EASE AND OVERLAP

If you make curtains to the exact width of the pole they won't meet in the middle, as they will naturally spring back a bit and there will be no extra width for them to overlap.

We therefore add an amount for ease and overlap when calculating how wide to make pleated curtain panels.

There are various figures curtain makers use for this (some adding 10% , others 2cm per 50cm of pole for ease plus overlap etc).

HERE'S WHAT WE DO

In the workroom for calculating ease and overlap when making our hand pleated curtains, we keep it simple and add 10% to each curtain (a minimum of 10cm) .

Note for a pencil pleat (tape) headed curtain you can always adjust the ease and overlap, by loosening the tape off or pulling it tighter. Pencil pleat headings also suffer less from spring back than hand pleated headings so we just add 5cm width to each pencil pleat curtain rather than 10%.

HOW MUCH SHOULD CURTAINS OVERLAP?

We generally allow 7.5cm for the leading edge flap of our hand pleated curtains, so they would overlap by 7 to 7.5cm.

Note sometimes if you have a wide centre bracket on the pole (more common with wooden poles) you may need to allow a bit more for the leading edges so the curtain can overlap.

EASE AND OVERLAP CALCULATION

FINISHED CURTAIN WIDTH

The "finished curtain width" is the width of the curtain after it is pleated and made.

For a hand pleated pair of curtains the finished curtain width for each curtain is half the pole length plus 10% (this allows for ease and overlap). Note we add a minimum of 10cm.

Note 1: 10% is 9cm so we use the minimum value of 10cm.

Note 2: If you are making a single curtain rather than a pair. The calculation for the finished curtain width is. Pole length plus 10%

Note 3: If you are returning your curtain to the wall you need to add that distance to half the pole length for each curtain.