Curtain conundrum!

[Frieda]

My sister has just moved house, & needless to say, the previous owners have taken all the curtains with them. Which wouldn't normally have been too much of a problem, except she has suddenly had to go into hospital for an operation, won't be able to drive or sew when she comes out, and she'll need her privacy! I offered to make her some temporary curtains (out of calico, or just plain lining fabric) and send them to her (she lives about 150 miles away & not in a town), but she just sent me her window measurements and they're huge!
I wondered if any of you had any suggestions, either for cheap, plain curtains you can buy by mail order (IKEA ones would be ideal, but they don't do mail order, sadly), or alternatively, for an affordable way of sending a heavy package of my home-made curtains.

next post down was for e-bay ...do they do curtains?

Thanks, helenmc ? but not sure ebay's the answer, as they're unusually large windows and I just want something plain, temporary and cheap.
Also, I'd be really grateful to hear any ideas about transporting 20m of curtains (if I make them) from London to Wales affordably, as posting them will probably cost the earth.
Sorry it's such a boring question, but I'd really, really like to help my sister without breaking the bank unneccessarily.

Do you or your dh or dp, or even a friend work where the company has an account with companies such as City Link or DHL? The company may have negotiated a flat rate for any delivery within the UK which would probably be a lot cheaper than Royal Mail for a heavy package such as yards of curtains.

You could even ring around a few delivery companies, and see if the quotes are reasonable.

I understood that you could send a parcel by parcel force whatever size and it was a fixed fee. Might be wrong but it is worth checking delivery costs. Could also think about Cafe style curtains which only do the bottom half but they will need fixing and may not look right. Argos are pretty cheap too aren't they?

Frieda, a very trendy graphic designer friend had paper curtains up at his windows. When not in use they were sort of folded up like blinds. I guess they weren't much protection against the cold but they looked very trendy. Very cheap as well and wouldn't cost that much to post.

How huge is huge? Could you use two kingsize flat sheets and just fix some tabs onto them, I have done this a few times as a quick cheap was to overcome curtain problems - dd's room used to have two pink single flat sheets with various shades of pink ribbon stitched to the top and tied them to a pole - they were supposed to be a temporary measure but as they looked really good I didn't change them until recently. Sheeting would be light enough to post fairly cheaply too. Another similar idea would be to make voile curtains and line them with sheeting - just done this in our bedroom - really lightweight.

Why not try the curtain exchange . I've not used them myself, but I've read about them - and thought about using them to get rid of some enormous curtains (Victorian house) that we're currently using temporarily in our bedroom, but that are not to our taste (left by the previous owner)

Following on from the kingsize sheets idea, John Lewis stores (Oxford Street W1 certainly) sell sheeting by the metre, can't remember how wide but presumably big enough to make up kingsize sheets, I guess if the width wasn't great enough you could use a couple of widths per curtain. And there'd be plenty to make tab-tops!

Re: posting, an online company called www.parcel2go.com is up and running again, they have a flat fee of £8.99+VAT to send up to 25kg anywhere in the UK. They're as reliable as Parcelforce apparently, and use Securicor couriers to make the deliveries as I recall.

Hey, thanks everyone. Mandy D ? your suggestion sounds particularly interesting ? I'll look them up tomorrow! Sis's coming out of hospital a week on wednesday, so that should give me enough time...