If you want to lighten and refresh a room, eyelet curtains are an excellent choice. If chosen wisely, window treatments can make a dramatic difference in the atmosphere of any room.
Eyelet is machine-embroidered fabric that features tiny circular cut-outs, or eyelets, that give the fabric an airy allure without sheerness. Curtains made in this way provide privacy yet let through enough sunlight to give your room a healthy glow.
Perfect for kitchens, bedrooms, and nurseries, eyelet window curtains come in lots of styles to suit your particular style. Frilly with ruffled edges, straight and full, or full length with tab tops, the right match for your windows will transform your decor. Choose balloon shades to add volume to small windows, or tiered curtains for extra length. You can even coordinate your bath decor with a shower curtain featuring cut-out embroidery to match your window shades.
Your color choices are not limited to basic white; the fabric comes in many colors, from cute pastels for baby to prints for little girls and darker solids for grown ups. Lacy and pretty, often cotton or a cotton blend, they are washable and long-lasting with a minimum of care. While these are certainly versatile and attractive, they are much less expensive than other drapery fabrics such as velveteen or silk.
When you shop for window treatments, keep in mind the other decor elements in the room and consider what options might best suit your needs. Do you need to match colors with wallpaper or paint? How about the carpet? Is the room style casual, elegant, country, or child-themed? What style would work well in this environment? In a kitchen, you might choose some ruffled valances to frame the windows without covering the light; in a nursery, you may want lined eyelet curtains that will tone down the sunlight at nap time.
For a country style decor, use natural, unbleached fabric in simple lines with matching tie-backs, if you wish. For a more formal yet breezy dining or living area, pair eyelet curtains with contrasting swags and metal or carved wood hardware or curtain tie backs. You can even use these window coverings in a solarium, adding silk ivy vines across the rods and trailing down one side for an outdoor botanical look. Because the drapery fabric is richly detailed with embroidery yet light and airy, it lends itself to a variety of decors.
If you have a sewing machine and a couple of hours, you can easily create your own draperies. Most eyelet material is lightweight for ease of cutting and sewing, yet holds its shape well to hang beautifully around your windows. For best results pre-wash and tumble dry your yardage to ensure safe laundering in the future. Use a pattern in the style you prefer, buy the required yardage and matching thread. Depending on the pattern, you will find that all it takes to produce winning results are a few straight seams. You may like the results so well that you’ll want to make several colors.
