The way and way of making curtains varies according to fashion. Years ago, curtains were worn with ruffled tape and a lot of flare, which meant that the amount of fabric needed to make them was much higher than current eyelet curtains, for example.

To know how much fabric is needed for curtains, three factors must be taken into account:

-The size of the window or space to cover. We say window or space because frequently we will not want to cover only the window, but rather the curtain protrudes from the sides at least a couple of fingers and, sometimes, even more.

Measuring the size of the space to be covered is very important and it must be done well to avoid falling short with our new curtains. It is preferable to get it right, but if we measure wrong and it happens to us that we fall short, there are ways to fix it, such as creating decorative side curtains that would hide this problem.

-Lateral margins. This includes two very important things, on the one hand it is common to have to cut the piece since when they cut it for us in the store they do not always do it perfectly and we need a totally straight cut so that the curtain fits us well when sewing it.

But in addition, we also have to take into account the folds that we are going to make and if we are going to take more than one curtain out of the meters that we buy. We must think that for each curtain we must leave a margin of about fifteen centimeters, five to cut straight and five more for the hem on each side.

– Finally, we need to know the type of flight that we are going to give the curtain. If it is an eyelet curtain, it is normal to multiply the width measurement we have by 1.5. With this we will have curtains with little flight, so if we like them to make more wave we will have to multiply by 2.

If what we want are classic gathered curtains, then it is normal to buy at least twice or even three times the measurement of the width of the curtain. The more fabric, the more gather we are going to get and the more flight they will have.

With these simple instructions, it’s easy to get right and buy exactly the fabric you need so you don’t fall short or waste on something you don’t need.