Buying, ordering or making: ready-made, custom and sewing your own
Ready-made comes in fixed sizes, custom is made to the reader's measurements, and a curtain made at home is sized by the reader's own arithmetic. This chapter chooses among them for each window and checks the order against the survey before money changes hands.
Start here Essentials
At minimum, decide how each window's treatment will be bought or made, look at a sample where it will hang, and check the order against your measurements before you pay. Everything marked Go deeper is optional on a first pass.
- Choose ready-made, custom or made at home for each window, and write down why. The size, the mount, a child in the home and the time you have decide it (Choosing for each window).
- Get a sample and look at it at the window by day and after dark. A swatch, a fabric cutting or the panel itself, held where it will hang (Samples, and checking the order).
- Check the order against your window survey, line by line, before you place it. Mount, width, height and which measurement each one is (Samples, and checking the order).
- For a curtain you will sew, run the fabric calculator before buying fabric. It gives the widths, the cut length and the yards (Making curtains at home).
Minimum time: about 30 minutes for one window, plus a day or two for a sample to arrive. Done when: the orders sheet has each item with its size checked against the survey, or, for a curtain you will make, the yardage is written down.
1. Three ways to get a treatment Understand
Every curtain, shade, blind or shutter reaches a window in one of three ways. Which one you choose decides who takes responsibility for the size, how long you wait and what you can send back.
Ready-made, also called stock
A stock product is made before anyone orders it. The voluntary safety standard for window coverings defines it as a product completely or substantially made before it is distributed and before any particular customer asks for it, and it stays stock if a store cuts it to width or it is sold online (ANSI/WCMA A100.1-2022, the window covering safety standard). Convention Ready-made curtain panels come in a few widths and lengths; stock blinds and shades come in a run of widths, some trimmed in the store.
What stock gives you: a price you can see, the product in your hands the same day or within a few days, and usually a simple return if it is wrong. What it asks of you: your window has to fit one of the sizes. For curtains that is easy to work around, because a curtain hangs outside the frame and a few inches either way rarely shows. For a blind or shade that sits inside the frame, a stock width that is too narrow leaves a gap at each side and one that is too wide does not go in.
Custom, also called made to order
A custom product is anything that is not stock: it is made after you order it, to the measurements you give (the same standard's definition). You choose the width and height to the 1/8 in, and usually the fabric or color, the lining, the operating system and sometimes the heading.
Custom moves the size question onto your tape measure. The maker builds exactly what you send, so a measurement taken in the wrong place becomes a product made in the wrong size. The blind and shade makers whose measuring guides this manual read (Bali, Levolor and The Shade Store) ask you to send the frame as measured and take their own deduction at the factory, so you subtract nothing yourself. Product-specific Measuring for blinds and shades covers those rules, and Measuring for curtains covers rod width, length and fullness.
A custom drapery order may also be written differently from a stock panel. The Shade Store, for example, asks for the coverage width with fullness already included in its price, and its workroom adds the overlaps and returns (How to Measure: Drapery, The Shade Store's measuring guide). Product-specific Another maker may ask for the finished width of each panel. Read the order form's own definition of every field before you type a number into it.
Made at home
A curtain or a flat Roman shade you sew yourself is sized by your own arithmetic: how many widths of fabric to join, how long to cut each one and how much fabric to buy. The arithmetic is in Making curtains at home. The sewing is in Learn Machine Sewing, which this manual links rather than repeats.
