THE CHARM OF DRAPERY

Hangings have a considerable share in making the home atmosphere, their mission being to soften harsh angles and outlines and warm cold, stiff plainness into comfort.  Window curtains act as an equalizer in bringing the very best out of both light and dark rooms, serving at the same time as a partial background for their contents; while portieres are not only aesthetic but useful in deadening sounds, cutting off draughts, and screening one room from another.  “Drapes,” those flimsy, go-as-you-please looking bunches of poor taste knotted, cascaded, and festooned over mantels, pictures, and chair backs, we have outgrown, confining our efforts in this line to the silk draught curtain to conceal the inelegant yawn of an open grate; and even this is being supplanted by the small screen.

CURTAINS

Windows must be curtained with relation to their shape and position and the nature of the room.  The lower floor of the house, being naturally the heavier, can be curtained in a statelier manner than the lighter upper story.  Here is the proper place for our handsome curtains of Irish point and other appliques of muslin or lace on net, and of scrim with insertions and edges of Renaissance, Cluny, and other laces.  These curtains are manufactured in three shades—­dark cream or ecru, light ivory, and pure white, the ivory being the richest and most desirable—­and in simple, inexpensive designs as well as those costly and elaborate, and usually run about 50, 54, and 60 inches wide, and 3 1/2 yards long.  The applique curtain wears better in an elaborate all-over design which holds the net together and gives it body, cheaper designs which can be had as low as $8 being coarser in quality and pattern.  Nottingham curtains must be discredited among other imitations; they are well-meaning but both tasteless and cheaply ostentatious.  Lace curtains are rarely draped, but hang in straight simplicity, most of the fullness being arranged in the body that the border design may not be lost in the folds.  They are shirred with an inch heading on rods fastened outside of the window casing over which they extend, and care must be taken, if the pattern is prominent, that corresponding figures hang opposite each other.  The double hem at the top is nearly twice the diameter of the pole, with the extra length turned over next to the window, the curtains, when hung, clearing the floor about 2 inches.  They usually stretch down another inch, which brings them to just the right length.  There is no between length in curtains; they must be either sill or floor length.  Over curtains may or may not be used with the lace curtains.  They are not necessary but have a certain decorative value, particularly in a large room.  Raw silk, 30 inches wide, and costing from $0.75 to $1.50 a yard, is the only fabric sold now for this purpose for drawing-room use.