Messed up hanging the curtains...

emmielou

Hi,

I bought some new curtains but I have messed up hanging them pulling the cords out of the tape, then panicking and trying to fix it and tying off the cords to short so the curtains don't meet in the middle What a disaster.

Could anyone give me some advice? I will have to cut the cords and so thread new cord back in, can this be done? I have really messed it up!

JulieM

You should be able to rethread the cords through the tape, providing you haven't already cut them, and there are no knots in them. The holes where they went should still be there if you look closely. You'll probably need a bodkin needle, or one with a very large eye, if the cord is too thick to thread through the eye, use a needle threader. I've done this myself, it took quite a while but it worked. And in future, always knot one end of the cords together losely before even trying to gather them!

tizerbelle

Julie is spot on, you can rethread cord but it can be a tedious pain in the proverbial and test your patience especially if you have to rethread all 3 cords on each curtain but it is entirely do-able.

If that is far too much hassle for you, you can buy new heading tape - unpick the old one and replace with the new and as Julie says always, always knot one end before you start gathering them. If you are nifty with a sewing machine (presuming you have one) this can be a lot quicker than re-threading.

And if you really can't be bothered with either of those and you have a curtain pole rather than a track, you can take the simple way out (not necessarily the most effective / aesthetic way) and just slot the pole through the gap between the curtain and the header tape - but be warned if you do do this, the likelihood is the curtains will stay this way forever more.:p

Yorkie1

JulieM wrote: »

You should be able to rethread the cords through the tape, providing you haven't already cut them, and there are no knots in them. The holes where they went should still be there if you look closely. You'll probably need a bodkin needle, or one with a very large eye, if the cord is too thick to thread through the eye, use a needle threader. I've done this myself, it took quite a while but it worked. And in future, always knot one end of the cords together losely before even trying to gather them!

I can say from personal experience that this does work

amandada

Once you've got as far as gathering up the threads and tying them, DON'T cut them! You'll need to loosen them for washing/dry cleaing, so just wind the excess round a small piece of card and it'll hang quite happily behind the curtain without being seen

Pont

Again will echo JulieM. Only addition is to have a warm fire, a good movie and a bottle of wine at hand - it's tedious!

MRSTITTLEMOUSE

I'm always doing this,as already said just re-thread them.

If you've cut the threads too short just go to a drapers or department store and get some fine cord (about a £1 a roll) and make some replacement ones.
I've had to do this too .
One of my pet hates is curtain tapes :mad:.