A great variety of styles can be produced in either crossed or single curtains by changing the position of the loop or rosette, and a good way to acquire the different styles is to take a pair of curtains and see how many different effects you can obtain by tying them at different heights and by manipulating the fullness in different ways. Crossed curtains are not effective unless the curtain is lacy and soft enough to drape gracefully. Heavy patterned curtains treated in this way do not produce good results.
Frilled curtains, as Figure [65] and [66], are more particularly suitable for bedrooms, sewing and sitting-rooms, but with proper surroundings may be applied to some of the heavier down-stairs rooms during the Summer season.
Frilled curtains made up as sash curtains are also very effective next to the glass, but should be made of very soft material that will drape easily and gracefully.
Sash curtains, lace curtains or over-curtains should be pleated to the exact width of the space they are to cover, sufficient pins being used to dispose of all the fullness and hold the top edge of the curtain from sagging between each pin.
This may seem a small thing, but to those accustomed to neatness the sloppy droop of the top edge of a curtain from pin to pin is extremely distasteful and would spoil an otherwise neat arrangement.
In hanging lace curtains having a prominent pattern it does not always follow that the same distance turned down at the top of each one will bring the patterns in line, and it is well to spread them in pairs side by side and match the pattern, so that when hung the pattern will be perfectly true and not zig-zag all the way up the two middle edges.
We have given the simpler forms of pinning and tying, which may be easily mastered by practice. Numerous other forms will suggest themselves, and a proper consideration of the effect to be produced will result in the selection of the style most suited to each requirement.
LOUIS XIV