Introduction to Pencil Pleat Curtains

Hi. I'm Lee Stevens from ezecurtains.co.uk. And I want to show you quickly how to gather and hook and hang pencil pleat curtains. So let's go and have a quick look.

Preparing the Curtain Cords

Okay. So the first step we got to do with the pencil pleat curtains is we need to check the cord on the end of the, curtain tape. Now, if the ready-made curtains, almost certainly, you're going to have to pull the cords out as we've done here, and then pleat the curtain back a little bit so that you can actually tie them in a simple knot at the end like so. And you're going to repeat that for the other end of the curtain tape on the other side of the curtain.

Testing the Curtain Cords

Now if these have been made to measure, then the potential is that this is sewn down here and the cords have been knotted inside. So just pull them from the front and just give them a quick test to make sure that they're secure before you start gathering the curtains on. So we've tied the knot already on the other end of the curtains in this example. So I'm going to continue gathering the curtain up, holding the knotted end.

Gathering the Curtain

In this example, we've got a screw down at the end of the table here. I don't know whether you can see that.

And we've hooked the cord over the end. And what we're going to do now, we're going to continue gathering the curtain up like so.

Alternative Hooking Methods

Now you can hook that over a door handle or even better, a stair newel post.

And we're going to keep gathering this down all the way down to the far end. And we then want to measure how wide the curtain is. We've got a track of a hundred and twenty centimeters that we want to put this single curtain onto. So we're going to make the gather up to a hundred and thirty centimeters, so it gives a little bit of play when we hang them.

Adjusting the Gather Width

Okay. So we've got the tape measure next to the curtain header tape now that's gathered. And I can see now that it's only a hundred and twenty, and we wanted it another ten centimeters out. So I'm just going to pull it out a little bit further, and that will give us the extra ten centimeters we want for the, the the spring back on the curtain once it's hanging so that they don't open themselves up. It's like, I'm just evening the tape out a little bit all the way down the tape now so that the pleats are all nice and regimented.

Bundling the Curtain Cords

Right. So we're at a hundred and thirty now, which is great. So I'll move that tape measure out the way, and we're now going to take the cord and we're going to bundle them over my fingers. And we've got two choices now. We can wrap them around here and tuck them into the end of the tape, or another option is to wrap the cords back over themselves, and do a simple slip knot.

So that if we want to release them, we can just pull them out. And then what I tend to do is just pull the cords out the middle cord and tuck the bundle just underneath here. I'm just struggling a little bit here, but there we go. So we got it tucked in behind the tape.

Finalizing the Gathered Tape

So that's the tape gathered, cords bundled up.

Okay. Final step now is to put the hooks in ready for hanging. And on the three and pen, three inch pencil peat tape, we've got a top pocket, middle pocket, and a bottom pocket, and we're going to put all the hooks into the middle pocket. What we want is to start with the first pocket on this side of the curtain.

We're then going to miss one, two, three pockets and put the hook in the fourth pocket, then miss another three pockets and put the hook in the fourth pocket. And we do that all the way across the curtain till we get to the other side. We need a hook at each end of the curtain right in the last pocket. Now you may end up getting to the other side, and you've only got two spaces between the last, two hooks, or you've got four spaces.

Preparing to Hang the Curtain

That's fine. Leave it at that. So right, we're almost ready now. We can start hanging the curtain.

Hanging the Curtain

Okay. So we just got the last few hooks on the curtain now to hook in. We're just going to put the curly little hooks into the little eyelet gliders on the curtain track here. We got a curtain draw rod as well, which we're using.