Custom Draperies Curtains Shades Window Treatments and Furniture Upholstery and Reupholstery in Springfield, MO

Big News! Bridge Has Moved to 202 E Commercial Street!

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We’re excited to announce that we’ve moved to a new location at 202 E Commercial Street!bridge-upholstery-and-drapery-new-location-031

If you’re looking for Bridge Upholstery and Drapery, go north out of downtown.  Take Boonville or Campbell up to Commercial street and go right.  You’ll see us on the south side of the street between the Artisan’s Oven and Good Stuff Antiques.  We’re across the street from Historic Firehouse No. 2, the Tea and Spice Market, the Vintage Suitcase and Big Momma’s.  Needless to say it’s an awesome block and we are so happy to be a part of it!

We have big plans for this new space.  So stay tuned to see photos once we get the storefront painted and all the inside settled.

As always, if we can help you with your next drapery or upholstery project, please contact us!

Bridge is Growing – Welcome New Employee Bev Nokes!

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We are thrilled to announce the addition of Bev Nokes to our Bridge Team as a workroom assistant.New-workroom-assistant-bev-nokes 015 (1)Bev is a native of Rolla who moved to Springfield when she attended SMSU, now Missouri State University.  She’s the mother of one married daughter, Tarah, and is happily married and living in southern Springfield with her husband Dave.

Bev has been sewing since a young age.  Her mother was a home economics teacher and taught Bev to sew.  Bev made a lot of her own clothing growing up.  She is a still a great apparel and home decor seamstress.  She has a great eye for upholstery and drapery fabrics and is wonderful at color coordination.  Bev is having a blast learning about upholstery and draperies and loves the Bridge work for the creative outlet that it gives her.

Bev is already a great asset to the Bridge Upholstery and Drapery workroom and is enabling us to complete projects much more quickly and efficiently.  She hit the ground running by stripping furniture, cutting fabric for an upholstered chair and ottoman and learning to use the Janome and Seiko sewing machines in the shop – and that was just the first day!

Contact us if you’d like Bev and the Bridge Team to help with your next upholstery or drapery project.

 

How to Design Drapes using Patterned Fabric | Historic Springfield Home

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Historic-Springfield-Home-Before-Dining-Room-Drapery-Installation 010

We recently participated in the redecorating project of a client’s formal dining and living rooms.  We made beautiful new linen drapes for three french doors in her dining room and Greek Key trimmed Roman Shades for windows and french doors in her living room.  I’ll explain a few of the basic design considerations for the dining room in this post.  Stay tuned for details about the Living Room Roman Shades.

1-custom-curtain-drapes-installed

Initial Design and Planning for Vertical Repeat

The client chose to use Thibault’s Gibraltar Embroidery Fabric.  We rolled out the fabric and began to study the pattern and make some design decisions.  The client chose to use her existing drapery hardware, so the drapery height was set at 100.5″.  The fabric has a vertical repeat of 15.5.  We know that we want each drapery panel to look the same at the top and bottom, so we will cut multiples of the fabric repeat.  For a finished drape of 100.5″, we will need to cut each panel face fabric to 114.5″.  This includes 6″ for the top hem and 8″ for the bottom hem plus 100.5″ for the drapery front.  The top hem will be a 3″ double fold hem and the bottom hem will be a 4″ double fold hem.  To make sure that the draperies always begin at the same place vertically, we need to cut multiples of 15.5 that are greater than 114.5″.  We needed to cut panels every 124″ vertically and then remove the excess 9.5″ before hemming the top and bottom.

Thibault-Gibraltar-Embroidery-Fabric-Horizontal-repeat 005

To determine the proper place to cut, we looked at the fabric and decided which part of the pattern would look best at the pleats in the top of the drapery.  We made some mock pleats and decided to cut 6″ above the fold at the top of the pleats shown below.  At this time, we also determined that we’d like to have this pattern on the front of each pleat.  To align the pleats, we’d need to match our pleats and pleat spaces to the horizontal repeat of the fabric.

Pleated-drapery-panels 005

Planning for and finding Horizontal Repeat

To find the horizontal repeat of the fabric, measure from the same spot on the fabric pattern to the same exact adjacent spot on the fabric pattern.  In this case, the horizontal repeat of the fabric is 10.5″.

