Exquisite Fabric-Trim Pairing

Are you familiar with Bart Halpern fabrics?  If not, just take a quick peek at the website.  This company pleats fine fabrics onto a tricot knit backing in a dozen or more different patterns.
I was lucky enough to be asked to make shades out of a sheer linen pleated into the "wide wave" pattern.

 It was paired with this delicious Osborne and Little decorative banding.

I didn't take any fabrication photos, because the process was a little nerve-wracking, and I wanted to stay focused on the work.
My biggest concern was to not shrink the linen fabric while applying the trim.  I carefully tabled the fabric, aligning the "waves" with the table grid, and hand-sewed the side hems. 
I planned the trim layout, pinned it to size into the U-shape, and machine-sewed the mitered corners.  The corner seam was clipped and pressed open.  I used Bortenfix adhesive tape from Dofix to apply the trim- after first having tested the fabric to be sure it wouldn't distort. 

As you know if you read this blog often, I do sometimes use adhesives for shade side hems, but only when the ring stitch would be on the hem section to provide backup security for the hem in case the adhesive failed. 
In this case there were several reasons for hand-sewing. 
First, I knew I was going to be applying steam when it came time to fuse the trim to the face, so I wanted to keep the steam to a minimum. 
Secondly, I wanted the fabric to lay naturally, and sometimes an adhesive will secure the grainline in an awkward way- especially with a delicate, grainy sheer.
Most importantly, I wanted the hem to not be wider than the inner edge of the trim, and I wanted the rings to not be sewn through the trim, so, therefore, because the rings would have to be placed past the hemline, I wouldn't have those ring stitches to provide backup security for the hemline.  Which is why I hand-sewed the side hems.  Whew, I hope you followed that!

There were three shades in a bay window, but sadly I was not present at the installation and do not have any photos of the shades in their new home.  We have a lot of homes in this area with double-hung windows like these, and there isn't a lot of room for an inside mount.

I was pleased to get a report back that the shades "fit like a glove"- here you can see that I notched out the back corners of the board so it would nestle into the limited space.  The shade is a 1/2" wider than the board to allow the fabric to fill in the outermost beveled edge of the window frame.

 A success story!

The best of both worlds

I love that these days, workrooms have a multitude of tools to choose from when fabricating, ranging from time-saving techniques and products to intensive, slow handwork.  I assess the fabric and product and use what I believe will yield the best results.
For two shades last week, I chose to use methods from both ends of the spectrum: hand-sewing, and Döfix adhesive.  (This shade, smaller than 2' x 3', is hanging in my back hallway in front of some draped chain weight I was using to help develop "droop" statistics for my Relaxed Roman shade class!)

To start off, I hemmed the side borders by hand.  I knew I was going to apply the trim with Döfix at the end, and I wanted everything to be secured as well as possible before turning the shade over, and in my opinion fusing the side borders would not give enough stability to flip the shade later.  I prepared the bottom hem according to my usual method, with fusible buckram and weight bar tube from Rowley, but did not finish the bottom at this stage.

I sewed all the rings, except for the bottom row, making sure that the edge rows would not interfere with the trim placement.

At the bottom, I basted the hemline.

At the top, I basted the board line, and cut out the bulk where the hem goes up over the board.

 

I measured and cut all the trim lengths and applied Döfix tape to the wrong side.

With the side hems hand-sewn, the top and bottom basted, and the body of the shades secured with rings, I felt the shade was stable enough to flip it over for the trim application.  I opened up the bottom hem so the trim could be applied to the full length.  A long straightedge provided a line for laying down the trim.

I carefully "zapped" the trim with barely any steam, just enough to sort of steam-baste it into place.

Then to really fuse it to the fabric, I used a pressing cloth (a strip of interlining) to protect the fabric from the steam.

The only steps remaining were to finish the bottom rings.......

 

...and insert the weight bar and finish sewing the sides to the bottom (which I forgot to photograph!)

The other remake-

Yesterday's post was supposed to be about two remakes in one home, but I only showed the living room.
The second was a really pretty balloon shade in the upstairs sitting room.  Liz from Paris Interiors asked if we could turn it into something more tailored and modern.
My job was to take this apart and make it into a flat roman with trim around all 4 sides.

Which we did!  Liz was completely over the moon at the outcome.

