158" wide hobbled shade!

Oversize continues to be a trend here! 
After the 350# of shades, before the Norovirus hit in full force, I worked on three hobbled shades for Denise Wenacur.  Two were 120"- those were the small ones.  The big one was 158"- over 13'.  Then I got really sick for real, and had to postpone the installation for a week.  We finally got there, only to find that the household AND their renovation contractor also had been stricken with Norovirus that same week! 

I'll write a more detailed post next week, but I've had such a rough time this year keeping up with this blog, I didn't want to wait any longer to show a peek of the product and process.
It was a bear to sew- it was both longer and wider than my table- but although this might look like uncontrolled chaos, there actually is order to the mess.

The trusswork John built for oversize shades was just big enough to hold the 158" shade!

We learned A LOT during the fabrication and rigging with the lovable Rollease 1.5" tube clutch lift system.  Though we've used them before, this one was the biggest ever, and I'll detail the process in the next post.  I was grateful to have a way to hang the shade to trouble-shoot and dress it in the workroom instead of at the customer's home.

Not everything went perfectly smoothly on installation day- I had to take back the two soft cornices that met in the far corner, because I hadn't made the right allowance for them to meet. 

It wasn't hard to modify the soft cornices.  We returned the next day to re-install,  in plenty of time for a birthday celebration party!  I was happy we didn't have to leave the room unfinished.

Stay tuned, I'll get to the nitty-gritty next week!

Organization

The workroom's key to managing a large volume of projects at once is organization.
When possible, I like to cut and prep as much like work together, even if it's for different orders, if they're due around the same time.
The other day we set out to cut linings for about 31 widths of drapery.
Since nearly everything in the workroom is on wheels or glides, John had the brilliant thought to roll the shade trusswork away from the wall......

 and re-purpose it to store the lining cuts for easy access as we work.

 

We prepared ahead 29 Easy Spring Plus systems and dustboards and stored them under the rolling machine.

Awhile back I saw a cool idea on one of our workroom forums- I can't remember who posted it.  She sliced large cardboard tubes for vertical storage of long items.  We pre-cut all the ribs, weight bars, and hem bars for the 29 shades and stored them in short tubes near the worktable so we can reach them easily during fabrication.  Each tube has the materials for one room's shades.

And to help keep track of cutting, we rolled the whiteboard over to the cutting table and wrote the cut lengths and checked them off as we progressed.

Back to work now!
Holiday weekend- see you next week.......

Super-fun fabrics

I love the trusswork John built for hanging and leveling our shades! 
Take a good look at it, because tomorrow I'll show an alternative use for the apparatus.
The following shades, for Crosstown Shade and Glass, are blackout with our special no-pinholes-of-light method.  This sunny yellow with appliqued circles and embroidery was fun to work with.  At first we thought there was no way we would be able to join the widths and get a good pattern match, but once we saw the trick to the match, it was easy. 

Are those folds pleated to pattern??- ah, uh, um, YES!  Of course.   And the 4" padded fascia is pattern matched to the shade.

 

All of our blackout shades have internal ribs.  They prevent the folds from losing their definition, and prevent the homeowner from losing her mind, since she won't have to dress these folds every time the shade is raised.

This whimsical embroidery was equally delightful to work with.

Again with the pleat to pattern.... in this case, every other fold matches.  We assess the pattern repeat to determine if we can match every fold, every other, or every third.  In fact, I'm presenting a live webinar in June (to the WCAA Virtual Chapter) on this very subject.  Once you get used to pleating to pattern, whether on shades or draperies, you won't go back to random!

The attention to detail is especially effective with side-by-side identical shades.  I love how the pattern flows from the fascia to the shade. 

John's genius trusswork

It's time to show off the truss that John built for the new workroom, for hanging and leveling shades.
Derived from lighting trusswork, this frame will hold a 12' wide shade, and will raise right up to the 11' ceiling to just under the lights.

There's an easy-to-operate crank at each end, but it can be raised and lowered by just one person, as long as he/she runs back and forth a few times. 

The stands are wheeled, so the frame can back up against the wall when not in use.

An assortment of clamps placed at uneven intervals give flexibility to hang different board sizes and depths.  For extreme circumstances we can just drill a dustboard right into the wood frame.  The back edge of this wood platform will eventually hold a drapery track for hanging panels for dressing or inspecting.

Best of all, I can work easily from either side of the shade.
It was first seriously used for an oversize shade made from a beautiful Designer's Guild herringbone semi-sheer.

This fabric was shifty and its handling required lots of TLC.

When it was time to shift the fabric on the table to finish the top, we hand-basted a line for both security and reference.

There were a couple of puckers from lax stapling, which we could see when the shade was hung.

These were easy to fix by lowering the shade and adjusting the staples from a ladder.

It's smart to marry an audio engineer!