Thibault-Gibraltar-Embroidery-Fabric-Horizontal-repeat 006

We constructed the drapery panel pleats to match the horizontal repeat of the fabric. As shown below, each pleat corresponds to the same section of the fabric pattern.  We accomplished this by making the pleat space (the flat horizontal area between the pleats) and the pleats (the fabric folded up into the pleat) add up to the horizontal repeat.  For example, if the horizontal repeat is 10.5″, and we know that 6″ is a good amount of fabric for pleats, then the pleat space needs to be 4.5″ to make the pleats align with the fabric pattern.  This gave us a finished drapery width of 23″.  This includes 2×2.5″ on each side and 4×4.5″ in pleat spaces.  In this case, the client did not plan to close the draperies.  Since they are stationary, the finished width did not need to be 1/2 the window width plus overlaps and returns on the sides.  23.5″ is a good width for decorative stationary drapery panels on these french doors.

1-custom-curtain-drape-cinched

Choosing Drapery Pleat Styles

After making five 6″ pleats, we chose 5 drapery panel pleat styles and sent them to our client for approval.  The pleats are shown below and are from left to right:  a cartridge pleat, a butterfly pleat, a triple euro pleat, a double pinch pleat and finally a triple pinch pleat.

1-custom-curtain-drape-top

Our client liked both the butterfly pleat and the triple pinch pleat.  We especially liked how the fabric pattern looked on the butterfly pleat, but after consideration of the client’s overall style, we chose the more traditional triple pinch pleat.  We believe she’ll be happy with the triple pinch pleat for years to come.

Pressing and Training Finished Drapes

One additional very important step when dealing with linen draperies is pressing and training the drapes.  As you can see below, we pressed the drapes and then loosely folded them and tied them for transport.  The process of folding drapes and tying them so that they hang with folds at each pleat is called training.  Linen drapes like these train (and wrinkle and crease) very easily, so we didn’t have to keep them tied up once they were installed.  If you are constructing drapes with heavy velvet or damask fabric, you may need to leave them hanging with their ties on for a few days to get them to hang with a fold at each pleat.

Pleated-drapery-panels-trained 008

Here they are trained and tied up to be delivered to our client’s home.

Pleated-drapery-panels-trained 009

Look at the difference ironing and training can make!  The drapes on the left are ready to go, the pile of draperies on the right haven’t been pressed yet.  My mom always says that half of sewing is ironing – you can really see it here.

Pleated-drapery-panels-trained 007

Installed Drapes

Here is a photo of the finished and installed dining room drapes.  As you can see, they have been trained to hang perfectly with folds at each pleat.

Dining-Room-drapes-pleated-linen-installed 011

We hope you have enjoyed reading about how to design draperies with patterned fabric!  We’d love to help you with your next drapery design project.  Please contact us for all your upholstery and drapery needs.

Greek Key Fabric Gray and White Wingback

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custom-upholstery-greek-key-fabric-wingback-chair 025

This is one of our first upholstery projects!  We bought this wingback chair from a flea market and reupholstered it as a learning exercise.  This chair was stripped down to the frame and then built back up using all new materials including foam, dacron and fabric.  The wooden feet are painted glossy black and we added a down filled pillow.  This chair is truly exceptional and admired by all who visit the shop.  It is for sale for $750 plus shipping and taxes.  We would deliver the wingback to Springfield, MO and the surrounding area.  If you live outside of our area, contact us for shipping options.  Please Contact Us today if you’d like to purchase this amazing Greek Key Fabric Gray and White Wingback.

How to Design Drapes using Patterned Fabric | Historic Springfield Home

by

Historic-Springfield-Home-Before-Dining-Room-Drapery-Installation 010

We recently participated in the redecorating project of a client’s formal dining and living rooms.  We made beautiful new linen drapes for three french doors in her dining room and Greek Key trimmed Roman Shades for windows and french doors in her living room.  I’ll explain a few of the basic design considerations for the dining room in this post.  Stay tuned for details about the Living Room Roman Shades.

1-custom-curtain-drapes-installed

Initial Design and Planning for Vertical Repeat

The client chose to use Thibault’s Gibraltar Embroidery Fabric.  We rolled out the fabric and began to study the pattern and make some design decisions.  The client chose to use her existing drapery hardware, so the drapery height was set at 100.5″.  The fabric has a vertical repeat of 15.5.  We know that we want each drapery panel to look the same at the top and bottom, so we will cut multiples of the fabric repeat.  For a finished drape of 100.5″, we will need to cut each panel face fabric to 114.5″.  This includes 6″ for the top hem and 8″ for the bottom hem plus 100.5″ for the drapery front.  The top hem will be a 3″ double fold hem and the bottom hem will be a 4″ double fold hem.  To make sure that the draperies always begin at the same place vertically, we need to cut multiples of 15.5 that are greater than 114.5″.  We needed to cut panels every 124″ vertically and then remove the excess 9.5″ before hemming the top and bottom.