The original shade was unlined; we added a semi-sheer poly-cotton lining from Ado.  Because the bottom hem was covered with the tape, we machine stitched it for security, but not before first hand-basting it in place.  For a weight bar, we used a white Dofix hem bar which also helped keep the bottom line straight.  We prepared the shade then turned it right side up to apply the trim.

Now you can imagine that I was nervous about a geometric patterned flat braid around 4 sides with 4 corners to miter! 

I carefully laid out all the trim, centering the motif on each side, to make sure I could match the pattern, and hand-basted each corner before sewing the diagonal seams.

Trimming these seams was the scariest part!  Sewers have to have a strong risk-taking streak, or else we'd never do steps like this.

After snipping the outer corners, the cut edges were tucked away and bound with strong upholstery thread.

Dofix Bortenfix tape was used to adhere the trim to the shade.  The shade was first hand-basted at the board line to ensure that the lining and face would stay together.  Here the excess at the top is being trimmed away, and the shade is ready for re-mounting.

I will confess that the pattern was not totally perfect on all four corners.  It was difficult to manipulate the tape into the right size, with perfect pattern matching, and without distortion.  This corner would not cooperate no matter what I tried, so I pulled out my embroidery and darning skills and used color-matched thread to disguise the mis-match.  Up close, as in this photo, you can see my handiwork, but in the room- it's completely undetectable!

 

Another tidbit: the creases from the center pleat of the original balloon style was very difficult to remove.  Luckily the fabric responded positively to a ton of steam and Crease-Away.  Nevertheless I couldn't get the creases out of the top 10" or so.  In the workroom it was really obvious, with the overhead light; but I decided to just trust that the whole shade was so awesome that the creases wouldn't be noticed.  And guess what- even I could not see them once the shade was in the window.

Two successful remakes

OK let's get this clear, no workroom loves to work on or remake stuff another workroom has made.  But I always will honestly consider it, and will accept these projects if they make sense to me.
Here are two we re-installed last week for Paris Interiors, and both were hugely successful.
Today's post features the living room, where the ivory linen sheer relaxed shades were beautifully made, but too plain, and the clutch system showed through.  Liz wanted to add short valances with trim detail (from Samuel and Sons)  to add definition to the windows and also hide the clutches.
Before:

After: the self-lined voile valances that we created achieved everything Liz hoped for:

The 7/8" grosgrain ribbon hid the board and defined the top line, and the swirly banding hid the clutch components.

Having the right tools for the project made it easy to accomplish quickly and accurately.
The first step was to pull a thread on the voile to get the straight of grain and prepare the cuts.

Dofix Bortentape was the right product for applying the trim.

Using the gridded table canvas and a clear quilter's rule, the grosgrain was aligned and steamed into place.

Skinny strips of Bortenfix were applied to the fretwork trim.

And again, the gridded canvas tabletop markings were visible through the sheer which made it simple to position and apply the trim.

The voile was folded right sides together, and the finished width marked for sewing.

Turned, pressed, and double-checked, the valances were perfect.

All that remained was to serge the raw edges together.......

.....and staple them to the existing shades.

 

A trio of interesting trim applications

Stuff happens in threes, right?  We had 3 interesting trim applications this week.

First, this little 9" x 15" lumbar pillow for Cottages to Castles:

 A shout-out to Alicia The Zipper Lady who carries invisible zipper tape exactly this color:

Ossining designer Elizabeth Harlow had an unusual idea for applying trim to up-style some extremely ordinary ready-made pinch pleat sheers:

For some reason, we kept thinking "Classical"- whether Roman, Greek, or Egyptian, who knows!  But Jen, Camille and I all couldn't get the word "toga" out of our heads when these were done:

At the bottom, a wide raffia braid was centered on the 4" double hem.

I was not sure how I was going to like this, but, I totally LOVE it!

Another project required five separate steps to apply trim to a delicate sheer.  Two separate trims were layered to create these blue and white alternating clusters of tiny glass beads:

The five-step process began with joining the two trims with 1/8" Sealah tape.  The lip was hand-basted to the edge, then machine sewn between the face and facing:

Another row of machine stitching at the far edge of the tape kept the layers secure:

Finally, Camille doubled over the facing and painstakingly hand-sewed it.  This sheer could not be ironed, except for a very light dry iron- NO STEAM!

 

I don't know if I'll ever see these finished curtains hanging- I hope so.......