Crinkle sheer

So, the shades.  I guess this is a hybrid shade: not quite a relaxed roman, because there are tiny tucks, but the tucks are too small to call this a balloon.  Whatever it is, it's beautiful in this 118" crinkle netting from Pierre Frey.  The rings start 6" up, which creates a skirt finished with a small hem hand-sewn with a coppery metallic thread.  There were five single windows and this one double. 

In order to get the silhouette we wanted, I started with several mockups and experimented with them.

Once we had decided on a center pleat and a skirt, I made a finished sample shade out of real fabric because- well, because I like to do that.  It's a good way to accumulate workroom samples, and the only way to really test the idea short of using the customer's actual fabric.  This mockup showed that we wanted the skirt to be an inch shorter- good to know!

What made this fabric so spectacular was the two-color weave: blue in one direction, gold in the other, that crumpled up into metallic bluish brassy crinkled netting that varied as the light changed.

The crinkle made the netting nearly impossible to press into a straight line.  I made a semi-rigid pressing guide by ironing together two layers of fusible buckram.

That did the trick, sort of..... it was a long process, ironing the side and bottom hems.  It was critical to keep it from stretching as I worked the iron up the side.

I used a camel-colored ladder tape, clear rings, and tan lift cord; the board and weight bar were covered in fabric that matched the painted woodwork.  The ladder tape follows the mullions so it's barely noticeable except from the side.

Lastly, I used gold colored traverse cord as microcord inside a single layer of the netting for the tops of the boards.  You can't really see that it's there, but you would see if it wasn't there.  If you know what I mean.