from the garden. The pelmet is therefore lined flush with the same fabric as the trim – which is Designers Guild Rothesay in Birch.
Would I want to use this fabric again… without a shadow of a doubt – its a bit tricky but the results are good and so far the best faux silk I have used re hang and overall result.
Ian Mankin Arran fabric in the dark grey colourway is perfect for this gorgeous little study. Ian Mankin linens never fail to deliver…. and the Arran fabric has this subtle ‘sheen’, which is both difficult to describe and also difficult to capture in a photograph – the linen just shouts quality. The double pleat heading is deep at 20cm but we think it works well with the double pleat heading which is is ‘half open’. That is the beauty of a hand sewn heading – you can achieve whatever look you want. In this situation we wanted our client wanted a nod to the current contemporary trend, whilst still being traditional. The house is one of the Sevenoaks heritage houses and the owners wanted to retain this overall feel. To that end the curtain pole is Jim Lawrence, in the mercury colourway. The sofa has been upholstered in the Sanderson Bryndle Check in the Mulberry/ Fig colourway.
Voiles with a wave heading look like one of those really easy hits …. they kind of are but they do require care.
Having made quite a few (a big understatement here!) we believe the only way to get the result illustrated in these pictures is to hand sew. Do not let your sewing machine get anywhere near them. Pull a thread to get your drop absolutely spot on and hand sew the hem and make it a double hem.
We never use wave tape making our wave heading the ‘traditional’ way with buckram and hand sewing it in – it is so much nicer. Sometimes a location warrants an extra ‘high’ heading and you can do this if you are using buckram. I think it produces a better wave and so much nicer to look at. Use the lightweight pin hooks and do the maths to calculate where they need to be inserted…. and there you have it. Looks effortlessly simple but in reality one of those things that requires quite a bit of care.
The Sanderson King Protea fabric was almost ‘made’ for a room like this huge kitchen, dining and living room in this remodelled heritage house in Sevenoaks. My client fell in love with it and the colours work absolutely perfectly with their stunning new kitchen. The biggest challenge was not just the normal pattern matching but pattern matching right across the room. The pattern is level both horizontally and vertically across all the 3 large roman blind and the 4 sets of curtains , this took a bit of working out, but was definitely worth the time spent doing this.
The curtains have an extra deep double pleat heading – we have made the heading 20cm deep. This is significantly deeper than standard but I think the curtains needed this to balance them somewhat. The poles are Jim Lawrence in Mercury finish which work well in this context with the bay window poles being custom bent to order.
The roman blinds are interlined and lined as well – and if you look closely – the chains are nearly to the full drop of the blind without requiring any fixings to the wall and yet they are still EU compliant. This is because we use some of the best roman blind mechanisms you can get – these have ‘drop’ out chain housings which means that the chains do not require any wall fixing and the draw of them is incredibly smooth. Due to the width of these blinds we have used a 1:1 gear housing.
Jab Simple Fabric with cartridge pleats is perfect for this beautiful bay window in Hampstead Garden Suburb. The fibreguard properties are practical too! This neutral linen is a fireguard linen from Jab Anstoetz and is called Simple and is part of the Perfect collection – I consider it almost a stock item. The feel and the quality of it is absolutely superb and it just never fails as a fabric. There is also the added benefit of it being This neutral linen is a fireguard linen from Jab Anstoetz and is called Simple and is part of the Perfect collecta fibreguard fabric – these fibreguard fabrics really do what they say on the tin – meaning that you can sponge/ clean any marks off – this makes having a curtain in this colourway a practical option.
The heading is a cartridge pleat and quite deep – each pleat being 14cm wide. Having a deep pleat on a cartridge curtain makes such a difference – not just to the hang but to the overall look and feel of the end product – and this beautiful sitting room in the heart of Hampstead Garden Suburb warrants this. The pole is the Silent Gliss Metropole custom made with enhanced roller gliders. Its worth noting here that we never use standard gliders any more for interlined/ lined curtains on Silent Gliss tracks and poles – the enhanced gliders are so good and the extra expense is worth every single penny.
These grey linen cartridge pleat curtains and voile blind work well in this rather tricky window. These dormer type windows can sometimes be quite difficult when it comes to fitting window treatments – as it sometimes can be difficult to get a good fixing without using a pelmet to hide a multitude of sins!
The client wanted something fairly simple as well as some means of providing privacy to the outside – as this window overlooks the road. This double width fabric from Wemyss is from their Braemar Fabric – this is the cinder colourway and is just perfect for this wide window, being double width means that there are no seams on the front. As standard for us, these curtains are interlined and lined (blackout in this case) and even with the blackout lining the hang is absolutely superb. The heading is a cartridge pleat and quite deep – each pleat being 14cm wide – having a deep pleat on a cartridge curtain makes such a difference – not just to the hang but to the overall look and feel of the end product. The voile is a hand-sewn voile in the Ian Mankin Padstow Natural – the most stunning Italian sheer – and this not just offers privacy but also offers a real softness to this beautiful guest room.
Living Room | Sevenoaks
These blue silk curtains with pelmets are a classic, timeless bedroom window treatment – put some contrasting roman blinds behind in the recess and I think that you have the perfect window bedroom treatment. The blue silk is from Marvic Textiles and is the now discontinued Papaver silk, which is incredibly thick – we have actually used this fabric the wrong way round!
