About those blackout shades with no pinholes of light.

Back to the blackout shades.

The pinholes of light that come through where stitches are taken in blackout fabric are the bane of shade fabricators.
For the past year I've been thinking about how to eliminate those dots of light, experimenting with different products and methods.  I've focused on layering blackout so that one hole is blocked by another layer of blackout.  My secondary goal is to make this process as quick and efficient as possible.
Here's my favorite method so far.
These shades were made with an inner layer of Bella Notte Duette, to provide an interlining-like layer, with Silky Blackout on the outside.

The Silky layer was folded back and a ring-placement grid marked on the Duette.

A needle was threaded for every inner row of rings, in this case just two, and a stitch taken through the Duette and face fabric, about 3/16" to the side of the grid intersection.

The Silky was folded right up to the line, and the needles inserted right at the grid intersection.

The Silky was turned up and the threads pulled through and the ring sewn.  Those stitches are far enough away from the holes in the Duette that all the light is blocked!

All that's left is to do the side hems, and they don't really need special treatment.  However, ribs were requested for these shades, so they were simply slid in over the rings- no pockets!

I felt like I wanted to secure the ribs a bit, though it probably wasn't necessary.  I ran a double-sided adhesive tape to stabilize the ribs and secure the two lining layers.

Another strip of tape secured the face fabric to the Silky, and rings were sewn on the outer edges.

Ta-da!