Custom Pleated Silk Curtains

We don’t often end up seeing where our pleating ends up. But when we do… we absolutely love it!  The following pictures are of an interior design project we worked on with M James Design Group in Beaumont, TX.

The designers gave us very specific directions as to their requirements for the pleated curtain.  The fabric to be used was  silk dupioni and they wanted a 1/2 side pleated trim to run along the vertical edges of the curtains.  They wanted a clean, finished look and also wanted see the face on both sides of the curtains. In order to achieve this, we cut the fabric into strips and folded it before pleating.  Sounds pretty straight forward. However, this project did require some technical finesse.

As I have mentioned before, an understanding of fabric grain is critical in order to achieve high end results.  In a theoretical world, fabric grain and cross grain should be perfectly square to each other but 99 percent of the time they are not.  My father is an incredible stickler about this.  Since he originally made textiles, he has a deep understanding of weaving fabrics and how to correct the grain-line depending on the type of project.

Below: A picture of one of the fabric strips we  cut.  Notice the curve in the goods.

We had to be absolutely accurate with the grain of the fabric for this job was because it had to be folded in half.  Pleating two layers of fabric is much more difficult than one layer.  If it was not perfectly straight, we would run the risk the of puckering or pinching one side of the trim…and we all know we could not allow our pleating to be anything but absolutely PERFECT

Below:  A picture of my father inspecting my work.

Below:  After cutting, correcting, pressing, stitching, pleating and taping….the finished product.

Below: Our pleated trim in its new home…LITERALLY!

What can I say… beautiful curtains for a beautiful home!