Grosgrain Ribbon Banding

We've had a little flurry of banding lately- I've shown a few shades in recent posts with contrast fabric banding; here are two with inset banding made from grosgrain ribbon.
This pink ribbon is applied to a pretty heavy white linen, lined with Centurion napped blackout, for a little girl's bedroom.

Here is a gorgeous grey wool sateen with navy grosgrain ribbon, for a son's room.  Those "ears" on the little valance need to be tacked down with tenter hooks!

Relaxed Roman with Dog Ears

Here's a beautiful, clean, serene Relaxed Roman variation for a NYC apartment.
There is no fullness: the lift lines are set in about 8.5" to create drooping dog-ears.
Translucent interlined white silk is banded with 3/4" of yellow velvet.
This shade is about 70" wide, in case you're wondering about proportion.

To keep the layers from shifting, first I hand-basted the velvet to the 3 layers before machine sewing.

After sewing with a scant 3/4" seam, I rolled the velvet over and hand-sewed it to the back.

In a Purple Haze

I've noticed that purple is a popular decorating color in the winter.  February's birthstone is amethyst, which perhaps reflects an increased attraction to purple when it is cold and dull outside- it sure does pep up a subdued palate.  Still, it was surprising to have SO MUCH purple in-house this winter.
On February 4 I took this picture of purple fabrics that came in for immediate projects. 

These purples were mostly paired with natural, sage or loden, or silver-grey.

The project that kicked off purple month was a simple purple burnout velvet panel, box-pleated onto a board, with purple glass beads shown off when the fabric is draped back to one side.

Next were pillows in silver and purple, balanced with a hint of loden in the outlining:

Then a 165" valance and panels of a gold-dusted natural silk, color-blocked with silver-grey and purple satin.  These did not photograph well, but in the house they are fabulous. 

Four neo-bohemian shades were exuberant with their purple borders trimmed with purple and sage glass beads:

The Sheffield Queen lined what felt like a couple of miles of valances with purple, trimmed with purple fringe: 

Here the sage and purple face fabric stretches across the workroom into infinity, or at least it felt that long:

And for the last purple project of the month: just-the-other-side-of-periwinkle-purple bands and welts the sage and purple toile on this goblet pleat valance: 

Tres-Super-Chic

In a master bedroom inspired by menswear: cornices and draperies, with a variation on a Greek key trim, and nailheads all around the cornices.  The draperies have been tied to train the pleats, so good photos later- like, in a couple of weeks.  Meanwhile:

More Pillows

Might as well show off some more pillows.  We had a marathon this past week!

This order consisted of 13 pillows- various sizes out of these 5 fabrics.

We combined this order with another dozen or so pillows to cut out and sew by color so we could minimize re-threading the machine.

The most fun part of making a big batch of pillows is rummaging through the zipper bin and picking out the right color zipper for each fabric.  I guess I keep about 35 colors in stock, but sometimes I have to go to a local fabric store for a special color, like the bright orange in the bottom left corner.  Invisible zipper tape didn't come in that orange, so I got regular zippers and did a lapped zipper closure.  I couldn't even remember how to do it!- but after 3 of them it all came back.

I love microcord!

These pillow fabrics are delicious- two of the best of the high-end beauties we've had in lately. 

The blue lotus velvet came all the way from New Zealand.

The silver fabric is no ordinary reptile- it's DRAGON.  I want to know, how do they know what dragon skin actually looks like? 

Microcord defines the pillows unobtrusively.  The blue-green welt is faux-silk, the grey welt is satin.  The cord is just 4/32" in diameter. 

Rule of thumb: match zipper tape to welting- subject to exceptions, of course.   And use invisible zipper whenever possible.

That fab fabric, and what we made from it:

For a young woman's bedroom- 4 gorgeous shades from this embroidered linen/cotton blend, for a sort of high-end, nouveau-hippie look.

The embroidery is set off with purple fabric banding on three sides of the shades, with ribbon and glass bead trim dangling from the bottom to catch the light.

These shades were lined with a modified French blackout layering method.  Next to the face fabric is a layer of lightweight ivory lining; behind that is black Apollo; and plain lightweight white on the back.
To prepare the lining, the edges are pressed in 3/4" and the pockets marked and stitched.

The ivory lining and the Apollo are centered on the shade; then the face fabric is folded over just once and pressed.  The prepared lining is laid over it all, the pockets pressed toward the top and carefully lined up to the table grid, then hand-sewn at the sides. 











The weight bar is sewn into a pocket behind the purple band.  On the front the weight bar pocket is topstitched along the edge of the purple.

On the back, the bottom of the weight bar pocket is sewn, before the topstitching is done, only in the back hem.  The ladder shroud is tucked into the back hem even though the first row of rings is 4" up- so the ladder tape finishes neatly.

Here are my favorite hand-sewing threads: the white is an upholstery thread, but I love hand-sewing with it because it doesn't twist; and the ivory is button & carpet thread which is nearly indestructible.  When I need an exact color match I prefer quilting thread, but in this case had to settle for doubled strands of all-purpose thread.

Of the 4 shades, I chose this one to photograph in order to illustrate the compromises that sometimes must be made even with high-end fabrics, especially when embroidery is involved.  The pattern is not consistent, neither vertically nor laterally, through the roll of fabric.
On this shade, the center of the motif is exactly in the center of the shade, but if you look closely, at the top, the pattern is not symmetrical laterally.  If it had been cut with the sides in mind, the center of the motif would not have been in the center of the shade.  
As you look toward the bottom of the shade you can see that the pattern evens out somewhat.
Also, the pattern drops just a smidgen on the right side of the roll.
The most important centering criterion was the center of the motif, and that set the stage for all the variations.