The cord rules differ
Federal law does not treat stock and custom window coverings the same way where cords are concerned. If a child lives in your home or visits, read Cords, children and fire before you choose: it gives what each kind of product has to meet, and the current status of the rules with its date. The choice this chapter helps you make, stock or custom, is the same choice those rules turn on.
| Ready-made (stock) | Custom (made to order) | Made at home | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Size | Fixed sizes; some cut to width in the store | Your measurements, to the 1/8 in | Your measurements and your arithmetic |
| Who answers for a wrong size | You chose the size; the store's return terms decide | Usually you, if the measurement was yours; the maker's remake terms decide | You |
| Wait | Same day to a few days | The maker's stated lead time | Your own time, after the fabric arrives |
| Choice | What the store stocks | The maker's fabrics, linings, headings and controls | Any fabric you can buy |
| Cords | The rules for stock and custom products differ: see Cords, children and fire | ||
2. Choosing for each window
Decide per window, not per house. One room can sensibly have a custom shade inside the frame and ready-made curtains on a rod above it. Write the choice and the reason in the options sheet of Choices and orders; the reason is what you read again when a quote comes back higher than expected.
Work through these questions in order. The first one that settles the window settles it.
- Does it sit inside the frame? An inside-mount blind or shade has to match the frame's width closely. If no stock width matches the narrowest width on your survey, or the store cannot cut one to it, the default is custom.
- Is a child in the home, or visiting? Then the operating system comes first and the buying route second: cordless, or a product without accessible cords. Cords, children and fire says what to look for on each route.
- Do the ready-made curtain sizes fit? Work out the flat width you need with the rod calculator (Curtain rod, panels and length) and compare it with the panel widths on sale. If two or three panels give you the fullness you want and a stock length is within an inch or so of your finished length, ready-made is the default.
- Is the window an odd size or shape? A very wide opening, a bay, an arched top or a window far shorter than any stock length points to custom or to making.
- Is there a fabric you want that is not sold made up? Then making at home, or a workroom that will sew your fabric, is the route.
- How soon do you need it? For the first nights in a new home, something stock or temporary now, and the lasting answer later. Privacy by day and by night covers the first nights.
| Situation | Default | Your exception |
|---|---|---|
| Inside-mount blind or shade, frame between stock sizes | Custom | A store that cuts stock to your narrowest width |
| Curtains on a rod above a standard window | Ready-made panels | A fabric or lining you cannot find made up |
| Bay, corner or very wide opening | Custom, or made at home | Separate stock panels on separate rods, one per window |
| Renting, holes not allowed | Ready-made, removable | Custom, if the lease or the landlord in writing allows the hardware it needs |
| Child in the home | Cordless, on whichever route offers it | None for cords; see Cords, children and fire |
| Needed this week | Ready-made | A temporary covering now, custom later |
Price is left out of the list on purpose. Prices vary too much by store, size and season for a manual to rank them. Compare the quotes you actually get, for the same size and the same lining. Preference
Renting changes the order of the questions. If holes are not allowed, the first question is what will hang without them; that is in the renters section of Hardware and installing. A custom shade made for brackets you are not allowed to fix is money spent before the permission question is answered.
3. Samples, and checking the order
Look at a sample where it will hang
A fabric or a shade looks different on a screen, under a store's lights and at your window. Before you order anything custom, and before you buy a large quantity of fabric, get a sample. Most custom makers send swatches; for a ready-made panel the sample is the panel itself, kept in its packaging until you are sure. Test it
Look at it twice:
- By day, held against the glass from inside. You see how much light comes through, whether the color holds in that light and how the weave looks with sun behind it. Daylight, glare and darkness explains what to look for in an opacity.
- After dark, with the room lamps on, from outside if you can, or with someone standing outside. That is when a fabric that looked private by day shows a silhouette. Privacy by day and by night explains why.
Pin or tape the sample to the frame for a day and look at it at the hours the window matters to you. Write what you saw in the "sample seen" column of Choices and orders. A lining sample is worth the same look: Fabric, linings and fading covers what a lining adds.
