Creative Curtainmaking Made Easy - Softcover

Luscious photos ripe with shimmering silks, crisp linens, colorful cottons, and rich wools showcase a delicious array of drapes, valances, shades, and tiebacks. With an eye for drama and a fearless use of color, interior designer Heather Luke serves up lots of floor-to-ceiling treatments of chintzes, toiles, sheers, checks, plaids, and stripes, sometimes several at once. Headings are pleated, gathered, tabbed, ruched, buttonholed, bunched, reefed, grommeted, and gobleted; edges are bound, bordered, fringed, piped, and rolled.

Made Easy is rather a misnomer, however, since Luke's depth of detail in the directions does not match the breadth of her imagination in the design. Step-by-step instructions outline the basics of making each style, but none save the expert sewer will find these brief explanations fully adequate. Yet the book's very opulence is part of its success; the other part is Luke's expertise at analyzing design elements, fabric choices, and color and pattern considerations, and at adapting a dizzying array of styles to almost any type of window. Experienced curtain makers can probably manage with the how-tos; everyone else can feast their eyes on these lovely creations, gather ideas, then hire an expert to help realize their window dreams. --Amy Handy

Luke provides instructions for various window treatments such as lined drapes and shades, but her instructions could have been more detailed, with more illustrations and explanations of more styles. The strength of this book lies in Luke's recommending when to use a particular window treatment or fabric with regard to view, light, and style. Although Durbano's book gives few project instructions, the variety of easy window treatments depicted in color photographs, in materials and styles ranging from elegantly draped sheer swags to whimsical cut-off jeans curtains, will give amateur and expert crafters a wealth of ideas.
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