Thibault-Gibraltar-Embroidery-Fabric-Horizontal-repeat 005

To determine the proper place to cut, we looked at the fabric and decided which part of the pattern would look best at the pleats in the top of the drapery.  We made some mock pleats and decided to cut 6″ above the fold at the top of the pleats shown below.  At this time, we also determined that we’d like to have this pattern on the front of each pleat.  To align the pleats, we’d need to match our pleats and pleat spaces to the horizontal repeat of the fabric.

Pleated-drapery-panels 005

Planning for and finding Horizontal Repeat

To find the horizontal repeat of the fabric, measure from the same spot on the fabric pattern to the same exact adjacent spot on the fabric pattern.  In this case, the horizontal repeat of the fabric is 10.5″.

Thibault-Gibraltar-Embroidery-Fabric-Horizontal-repeat 006

We constructed the drapery panel pleats to match the horizontal repeat of the fabric. As shown below, each pleat corresponds to the same section of the fabric pattern.  We accomplished this by making the pleat space (the flat horizontal area between the pleats) and the pleats (the fabric folded up into the pleat) add up to the horizontal repeat.  For example, if the horizontal repeat is 10.5″, and we know that 6″ is a good amount of fabric for pleats, then the pleat space needs to be 4.5″ to make the pleats align with the fabric pattern.  This gave us a finished drapery width of 23″.  This includes 2×2.5″ on each side and 4×4.5″ in pleat spaces.  In this case, the client did not plan to close the draperies.  Since they are stationary, the finished width did not need to be 1/2 the window width plus overlaps and returns on the sides.  23.5″ is a good width for decorative stationary drapery panels on these french doors.

1-custom-curtain-drape-cinched

Choosing Drapery Pleat Styles

After making five 6″ pleats, we chose 5 drapery panel pleat styles and sent them to our client for approval.  The pleats are shown below and are from left to right:  a cartridge pleat, a butterfly pleat, a triple euro pleat, a double pinch pleat and finally a triple pinch pleat.

1-custom-curtain-drape-top

Our client liked both the butterfly pleat and the triple pinch pleat.  We especially liked how the fabric pattern looked on the butterfly pleat, but after consideration of the client’s overall style, we chose the more traditional triple pinch pleat.  We believe she’ll be happy with the triple pinch pleat for years to come.

Pressing and Training Finished Drapes

One additional very important step when dealing with linen draperies is pressing and training the drapes.  As you can see below, we pressed the drapes and then loosely folded them and tied them for transport.  The process of folding drapes and tying them so that they hang with folds at each pleat is called training.  Linen drapes like these train (and wrinkle and crease) very easily, so we didn’t have to keep them tied up once they were installed.  If you are constructing drapes with heavy velvet or damask fabric, you may need to leave them hanging with their ties on for a few days to get them to hang with a fold at each pleat.

Pleated-drapery-panels-trained 008

Here they are trained and tied up to be delivered to our client’s home.

Pleated-drapery-panels-trained 009

Look at the difference ironing and training can make!  The drapes on the left are ready to go, the pile of draperies on the right haven’t been pressed yet.  My mom always says that half of sewing is ironing – you can really see it here.

Pleated-drapery-panels-trained 007

Installed Drapes

Here is a photo of the finished and installed dining room drapes.  As you can see, they have been trained to hang perfectly with folds at each pleat.

Dining-Room-drapes-pleated-linen-installed 011

We hope you have enjoyed reading about how to design draperies with patterned fabric!  We’d love to help you with your next drapery design project.  Please contact us for all your upholstery and drapery needs.

Connect with Bridge

Bridge Upholstery and Drapery
202 E Commercial St
Springfield, MO 65803

417.429.1243
Info@BridgeUpholsteryAndDrapery.com
BridgeUpholsteryandDrapery.com

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Bridge Upholstery and Drapery is proud to provide custom draperies, curtains, shades and window treatments as well as furniture upholstery, reupholstery, renewal and restoration services to the greater Springfield and Southwest Missouri area.

Serving Springfield | Republic | Willard | Fordland | Rogersville | Branson | Kimberling City | Nixa | Ozark | Clever | Sparta | Spokane | Battlefield | Marshfield | Strafford | Bolivar | Highlandville | Lebanon | Fair Grove | Buffalo | Greenfield