Return of the (Curtain) Ring

I've been unwell. I started to make the curtains for our living room, but after making a mistake with the lining I decided to stop until my head was functioning again. After that I sat in front of the telly and felt sorry for myself. And ate the odd chocolate.

But now I'm back! The curtains are at the point where they're almost ready to hang, so here's the progress report.
First, I tried out a section of the eyelet tape directly onto a test strip of fabric:

This showed that the distance between the eyelets was not the same as the distance between the diamonds in the fabric, which was going to be a problem becasue the hessian overlay would get in the way of the eyelets. After much head scratching I decided to make a small pleat in every diamond across the fabric so that the new distance between them would match that of the eyelets. To do this I also needed to remove the hessian on the back of the fold. The result was a much improved match:

Using this technique, I applied tape to the folded tops of both curtain pieces. At this stage the tape is not sewn into place and is held purely by the eyelets.

Next I attached the lining and interlining. Putting the main fabric right side up on the table I first overlaid the lining, right side down (so that the right sides were together), then laid the interlining on top of this. I don't believe there's a right and wrong side to interlining. At least if there is I haven't spotted it!! The interlining was cut to the same length as the main fabric - ie enough to line the drop and hem. I should have cut the lining to match but because I cut it before I was really compos mentos, I have cut it too short: just below the level where the hem seam will go. Hopefully I can work around this.

Vertically, I measured the width of the main fabric and then placed the lining and interlining seams so that these would both end up a little narrower than the main fabric (about 3cm each side). This will pull the sides of the main fabric round to the back of the curtain and prevent the lining ever showing at the front. The pictures make it look as though there is a bigger difference than 3cm, but this is because the lining and interlining were both considerably wider than the main fabric to start with.

So now my main fabric and linings are attached, I need to tidy up the tops by properly sewing the tape to the main fabric along the top, tucking under the tape at the side edges, and then attaching the top of the linings to the bottom of the tape. This will be much better than hanging the linings off the main fabric as this would cause drag and drop. The tape is tough enough to withstand the weight and act as a strengthener.

After that, I'll hang both curtains from a pole, to relax before securing the interlining (to stop it moving about and becoming bunched up in use) and lastly, hemming the bottoms.