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.

Two miscellaneous shades

This master bath hobbled shade was motorized.  It's over a tub and it's impossible to reach the shade to operate manually without standing in the tub. 
We did the sewing and subbed out the motorization part.  Yes, we could have done that ourselves.  But, really, the learning curve has been so steep these days with all the new shade standards, new products, and new fabrication methods, that I was totally thrilled to hand over the motorization to an expert.

This little center-pleat relaxed roman shade is just used as a stationary valance.  I love it!  The face fabric is a sheer silk and it's lined with a very beautiful goldish-tan sheer cotton lining which gives it that warm glow.

Another center pleat relaxed roman shade

This one is a faux silk with Apollo room-dimming lining.

The Apollo lining makes the faux silk gather up in a casual, crunchy way that I like.  We chose the mesh tube shroud, anchored with cable ties at each ring, for this shade.

MIA no more!

You may have noticed that sometimes I'm really meticulous about documenting the projects we work on, both process and completed product; others just slip through the workroom with a cursory workroom shot.  I hate to say it, but, there are also plenty more that you never even hear about, neither a word nor a photograph.

For the past few weeks I've found it difficult to keep up with the documentation and completely unable to set aside time for the blog.  I haven't even had time to keep up with reading blogs I love, or post on the D&D Pro Network Forum. 
Fortunately,  my iPhoto is cluttered with a collection of pics from some of our recent projecst, and I'm going to begin trying to catch up, one post at a time.

These shades are in the family living area of a large home.  The family room has two triple windows, a double, and a single; and the kitchen area has five single windows and a door.
This fabric by Sea Grass replaces dark brown woven woods and instantly made the area warm and inviting. 
This was a perfect setting for center-pleat relaxed roman shades.  By the sheerest good fortune, the pattern could be matched where we seamed together the cut-down widths comprising the individual sections of the multiple-section shades.
We used the newly available ladder shroud tape for these.
For this house I'm posting only photos that include little beyond the actual window treatment, or I have cropped out most of everything other than the window treatments.

Double Center Pleat Relaxed Roman

A double relaxed Roman tends to be pretty flat at the bottom, so center pleats are sometimes added to give more fullness and create a more graceful droop.

The fabric should look familiar- we made cafe curtains out of it in the spring.

The double center pleat relaxed Roman that this client liked

I love how the a new pattern was created out of the larger pattern when the fabric was pin-tucked

The chenille flowers are bulky, making it tricky to join the widths.

The center pleats are pretty cool!

Pattern Layout Challenge

Here is a beautiful Brunschwig & Fils print that is intended to become shades of some sort.
The decorator's first intention was to make London shades, but it doesn't seem like the best way to use this pattern.

There are two windows, of two different sizes- one is 40-something, and one is 60-something.  We can play with the finished sizes a bit to accommodate the pattern somewhat.

Here are 3 styles we're considering for this fabric- or yet another hybrid version, as yet not dreamed up.  All three of these shades were made in the past year or two for our clients.