It is important to write a note about silk curtains here – silk is not recommended as a choice for either curtain or blinds – this is because the uv causes the fabric to disintegrate. Unprotected – you can expect to get about 5 years use before the fabric will start to get holes down the leading edges. The leading edges are the edges of the curtain that face the window. By installing roman blinds behind and keeping these down especially in the summer – I am hoping to get at least 15 years of use out of these curtains before they start to disintegrate – you have been warned!
Spot The Goring Sheep!
These grey linen curtains on the Silent Gliss Metropole in matt white work brilliantly here! This was one of those situations, when you get a phone call from a potential new client and then you get emailed a photograph and your heart skips a beat…. because you just so want to get involved – you just know that you have an opportunity to use your skillset and knowledge to the max. This project is one of the most rewarding and challenging I have worked on for a while….and yet the result looks so effortlessly simple. With all those angled walls and a slanted ceiling, the calculations were far from simple!
More importantly (and I want to shout this out to all curtain makers across the land) these grey linen wave curtains have NO CURTAIN TAPE ANYWHERE. We achieved this using a traditional buckram heading and I think it works very well. They have even been lined with blackout! Silent Gliss metropole in matt white with the square blok brackets work a treat with this beautiful dove grey linen.
Thank you Silent Gliss for that new bracket…. so much better and worth every penny!
These blue silk curtains with pelmets are a classic, timeless bedroom window treatment – put some contrasting roman blinds behind in the recess and I think that you have the perfect window bedroom treatment. The blue silk is from Marvic Textiles and is the now discontinued Papaver silk, which is incredibly thick – we have actually used this fabric the wrong way round!
It is important to write a note about silk curtains here – silk is not recommended as a choice for either curtain or blinds – this is because the uv causes the fabric to disintegrate. Unprotected – you can expect to get about 5 years use before the fabric will start to get holes down the leading edges. The leading edges are the edges of the curtain that face the window. By installing roman blinds behind and keeping these down especially in the summer – I am hoping to get at least 15 years of use out of these curtains before they start to disintegrate – you have been warned!
Spot The Goring Sheep!
This double curtain with a double pole is perfect for this dual aspect Master Bedroom. The voile curtain brings a real softness and feel to the room as well as providing privacy during the day. A faux silk has been used to make the ‘wave’ curtain,, which has the effect created by using curtain rings rather than the usual use of track gliders.
Master Bedroom | Central London
Pinch pleat curtains in a grey linen with a voile and blackout blind was the best solution for this location. Sometimes 3 layers of window treatments are required to get a solution that works. To achieve this was tricky in this location, as there was only 12 cm of depth to get all these fixtures in. Pinch pleat curtains – which use the least amount of fabric and there create a ‘shallow’ curtain was the only solution here.
First a motorised blackout blind was installed against the window to minimise the impact of the street lights. Then a voile ‘blind’ was installed on top of this to provide much needed privacy during the day. A fully interlined and lined curtain was placed on top which not only softens the whole effect but also absorbs a lot of noise from the street below and minuses the draughts from the huge window.
We think that this end result of this central London master bedroom looks fantastic – the client was thrilled to also have a solution to a very problematic location.
Entrance Hall | SEVENOAKS
This wave curtain on a wooden curtain pole is a great solution for those that like a more traditional look but also like the wave effect – I think that this works well … a wave curtain hung using traditional curtains rings. In fact, I rather like the juxta position of the contemporary heading with a traditional pole and rings. This pole (which is solid mahogany), brackets and finials are from Jim Lawrence.
As with all our curtains there is not a stitch to be found on the front, or any tape on the back – and this also includes our wave curtains. The heading is stiffened with buckram and it is just a matter of ‘doing the maths’ to work out where the pin hooks go. I would say that doing it this way – not just looks so much better It also gives you so much more flexibility – you can get the curtain fold to whatever depth you want it to be – which means that you can get those returns straight back to the wall whilst keeping all the ‘waves’ at the same depth…. which is not as simple as it sounds.
You may be interested to know that this curtain pole has been waiting patiently for nearly 7 years in my hall for its curtain…. as always with my experiments, I start with my own home so yes this is my hall…. and I think that this is one of those experiments that works well?
DINING ROOM | SEVENOAKS
It is easy to forget how good hand sewn eyelet curtains are – a completely different curtain to the readymade ones – it’s a bit like the difference between instant coffee and freshly ground. At the end of the day it is a completely different product and there is no comparison and they both have their part to play.
With so many of our clients requesting wave, wave and more wave at the moment – it is so easy to forget the timeless simplicity of a good eyelet curtain. This Wemyss Feather Grey Halo fabric is the most beautiful taupe – the hang is superb – which is helped along with 100% cotton domett and Solprufle gold lining – the only linings and interlinings we use.
Double pleat curtains in Amazon by Emma Shipley for Clarke and Clarke. Well this is one of those jobs… where you have a client who is brave enough to go for it! They fell in love with this fabric a while ago and took the plunge after deciding that they were not going to change their minds …. the result is stunning and perfect for the room, location and everything else …. These photos do not really do justice to the vibrancy, hang and overall result … but you can get a sense of the look and feel.
These curtains have been interlined with a lighter weight domett than we would normally use – this has been done to keep the drape fluid. The double pleats have been sewn-in to give a more contemporary feel …. as always the backs of our curtains are just as beautiful as the front. I suppose these curtains teach us a bit of a lesson… if you ‘fall in love’ with a fabric …. go for it …. and take that walk on the wild side!
