Curtains and yardage

071There are a lot of factors to consider when calculating yardage for draperies. I’ve gone over a few individual instances in various curtain posts on this blog (See these grommet curtains, rod pocket curtains and pinch pleat curtains), but what if someone wants to make similar curtains for a bigger window, requiring several widths of fabric? Or how do they take into account different prints? I hope this post, using my really, truly horrible rudimentary graphics skills, will help clarify. Our yardage calculator will also be of use to you.

 

1. Each panel is one fabric width, design doesn’t need to match up from panel to panel

In this instance, your window is fairly narrow and one 54″ width of fabric is sufficient for each panel. Also, the design on the fabric is such that it won’t look strange if it doesn’t line up across the window.

busy print

071Here is an example of a floral curtain with a large, uneven print. The curtain panels don’t need to line up and would actually look a bit odd if they did. Find this pinch pleat curtain project here.

Determining yardage:

Exact yardage depends on how you plan to make the top of your curtain (i.e. pinch pleat, rod pocket, grommets, etc.) and how deep you want your hem. So check out the method you are using for more detail. But essentially, once you determine your final length per panel, including hems, you just need to double that. So if each curtain is 70 inches long including hems, you need 140 inches of fabric, or 3.8 yards.

 

2. Each panel is one fabric width, design does need to match up from panel to panel

In this case, it’s the same as above, but your curtains will look crummy if the pattern doesn’t flow from one panel to the next.

Even panels

uneven panels

Here are a few examples of curtains we’ve featured on our blog that needed to line up:

curtains 008Above are some curtains I made for an odd window in my bathroom. Even though the pattern isn’t striped, per se, the design comes in rows and it would look funny if it didn’t match up. This requires extra yardage of fabric to allow for the matching.

curtains 039This set of curtains has a chevron print. It’s a narrow stripe and has the zigzags, so the eyes don’t track closely across the panels, but it would still look odd if they lines were off a bit.

Determining yardage:

Yardage for this pattern problem will be the same as in #1, but you’ll need extra length of one vertical pattern repeat. Horizontal and vertical pattern repeats are listed on our website in the product descriptions. They can range from a fraction of an inch to several feet. In the case of the chevron curtains, it’s a vertical repeat of 2″. So I simply needed a couple of extra inches. This allows you to cut one curtain panel and then with the remaining fabric, slide the panel up or down until they line up. Then you can cut a little off the top and/or bottom to make them the same length.

 

3. Each panel is more than one fabric width

In this case, you need to sew together more than one width of fabric lengthwise. But, regardless of the pattern on the fabric, you need to match it. In the example below, you can see what happens if you take an obvious case of sewing stripes together unevenly. But even with a busy floral or other print, you need to match the pattern. I’ve demonstrated the how-to in this tablecloth tutorial and this duvet tutorial.

misalignedaligned

misaligned busy pattern

Seamed busy print

matching prints 012Here’s an example of a floral design being seamed to match up. This project was a tablecloth.

032Here is a zebra print that was sewn together for a perfect match. This project was a duvet.

Determining yardage:

This is where things become the most complicated. As we discussed in #2, you need to figure out the total length of Panel 1. This will be called Panel 1A because it’s just part of Panel 1 (you will be sewing another width to it, which will be Panel 1B). Panel 2A is the length of Panel 1 plus an extra vertical repeat. What about the Part B’s? Well, it depends on how much wider than one panel width you need your curtains to be. For instance, you might just want to sew a half of a fabric width to each panel, so they are 1.5 fabric widths or so. I say “or so” because you need to consider horizontal repeats now. Why? because when you match up the pattern to seam the widths together, the pattern may not necessarily line up right along the edges of the fabric. If it’s a large horizontal repeat, you might have to move quite a ways in from the edges of each piece before you find where the pattern matches up. Therefore, consider the final width of your fabric as you desire it and figure out how many widths of fabric that is. Then consider the horizontal repeat and make sure you have at least an extra one of those beyond what you need. This could possibly mean that you need extra lengths of fabric.

Is this getting confusing? Think of it this way:

Your fabric is 54″ wide. You want each panel to be 60″ wide (and keep in mind the side hems). Say your horizontal pattern repeat is 7″. You should be fine ordering one extra length of fabric (the length of your Panel 1 plus vertical repeat). Your one extra length of fabric should have ample width to do both curtain panels since you don’t need too much extra width and the horizontal repeat is small.

But say your horizontal repeat is large. Now as you shift your fabric horizontally to line up the pattern, you might not have enough left over to attach to the second panel.

Or, likewise, say that you need wider panels. Maybe you want them to be 90″ wide. You need an extra yard or so of width on each panel. So one extra length of fabric will not be enough to split lengthwise and attach to each panel. You’ll need two extra lengths of fabric, and each length of fabric beyond the first panel (Panel 1A) needs to have an extra vertical repeat to allow up and down movement to align the pattern vertically.