Carpets & Curtains (Part Two): It's Curtains Jim But Not As We Know it!

Hello and welcome to the second half of another day in the Hall! I should also welcome you to a room not usually seen on the tours or when you visit Wimpole. This is known as the Bow Room, called as such because it’s a large curved room that looks out on to the south avenue.

As it’s not usually part of the Hall walk through as it were, the Bow Room is unfortunately not in as good of a condition as most of the other rooms. Despite this, the curtains still need looking after and conserving where we can.

With the wiring project affecting ALL rooms in the house it makes it the ideal opportunity to care for the rooms a little better. Hence, here we are in the Bow Room lifting curtains off the floor and protecting them from the inevitable dust that will be created from the works.

I’ve been refraining on using the term ‘bagging curtains’ or ‘bag the curtains’; I don’t know why but I feel it a bit uncertain and open to ribbing! But essentially that’s what we’re doing: Bagging curtains!

Anyway, enough with the japery. On a side note, I was a little disappointed that japery is an actual word! I thought I was inventing a whole new word ready for the next addition of the English Dictionary but no such luck. Hey, read my blog and learn new words!!

Ahem, cough… enough of that. Using a roll of Tyvek (yes that magical material that doesn’t tear! – Incidentally I actually tore it today so that’s Mary’s theory out the water!). Basically we cut a length that runs down one side and up the other with eyelets cut in the edges. Tape (fabric tape not the sticky kind) is then fed through the eyelets allowing us to create a drawstring so we can pull the ‘bag’ together.

What about the two open ends, you may ask? Well, we simply fold and wrap them around to enclose the curtain in the Tyvek and tie off with some more tape. For a Blue Peter example; here’s one we made earlier (right).

This is pretty much the same method we’ve been using for all the curtains that have been tied up. Of course the type of curtain material does affect how we wrap and conserve the curtains. Some material, such as silk, creases really easily so more care has to be taken. Often we’ll create sausages to slip in between the folds to pad out the material so it doesn’t crease.

I’ve also just realised I’ve slipped into ‘textile’ language! Obviously I don’t mean your usual pork and apple; the sausages are ones we make using acid-free tissue paper. I may have mentioned these in a previous post but basically you concertina the paper up into a length or ‘sausage’ for use in packing out textiles.

When we tie up the curtains (see; much better than saying bagging curtains!), the sausages are placed where we intend to fold the curtain up so they pad the fold without too much creasing. And you have no idea how much I had to rephrase this sentence so it had a lot less innuendo in it!

Incidentally I apologise for the quality of the photos; they serve a purpose but they aren’t great. The lighting was pretty poor and the camera struggled a bit to focus up. You get the picture anyway, haha! Boom Boom!! I can see Shane groaning already…

Here's one we tied earlier...

The bagged curtains are suspended from the rails above using a simple length of tape. Speaking of simple anyone recognise what movie this is from: “Easy, just use a simple strand of creeper!” Anyhoo, after that intermission; we thread the tape through the eyelets of the bag several times for added strength and loop the top end around, through or over any support we can find up above.

Easier said than done I can tell you as nine times out of ten there is a distinct lacking of upper rail support! That’s when tieback hooks and conveniently placed picture hooks come in handy. Finally we simply tie tape around the trussed up curtains to secure the bag. This is done loosely so we don’t put extra creases in the curtain material.

So there you have it, not a bad job done! Mary’s always more than happy with the job we do, especially as she can put us in a room and say do this or do that and Maggie and I crack on with it. Ya have to blow your own trumpet sometimes!

Until next time…