Check the order against the survey
The order is the point where a measurement becomes a product. Check it against your window survey (Window survey) one line at a time, before you place it, and preferably with the survey and the order form side by side on paper. Test it
| Line on the order | Check it against | What goes wrong |
|---|---|---|
| Window name or room | The survey row | Two similar windows swapped |
| Mount (inside or outside) | Your decision and the depth on the survey | Inside-mount sizes ordered as outside, or the reverse |
| Width | The measurement the maker asks for: the narrowest frame width for inside mount, or the frame plus overlap for outside mount | The widest of three measurements sent for an inside mount; your own deduction taken as well as the factory's |
| Height or length | The measurement the maker asks for (for most inside-mount blinds and shades, the longest; for curtains, the finished length) | A curtain length measured from the wrong point on the rod or ring |
| Width as defined on the form | The form's own note: coverage width, panel width or flat width | Fullness counted twice, once by you and once by the maker |
| Operating system and side | Your cord decision; where the controls can be reached | A corded option chosen by default; controls on the side behind furniture |
| Color, fabric, lining | The sample you looked at | A neighboring color code |
Then record, in the orders sheet of Choices and orders, the item and maker, the size ordered, the mount, the date ordered and the date expected. Two lines on that sheet deserve more attention than they usually get:
- Return or remake terms. Read them before you pay and copy the gist into the sheet: what can be sent back, by when, and whether a remake for a measuring error is offered and at what cost. Each maker sets its own terms, and a product made to your measurements may not be returnable once it is made. Ask the authority
- Received and checked. When the box arrives, measure the product before you install it and before the return window closes. A blind that is 1/2 in short is easier to send back in its packaging than off the wall.
The price column on the orders sheet treats a blank as "not answered" rather than zero, so a total over a blank price says it is incomplete. Fill each price in when you have it.
4. Making curtains at home
Making suits a window when its size or shape is awkward for stock, when you want a fabric that is not sold made up, or when the treatment is simple: an unlined panel, a lined panel with a heading tape, or a flat Roman shade. You need a sewing machine, a large flat surface for cutting and some patience with long seams. Learn Machine Sewing covers the sewing: Choosing and preparing fabric (fiber, grain and preshrinking) and Hems.
The arithmetic below is one method, from a heading-tape maker's instruction sheets, with the hem conventions from an extension bulletin and a textile maker's specification. The Fabric for making curtains calculator does the same arithmetic from your numbers.
How many widths of fabric
Fabric comes off the bolt in one width, often 54 in for home decorating fabric. A curtain wider than that is several widths (full-width lengths of fabric) seamed together. The number of widths is:
widths = rod width x fullness / fabric width, rounded up
Fullness is how many times wider the flat fabric is than the space it covers. Rowley's grommet and pinch-pleat tape sheets both use 2.25 times the rod width, and round up to whole widths (Instructions for Grommet Tape and Instructions for Triple Pinch Pleat Tape, Rowley's sheets for its tapes). Product-specific Their worked example is a 44 in rod with 54 in fabric: 44 x 2.25 / 54 is 1.8, which rounds up to 2 widths. The calculator's default fullness is 2.25 for that reason; change it if your tape's own sheet, or your choice in Measuring for curtains, gives another figure.
For a pair of curtains that meet in the middle, the widths are split between the two panels. Where the split leaves a half width, a 1971 extension bulletin puts the half width at the outer edge of each panel, so the seams fall in the folds near the wall rather than at the center (Draperies: Make Your Own, University of Illinois Cooperative Extension, 1971). Convention
How long to cut each width
The finished length is the length of the curtain when it is hemmed and hanging, from the top of the heading to the hem. Measuring for curtains is where that number comes from. The cut length is the finished length plus the fabric that disappears into the heading and the hem:
cut length = finished length + allowance
| Heading | Allowance | Made up of | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Grommet, or any doubled header and doubled hem | 17 in | 8 in doubled header, 8 in doubled bottom hem, 1 in for shrinkage | Rowley grommet tape sheet Product-specific; the 1971 Illinois bulletin reaches 17 in for unlined pinch pleats by a slightly different split |
| Pleat tape (pinch, cartridge) | 9 1/2 in | 1/2 in header fold, 8 in doubled bottom hem, 1 in for shrinkage | Rowley pinch pleat tape sheet Product-specific |
| Your own | What your pattern or tape sheet says | The pattern or tape maker |
Pattern repeat. A printed or woven pattern repeats at a fixed distance down the fabric, the repeat, printed on the bolt or the listing. For the pattern to line up across the seams and across the panels, every width has to start at the same point in the pattern. The calculator does that by rounding the cut length up to a whole number of repeats. Physical principle Rowley's sheets add one repeat to the cut length instead; Go deeper compares the two. For a plain fabric, enter 0 for the repeat.
