Home Furnishing Products and Soft Furnishings
Home Furnishing Products and Soft Furnishings
This domain tests the design, measurement, making and performance of curtains, blinds, cushions, bedding, upholstery and table linen. Expect quantity calculations and specification checks.
Core rules and concepts
- Curtains need fullness, heading allowance, hem allowance, lining and pattern repeat. Pencil pleat and gathered headings usually use 2–2.5 times the track width; eyelet curtains need a lower fullness factor.
- Blinds need precise recess or exact measurements and hardware clearance. Cushions need seam allowance, zipper or envelope opening and piping allowance.
- Upholstery needs abrasion resistance, seam strength and fire performance where specified. Bed linen needs shrinkage control and colour fastness to washing.
- Pattern repeat must be matched at seams; fabric quantity is rounded up to full repeats, not just to the cut length.
Worked example
A table runner is 180 cm long and 35 cm wide, with a 2 cm double-fold hem on all sides and a 20 cm vertical pattern repeat. Cut length = 180 + 4 + 4 = 188 cm; cut width = 35 + 4 + 4 = 43 cm. Round the cut length to the next repeat: 188 ÷ 20 = 9.4, so 10 repeats = 200 cm. One 150 cm-wide fabric can cut the 43 cm width, so required length is 2.0 m. The reasoning is that hem allowances are added before repeat rounding, and width is checked against usable fabric width.
Traps
Do not add fullness to the finished curtain width after calculating panels. Do not ignore pattern repeat or rail return. Do not use apparel ease as furnishing allowance. Do not forget lining, interlining and piping in the quantity.