Fab Fabric Friday, and other stuff

This gorgeous silk is our Fab Fabric Friday pick this week.  The photo does NOT do it justice!  This pattern is woven so delicately that it looks stenciled.  That's unusual because more often printed fabrics attempt to look woven.  I think this pattern resembles in appearance the Japanese printing technique called katazome, a stenciling technique using rice paste resist.  I've just discovered a textile artist, Kit Eastman, who creates some beautiful work this way- click here to see her work.  

  The customer who owns our Fab Fabric Friday silk had us make it into draperies a couple of years ago, and now she's moved and has re-purposed the fabric- we've made a coverlet/throw for the bottom of the bed, self-lined with Domette interlining inside, and re-using the delicate tassel trim.

The new draperies are this striped silk.  The stripe is sort of pressed in, so too much ironing flattens it out; we had to be careful with it.  The pleats are tacked at the top rather than the bottom, a Euro-style pleat rather than the traditional French pinch pleat.  It looks great with the stripes.
Here are the draperies and the coverlet together.

This customer also had us make a valance for the kitchen.  The floral is an English cotton print, with solid silk banding.

We have a nice "OOPS" situation to share with you.  Can you see, in the picture on the left, what is "OOPS" about it?
Well, look at the black flowers (you remember this fabric, right?)- not until the shade was all done and strung and everything did I realize that somehow the flowers weren't centered- OUCH!
So we unstrung and unstapled,  and re-fitted, re-stapled, and re-strung, and now feel a whole lot better.
And now it's Friday afternoon, snow's coming, and we're ready to go home!