How much to buy
yards = widths x cut length (in inches) / 36
Rowley's grommet example is a 95 in cut length and 2 widths: 95 x 2 / 36 is 5 1/3 yards. The calculator gives yards and meters, and the number of widths in each panel for a pair.
Lining is figured the same way with the lining's own width, and without a repeat, because a plain lining does not need to match. Physical principle
Hems and seams
Two hem conventions turn up in several sources: side hems about 1 1/2 in wide when finished, turned twice, and a bottom hem about 4 in, turned twice (KnollTextiles Drapery guide, a contract textile maker's specification, 2012, and the 1971 Illinois bulletin). Convention The Illinois bulletin adds 4 in to the flat width for the two side hems and 1 in for each seam. A doubled hem puts weight at the bottom edge, which helps a curtain hang straight.
Fabric that shrinks will shrink after the curtain is made unless it shrinks first. The 1 in shrinkage allowance in Rowley's figures is small; preshrinking the fabric as Learn Machine Sewing describes in Choosing and preparing fabric is the other half of that. Linen also moves with humidity after it is hung: one custom workroom describes linen drapery lengthening and shortening with temperature and humidity, and blends moving less (custom linen drapery notes, Field Work Design Craft). Product-specific
A flat Roman shade, one method
A Roman shade is a fabric shade that folds up in horizontal pleats when raised. A flat one is a single layer of face fabric, a lining and a set of rings and cords on the back. One workroom educator's instructions give this method (Buckram-Fold, Blackout Roman Shade, Susan Woodcock, Workroom Tech, 2019, distributed by Rowley): Product-specific
- Face fabric: cut it the finished width plus 8 in by the finished length plus 8 in. For a shade up to 45 in wide, that is one cut; buy the finished length plus 8 in. A wider shade needs the width plus 8 in divided by the fabric width, rounded up, in cuts.
- Hems: 2 in doubled side hems and a 3 in doubled bottom hem.
- Rings: columns 2 1/2 in in from each side and no more than 10 in apart; rows 6 in apart in the method's sample.
A Roman shade has lift cords on its back. If a child lives in your home or visits, read Cords, children and fire before you make one, and take the cord arrangement from that chapter rather than from a pattern alone.
These are one method's allowances, labeled by source. A pattern, a heading tape's own instruction sheet or a workroom's method may use different allowances, a different fullness or a different way of handling repeats, and for its own product it wins. The calculator does arithmetic on the figures you give it; it does not know your fabric's shrinkage, how your heading tape gathers or how your pattern is meant to fall. This chapter teaches no business pricing and names no store as a recommendation.
Go deeper 5. Repeats, linings and older allowances
Matching a repeat across widths
Rounding each cut length up to a whole number of repeats means every width starts at the same point in the pattern, so a motif sits at the same height on every width and the seams match. Rowley's sheets add one repeat to the cut length. The two differ in a useful way. Adding one repeat leaves room to choose where the pattern starts, for example a full motif just under the heading, but it does not by itself make each cut a multiple of the repeat. Rounding up makes the cuts match each other but lets the first cut fall wherever the bolt starts. If you care where the motif sits, allow one extra repeat for the first cut, on top of the rounded cut lengths. That last step is our reading of the two methods, not a figure from either sheet. Preference
Measure the repeat yourself on the sample before you rely on the listing; a misprinted repeat multiplies through every width.
