Replacing curtain linings - easy way?

Savannah02K

I have some ceiling to floor, double width in each curtain, curtains in my dining room, absolutely love the fabric but the lining is badly marked from sun damage and condensation. I contacted a local dry cleaner for a quote for cleaning and replacing lining and it came in at £220!

I was just wondering how feasible it was to replace the linings (with detachable ones) and would appreciate advice from any sewers out there. I don't have a machine but am quite happy to handsew as I do patchwork and quilting. Could also prob borrow machine if I had to.

I wondered if the following plan sounded as though it could work or if I've missed a salient point:

1. Cut the lining off below the curtain tape (so I wouldn't have to unpick and then re-sew that
2. Use the cut off lining as template for new linings but add couple of extra inches to length
3. Sew another header tape (do they make one just for curtain linings, I seem to recall you could get some special hooks to add on to actual curtain hooks or did I dream that?) to the new lining and then size the lining to the curtain.

I have seen some ready made linings but they're all thermal or blackout and I don't want those, just ordinary thin cotton linings.

Thanks.

cattie

Yes it's fairly easy to remake curtain linings or make detachable ones, especially as you sound quite experienced at sewing. If you've the patience to sew them by hand, then good for you, but it would be much speedier to borrow a machine & you could whizz through the sewing pretty quickly. And there is nothing wrong with your plan of how to do the linings if you don't want to have to unpick the heading tape that's on the curtains.

A lot of the time, detachable linings have the narrow 1" heading tape to fix onto the more standard 3" heading tape that curtains nowadays mostly have. I think you just use the normal plastic or metal type hook that are used with the majority of curtain tapes. You just hook them into a different pocket to the ones that will be holding the curtains to the rail/pole.

If you need to buy heading tape & lining, then have a look on ebay as there are often some very good buys there with lining material & tape.