Fab Fabric Friday!- and box pleats

This Kilim-inspired Pierre Frey velvet on linen will soon be drapery panels in a home office with Venetian plaster walls in a deep rusty cinnabar.

This open box pleat style was the homeowner's choice after we mocked up several pleat options.  It is a great style for the irregular geometric pattern.

As soon as the fabric arrived, I evened off the edge and saved the strip to use as a template for trying out different pleats.  The centers of each motif area are marked with black Sharpie pen so I wouldn't lose track.

Under the panels will be Roman shades in the linen sheer, with leather lacing appliqued in a grid.

Box-pleated header, and more.....

  Finally.  The last shade in the Paris Interiors collection.

Right off the bat you could see that the vertical ribbon can be run sideways as a border.  So we split the fabric in half and pieced one row onto the bottom. 

Since you can see the wrong side of the tails, we contrast lined with a blue silk.  I don't much like pillowcased sides, so I experimented with sewing in a teeny little blue silk flange, on the sides as well as the bottom.  

The beautiful solid glass beads were kind of heavy for the fabric, and the tape was sort of dull, so I sewed the trim tape halfway into the bottom seam with the little flange behind it.

The box-pleat header idea was irresistible.  Since the dotted ribbon is printed crookedly, the blue band came out all wonky, which I just loved. 

I imagine it's not to everyone's taste, but it suits me perfectly.

The header is stapled to the 3/4" board face, then the blue welt is stapled over that. 

The tricky part is stapling the shade, upside down, with tacking strip up against the welt.  

Then the shade is flipped down revealing a beautiful finished top.