Lined and interlined panels
A lining is a second fabric sewn behind the face fabric. One drapery maker lists what it does: protects the face fabric from sun, improves light filtering and insulation, and gives a fuller drape (Drapery Lining FAQs, Eastern Accents). Product-specific An interlining sits between the face and the lining, for more light blocking, privacy and insulation. Each layer adds its own yardage and its own weight; Hardware and installing turns the yards into pounds. The 1971 Illinois bulletin uses a single 4 in top hem on a lined drapery instead of the doubled one, because the lining adds body at the top. Lining choices are in Fabric, linings and fading.
Why older sources give different allowances
The allowances are conventions, and they have drifted.
| Source | Date | Allowance or fullness |
|---|---|---|
| How to Make Draperies, Singer | 1960 | Lined drapery: 1 in heading plus 4 in plus a 3 1/2 in hem; fullness about twice on average, 2 to 2 1/2 times for medium-weight draperies, 2 1/2 or 3 times for sheers |
| Draperies: Make Your Own, Illinois Extension | 1971 | Unlined: 17 in (double 4 in top hem, 1 in above the rod, double 4 in bottom hem); pinch-pleat width the rod measurement doubled |
| How to Make Curtains and Draperies, Michigan State Extension | 1977 | Hems 9 to 18 in in total; traverse fullness at least double, up to triple for sheers |
| Rowley tape sheets | Current | 17 in (grommet) or 9 1/2 in (pleat tape), each with 1 in for shrinkage; fullness 2.25 |
The differences come from what each method folds: a deep doubled header that the pleats are formed in, a single fold behind a tape that does the stiffening, a deeper hem for weight. None is wrong for its own heading. Pick the method that matches your heading and use its figures together, rather than taking the fullness from one source and the allowance from another.
6. See it See it
Walt works out the fabric for his bay. Walt's living room bay has three south-facing windows, each 30 in wide inside the trim and 62 in high, with 10 in of wall between them and a 98 in ceiling. He wants lined pinch-pleat curtains that he sews himself, in a linen and cotton blend 54 in wide with a 13 in repeat.
Known: the window sizes, the ceiling, the fabric width and the repeat, which he measured on a sample rather than taking from the listing.
Assumed (Walt's): one pair of curtains per window, each on a rod 40 in wide (the 30 in opening plus 5 in each side, half of each 10 in pier), and a finished length of 90 in. These are his working figures; Measuring for curtains is where they get settled.
Open: whether the bay takes three rods or one bendable track, which changes the rod width (settled when he measures the bay and chooses the hardware in Hardware and installing); whether the plaster above the windows will take brackets (settled by a test hole, or a carpenter).
Widths. 40 x 2.25 / 54 is 1.67, which rounds up to 2 widths per window: one width in each panel of the pair, so no half widths.
Cut length. Pinch-pleat tape, so the allowance is 9 1/2 in: 90 + 9 1/2 is 99 1/2 in. With a 13 in repeat, 99 1/2 / 13 is 7.65 repeats, which rounds up to 8 repeats, so each cut is 8 x 13 = 104 in.
Face fabric. 2 widths x 104 in / 36 is 5.78 yards per window. For three windows, 6 cuts of 104 in is 624 in, or 17 1/3 yards (about 15.85 m).
Lining. Lining 54 in wide, no repeat: 2 widths x 99 1/2 in is 199 in per window, so 597 in for three windows, or 16 7/12 yards; he writes 16 2/3 yards to round to the store's cutting.
What he writes down. In the options sheet: "Bay, three windows: lined pinch pleat, made at home, 2 widths each, cut 104 in (8 repeats), face 17 1/3 yd, lining 16 2/3 yd. Under these assumptions: rod 40 in each, finished length 90 in." He holds the sample against the middle window at noon and again at night with the lamps on before he buys. If he changes the rod width or the length, he runs the calculator again before buying; the yardage holds only under these assumptions.
