Leatherwood Design Co: Wrapping up a long project

The past three months have been pretty overwhelming! Not only did we move the workroom, but we also took on a long-planned project that took two full weeks of non-stop fabrication. The moment that was complete, I took off for Susan Woodcock and Rodger Walker's new school, Custom Workroom Technical Center, to co-teach a Roman Shade Master Class with Rosemarie Garner, then came home to a satisfyingly hefty workload. Somewhere in there I took a day to tour the Garment District in New York City with a group hosted by The Trim Queen aka Jana Platina Phipps, and Kim's Upholstery.

So for my first blog post in over a month, I wanted to show you how we wrapped up a project you've seen before, earlier in the year.
You might remember a few posts about this project with Susan Marocco Interiors. This post featured these pale blue wool ripplefold panels in the master bedroom:

Well, for the living room window- 202" wide- we originally fabricated 5.5 widths each side of heavy silk draperies, but the homeowner immediately decided that the look of these panels were too heavy for her, and asked us to cut them down to create these side panels:

The orange trim was selected to blend the drapery with the adjacent artwork and pillows:

Here's how we got there.
The original draperies were quite heavy, both visually and literally. 5.5 widths each side of lined and interlined wide-striped silk, hand-sewn, with inverted pleat header and breaking hemline, weighing 35 pounds each side, were a real feat to pull off, but the result felt like too much for this homeowner.

The stripe layout didn't allow for both motifs to be featured, so the textured part went to the front, and the solid satin part was pleated to the back.

It worked beautifully, but the homeowner wanted to see both motifs if possible.
For the remake, we carefully picked apart all of those pleats and stitches-in-the-ditches, and then I had to figure out a way to feature both stripe motifs AND hide the original stitching holes in the satin.
To create a look similar to the ripplefold in the master bedroom, which the homeowner loves, I decided to make a sort of flat cartridge pleat, and instead of positioning the pleats on the centers of the stripes, I off-set them, to keep the stitching holes away from the fronts of the pleats. The new stitching pretty much ran right over the old stitching.

I liked the flattened cartridge pleat, but thought that they would imitate a wave or ripplefold look better with some stuffing to round out the fronts, and after experimenting, chose medium jumbo welt to make an understated oval cartridge pleat.

A linen sheer was hand-sewn and inverted-pleated to cover most of the window, and the new side panels stacked down to about 24" each side.

The hand-sewn rusty orange tape with sequined chrysanthemums, from Samuel and Sons, gives the drapery side of the room a bridge to the beautiful glass and art collection.