Lining a sheer shade

I often line sheer shades with a plain sheer voile or batiste.  The sheer lining adds body and depth, but most importantly it protects the often delicate face fabric from the ring stitching.
Every once in awhile a client asks for regular lining behind sheer fabric.  (I've even lined sheers with blackout....)
This mesh fabric was used in a bedroom and the client wanted it lined.    We experimented with many lining options, but any natural/ivory/linen color just washed out the mesh pattern.  When we tried grey sateen, the mesh pattern showed up beautifully.  The grey also provided needed privacy.

The mesh is 120" wide so it didn't require seaming, thank goodness.  But at 85" wide and 57" long, we had to join widths of lining.  Since the mesh is totally transparent, I didn't want vertical seams.  I decided to railroad the lining and seam it at the weight bar pocket.  As you can see, I left the selvedge on.  Since the bottom hem isn't sewn except at the rings, I didn't want a raw edge to be visible in case anyone peeked down into the hem, and I didn't want the additional bulk from a French seam or serging.

The mesh had no substance to lend support to the structure of the shade, so I let the lining double up to provide a place for the weight bar pocket.  The weight bar tubing (from Rowley Co) is "basted" to the fabric with Jewel tape.  Later the ring stitches will secure it to the fabric layers.

Excess face fabric is trimmed out of the side hem.

Except for the seam that joins the lining widths, all sewing is by hand.

The bottom hem aligns perfectly with the lining seam.

The lining and face were basted together at the board line before sewing on the rings.  The basting not only holds the layers securely, but also shows exactly where to staple.
I forgot to take pictures of the back.  We used clear rings and ring locks from Safe-T-Shade, and grey lift cord from Rowley.  The lift

The mesh behaves beautifully as a shade.  (By the way, the "moire" look is just an illusion from the camera.)

French seam and a horizontal striped sheer

Unless a fabric is woven by hand, no matter how random it looks, it is going to have a pattern repeat.  Weaving is all done with computer guidance, so there is no randomness in its production.
Textured sheers are a great example.  It took some careful peering to find the pattern repeat on this sheer, but once you see the repeat, you can't un-see it.

When joining widths for an unlined sheer shade, I prefer to use a French seam so no raw edges show.  The fabric is first sewn wrong sides together, then serged, pressed, and sewn again right sides together, encasing the raw edges, creating a beautiful, clean finish on the back side.

The difficulty with French-seaming a horizontal stripe is keeping the stripes aligned twice.  The fabric wants to "walk" and get itself out of alignment with each other, which happened in a few sections on this project.

The seam ripper got a good bit of use while I was trying to expertly join these widths.  One thing I've learned: replace your seam ripper often!  A new one picks smoothly through the stitches, while a used, dulled ripper can slip and rip the fabric.  Replace often- they're cheap!  (See that velcro?  That keeps it in place on my machine, at the ready, and out of harm's way.)

The side hems and rings were sewn by hand.

Now one of the deep truths about sewing is that "sewing causes take-up."  The French seam, having been sewn twice and not just once, created a little extra takeup which created a "frown" in the joined piece.  The shade stayed on the table throughout fabrication, so I basted across the board line, following the table grid, to mark the stapling line.

 

 This meant that the board line was a little wobbly in reference to the horizontal stripe.

But by manipulating ever so slightly while stapling to the board, I was able to mitigate the little "frown" and straighten it out.  

This client wanted a soft, unstructured look to this sheer roman.  I did put clear buckram in the hem to keep the bottom straight, but I kept the rows a little further apart than usual so it would have a little bit of droop but not too much.  Not shown: I attached a self-fabric flap to the back of the board to hide the Rollease clutch mechanism from the outside view, and provide shading to avoid seeing the mechanism from the inside.