Free instructions worth reading alongside the calculator:
- Instructions for Triple Pinch Pleat Tape, Rowley: the widths, cut length and yardage method with a worked example, on two pages.
- Draperies: Make Your Own, University of Illinois Extension, 1971: a whole making sequence, with drawings of half widths, hems and pleat spacing. Historical, read for its method.
- Buckram-Fold, Blackout Roman Shade, Susan Woodcock: a full Roman shade method with cutting, hems and ring layout.
- How to Measure: Drapery, The Shade Store: how one custom maker defines the width it asks for, a good example to compare with any order form.
7. Practice Practice
Minimum: one window, its buying route chosen and written down with a reason, and either one order checked against the survey or one yardage worked out. Time: about 30 minutes, plus the time for a sample to arrive. Materials: your window survey (on screen or printed), a pencil, a sample or the product in its packaging, tape, and the order form or the fabric listing you are considering.
- Write the route and the reason. In the options sheet of Choices and orders, add the window, the kind, the mount and the route (ready-made, custom, made at home), and one line on why, from the questions in Choosing for each window.
- Tape the sample to the window. Look at it at the hour the window matters most and again after dark with the lamps on. Tick "sample seen" and note what you saw.
- Fill in the order form, then check it. Put the survey beside the form and check every line in the table in Samples, and checking the order. Read the form's own definition of width.
- Record the order before you pay. In the orders sheet: item and maker, size, mount, the return or remake terms in a few words, and the expected date. Tick "checked against survey" only after the line-by-line check.
- For a curtain you will make, run the calculator. Enter the rod width, fullness, fabric width, finished length, heading, repeat and lining in Fabric for making curtains, and copy the widths, cut length and yards into the options sheet.
Work the yardage once by hand before you trust the calculator: widths, cut length rounded to whole repeats, then yards. If your figure and the calculator's differ, find out which input you read differently. Then work it a second time with Rowley's "plus one repeat" and see how much the two methods differ for your fabric.
8. Your windows Your windows
9. Check your work Check your work
Criteria
- Does each window have a route (ready-made, custom or made at home) and a reason written beside it?
- If a child lives in the home or visits, did you read Cords, children and fire before choosing, and is the operating system on the order cordless or without accessible cords?
- Have you looked at a sample at the window by day and after dark?
- Does every size on the order match the measurement the maker asks for, as recorded on the survey, with no deduction of your own on an inside mount?
- Are the return or remake terms and the expected date written down?
- For a curtain you will make: are the widths, the cut length (rounded to whole repeats when there is one) and the yards of face fabric and lining written down, with the assumptions they rest on?
Worked example
Walt's bay meets the making criteria: widths, cut length rounded to 8 repeats, face and lining yards, written down with the rod width and finished length they assume. It does not yet meet the order criteria, because there is no order: the fabric is not bought until the bay hardware is chosen. That is the right order of events. His record says "under these assumptions", and the two open questions, three rods or one track, and what is behind the plaster, are each assigned to Hardware and installing. He has no child in the home, so the cord criterion does not apply to his curtains.
Common mistakes
- Sending the widest width for an inside mount. Most makers ask for the narrowest. Check which column of the survey you copied.
- Taking a deduction the factory will also take. The result is a blind too narrow for the frame. Send what the maker asks for, as measured.
- Counting fullness twice. If the form asks for coverage width and adds fullness in the workroom, entering the flat fabric width doubles it.
- Buying fabric before the rod width and length are settled. Every figure in the yardage moves with them.
- Forgetting the repeat. A patterned fabric cut to the plain cut length will not match across seams.
- Ordering custom before asking the landlord. In a rental, the hardware question comes before the order.
What is still unresolved
The rod width, finished length and fullness come from Measuring for curtains; blind and shade sizes from Measuring for blinds and shades. Whether the wall will hold the result, and what a renter may fix to it, is Hardware and installing. Which cords are acceptable, and the current law, is Cords, children and fire. A maker's return and remake terms are the maker's; ask before you pay.