Guide to Fabric for Drapery, Which is the Best Fabric for Curtains? - ICE FABRICS

Interested in buying curtains or fabric for curtains? Want to ensure the maximum of your privacy with the best and most beautiful curtains? We can help you with that, as we have curtain fabric by the yard. Curtains are an essential part of any room as they not only beautify the room but also give privacy to the people inside. Most of the time, we want to open the window to let fresh air come in, but with that comes the dust, which no one wants. To keep your room clean, and still have full blasting fresh air to come inside, curtains are needed. Curtains provide to be a barrier to not let dust particles cross them, leaving the room cleaned. Other than the dust particles, you can keep the windows open, but still have full privacy when in your room, with the help of drapery. Keeping the windows closed is not an option, as it causes ventilation to stop and makes it suffocating to stay in the same room.

Curtains can add elegance to your room and the type of curtain you buy describes more about the room and its owner. If you buy the lacy drapery then it makes your room look feminine, and if you buy dark and heavy ones, it gives a manly touch. Nowadays sheer lace is the choice of every single person, as they look elegant and soft and are lightweight. But you don’t have to follow what the people are doing, buy the curtain you like and make your style with full confidence. I have mentioned a lot of different fabrics in the article to help you with this, all of them have their specialties, looks, and drawbacks. Choose according to your room’s requirements and enhance the look of your room.

Tips to Choose the Best Fabric for Drapery for your Room

Here are the much-needed tips to choose the best quality curtain fabrics material depending on your room.

  • Choosing the right curtain is important, especially the lining in the material that allows putting an end to the light and dust. One thing to keep in mind is that you should buy curtains with high-quality lining if your room’s window is towards the south. 
  • Don’t try to buy cheap curtains, try to invest a little more than needed in them and see how long they last, after all, they are a long-term investment. Quality matters more than the price.
  • As curtains enhance the taste of the owner, show your style by buying curtains that focus on your sole interest. 

Best Types of Fabric for Drapes

To make your room look exquisite, then window dressing is the way. Even a simple little curtain can add a fantastic look to your plain room. If you buy the ones that have various alluring textures, colors, and linings, they will make any room look soft and fully equipped. But the main problem starts when choosing the right kind of curtains material for your window dressing. There are a lot of curtain fabric materials that look amazing but are of low quality. Here in this article, I have listed them so you need not go crazy over the long list.

1. Velvet

Velvet is a known material worldwide due to its natural and synthetic look. Velvet is a heavy material and due to that, it blocks light and sounds a lot of notches. Velvet looks nice and rich-like over large French windows, but you can use it for informal rooms as well. They can vastly be used in all the rooms as formal dining room curtains, living room curtains, bedroom ideal curtains, and other room curtains too. These synthetically made or natural velvet is cheaper than the original silk, as they have cotton, linen, etc.

If your room has heavier rods, then this is ideal for you. You can either choose to change the rod or look for the other curtain fabric materials. 

2. Damask 

Damask has a jacquard loom having a weaving pattern making it great to be used reversible. It has been in great use since the 9th century. There is only one color in the whole fabric, making it look decent to use. It has a matt background and a finish of warp-faced sateen. This sateen causes a gloss to appear on the fabric making it suitable for any design, but nowadays, florals are used. Add glam to your room with this luxurious fabric. It is also a heavy fabric and hence needs heavy rods, like double wood rods that have the blackout lining to reduce the weight. 

3. Brocade 

Damask and brocade are often mistaken by people as both have the jacquard loom. But the thing that differentiates them both is that the brocade woven on the jacquard is multicolor while damask only has one color. This multicolor makes a pleasing pattern behind the simple background. As the threads are woven on the jacquard, they appear to be raised which is a bad thing as it frails quickly. To prevent that, they are often backed. This is also the best fabric for heavy curtains and needs heavy rods to carry its weight. The rods can be the fluted wooden pole as they are strong enough to hold brocade. Brocade is used widely due to its vast patterns. People also use it as a drape for large windows.

4. Voile 

Voile is a soft and lightweight drapery fabric that helps to cross light and also lets people inside the room have their much-needed privacy. Voile is collectively used for all the sheer materials and is vastly used in summers by people as clothing as well as draping. Voile is made from either cotton or silk, but they can artificially be made too, by polyester and rayon fibers. Mostly voile is used as curtains by people as it keeps the room bright but does its function properly by giving privacy. People also use it in their living rooms due to its softness and feminine touch. Due to the lightweight of voile, they can easily be hung anywhere, with a simple spring rod, even as kitchen curtain fabric or bathroom.

5. Lace

Lace is widely used in small places like cottages to give an alluring touch to the house, or on small windows to make the room look big. Lace is cheaper and is made both naturally and synthetically. If you have a low budget but want to have a great and opulent fabric as window dressing, then this lace window curtain fabric is the best option for you. Due to its lightweight, it can also be hung easily with a sash café rod, and give a romantic vibe to any room.

6. Linen 

Linen has been commonly used as fabric drapes for a long time now. The full linen or fabrics with linen in them are extremely popular among people living in warm areas. It has been widely used for weaving yarns and it makes a stable, steady, and strong fabric and weaving. There are different textures of linen, as it can be soft or it can be slubby, or rough due to which many fabrics are made. Lace, sheer, and sense fabrics are made due to their different weaving. People in English countries widely use it due to its stunning pale and earthy color. People also buy embroidered linen or dyed ones to make their homes attractive. Linen is both cheap and expensive depending on the quality and process of being made. If it is artificially made, then it's cheap but if it is manmade then it is on the expensive side. The manmade linen fabric is cheap due to it having polyester in it. You can use light rods if you want, but heavy rods add a dramatic touch to it making the room more appealing.

7. Silk

Silk has been in use for about the last 8500 years, originally made in China in ancient times. Silk is known worldwide, for a lot of reasons. The first one is for its natural fibers that are good for health, then it's shiny and lustrous appearance and the strength it withholds. People in every industry use it, be it fashion or interior. Silk is expensive as it is made from silkworms, but synthetic silk is not expensive as it doesn’t have all the properties of the original silk. Silk can be made into anything, you can either embroider it or print it, whatever you want. It makes a long-lasting curtain and is beneficial. And, can be lined or unlined to keep them shading or floaty respectively. Silk should be protected from the sun by having a barrier fabric behind it if they are unlined other than that a double traverse rod is the best for silk.

8. Cotton 

Cotton is known purely for its softness and gentleness on the skin. Cotton can either be thick or thin and have various finishes. You can print the cotton, embroider it or even plainly make cotton curtain fabric and hang it. All of these options will look good. Cotton may be something you will love to have as it is easily washable, and are affordable. Floral cotton is in use nowadays due to its purity and feminine look. Make your room look soft and hygienic with cotton. You should use a barrier fabric for cotton to protect the sun from fading its beauty. 

Conclusion

As there are a lot of fabrics available, people always doubt if they have brought the wrong one, or if there are better ones out there. Hence why I have listed them so to let you know about the clear choices you can have, as others are not that great to be used as a curtain. Now it is up to you to select the one that perfectly suits your room and taste.

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