Heavy-weight French blackout shades

Upholstery fabrics make stunning shades, and I have a few techniques for working with the extra bulk.

These shades are extra bulky because they are lined with French blackout.

Double side hems, the default standard, would've been really thick, so I improvised to create a single hem.

 For French blackout, interlining and dense black cotton sateen are layered between the face fabric and white sateen lining.

I fold the layered lining, then cut while still folded, to grade the layers and avoid a blunt, thick edge.

To reduce bulk, instead of a double side hem, I sewed twill tape to the edges, then hand-hemmed.  (I always hand-sew side hems when I use interlining.)  One of the two shades was just 3" less than the width of the fabric, so I didn't have enough to make a good hem anyhow, without piecing it, which would've been even bulkier.  I kept the selvedge and sewed the tape over it.  For the other shade, I trimmed down the side hem and added twill tape to create a single hem.

  In this picture you can also see how severely I graded the bottom hem to keep the white lining from bubbling up from the bottom fold.

It looks pretty cool, I think!

I baste the layers before stapling bulky fabrics to a board.  This helps them grade themselves as they fold over the board edge.  Since a shade is flat all the way across, I don't cut out the inner layers of interlining as I would with a treatment that is pleated onto a board, where thick layers build up and look lumpy.

I'm loving the new grey lining.  It's available from both Angel's and Hanes.

Fourteen shades- and the CWC

I've been honing my "Efficient Shade Making" skills- practicing my efficiency chops ahead of the class by that same name that I'll be presenting at Susan Woodcock's Custom Workroom Conference, which begins in just over two weeks.
Everyone is getting mighty excited about the Conference!  It's going to be an amazing gathering of a couple hundred workroom professionals gathering in NC.  When I look at the list of classes I cannot believe how comprehensive are the educational offerings.  I'm excited about teaching, but equally excited about attending classes myself.

Anyhow, things are heating up around here, as we finish up projects before closing for a few days at the end of the month.
Here's what went out of the studio today:
Three of these- my favorite of the whole batch.  At first I felt woeful about the heavy-ish upholstery fabric, but it made up into beautiful AND well-behaved shades:

Three of these, another well-behaved fabric in a gorgeous shade of red which doesn't quite come through here:

Three of these, a nice contrast in the workroom with the brilliant red:

One of these, another incredibly well-behaved fabric, considering it's a fairly heavy woven geometric:

One of these, ok, I'll say it again, another well-behaved woven geometric:

And one of these, the only double-window sized shade- widths were joined, but it's lined with double-wide sateen so there are no seams in the lining showing through.  And the trim is lovely with the print:

Lastly there were two small hobbled shades that I forgot to photograph.
And that's all for today, folks!

Fab Fabric Friday courtesy of Pindler & Pindler

Wonderful fabric from Pindler & Pindler-

A remnant piece that was just enough for this Roman shade:

I finally figured out what to do with heavy upholstery fabrics like this, for shades: do not fold in a double hem.  I overlocked the edge so it was neat and clean, then hand-sewed the side hem.
Besides, the shade was rather wide and left less than an inch each side for hems.  This technique worked out great- no bulky sides.

Sheer shade with skinny upholstery fabric band

This warm sheer stripe shade required a little bit of special handling......

..... because it was banded at the bottom with a skinny strip of pumpkin-colored upholstery weight fabric.

The shade was laid out on the fabric gridded table top, hemmed on the sides, and pinned in place.

Camel-colored cord loop shroud was pinned in place, too, and tacked to the fabric along with the clear rings.  You can't even see the little monofilament loops which will shroud the lift cord when the shade is strung.
The grid makes it easy to place the rings without marking, since you can see through the sheer!

For the bottom weight bar pocket and hem, a separate strip was folded in half and placed on the back of the shade.  Masking tape was helpful for marking, basting, and stabilizing.  The basting line of red thread marked the bottom of the shade and held the three layers together.

The skinny strip of orange fabric was sewn to the right side, and the red basting line made it easy to line them up.  Do you see the mistake I made?  This photo shows the banding pinned next to the wrong side- an error I didn't notice til it was sewn, so I had to take it off and re-sew it to the right side.

Once I fixed that little boo-boo, the layers were trimmed close to the stitching line.

Then the band was turned to the back, carefully pressed, then hand-stitched.

Nice!
Technically I think this is actually a binding rather than a band. 

The pocket was sewn in the hem strip, then the strip was sewn to the shade body following the masking tape stitching line.  The shroud was extended down to the pocket, looped, and secured with the stitching line.  Later the loose end was tied to the bottom ring for extra security.

Here's the finished bottom before the weight bar was inserted.

A scrap of warm tan fabric served to create a cover for the weight bar. The tan lift cord blends with the fabric and the cord loop shroud.

The same tan fabric was used to cover the board, which you can see in this shot of the back.   Also you can see how nicely the unobtrusive cord loop shroud shirrs up as the shade is raised.

There were valance for these shades, too, out of the orange fabric, and I'll show those next time.

Riding on the Marrakesh Express

"Marrakech" by Manuel Canovas

My first thought when associating this fabric with window treatments would have to be "cornice."

But alas, the designer wanted hobbled shades- short hobbled shades that will be permanently pulled up to act as a valance.

There are two main motifs per repeat to be juggled and re-arranged in a pleasing way.

In the process of planning this project I folded and  taped out various possible arrangements, first trying to keep the medallions sort of symmetrical:





But after experimenting more I liked this version better:

Yes, that's my foot on the table.....

It looked a little cluttered so I modified that layout with 7" folds instead of 6" folds, which opened the pattern up a little more:

I kept the tapes on throughout the fabrication process.  That pattern was making me dizzy.  Since the fabric was unlined, I was able to see the pattern on the wrong side well enough to make it easy to sew the pockets.  It was hemmed by hand, and the ends of the pockets had to be hand-sewn as well because the layers were too thick to fit under the presser foot.

The shades matched each other perfectly.  I still think a cornice would have showed off the fabric more effectively, or at least, a cornice version of a mock hobbled roman which would have eliminated all that bulk on the sides. 

Still, they turned out well.... and I kept in mind that they would be pulled up so only the three top folds would be showing.   I think that if you look at just the top three folds, the presentation is pretty well balanced.

Arched Flat Roman Shade

How do you like our arched window treatment?  Really, that IS an arched flat Roman shade!  It's a shame that you can't see the arch; the installer said it fit perfectly. 

The homeowner does not like her arch.  She wanted to hide it.  The only proof I have that we made an arched Roman shade is the workroom photos.   That's John, holding the shade and waving to me.

Here he is, trying to suck in his gut for this picture.  As if.  He's a skinny rail these days.  The workroom is a real mess, though, isn't it?  Trash can overflowing, chairs up on the work table, must have been a busy day.  Ha.

This is a ribbed flat Roman.  The frame is made entirely from FirmaFlex.  

The Rollease clutch is set in enough that brackets can be used on the sides of the window molding.  You can see that we used mesh tube shroud for this shade.

I forgot to take a picture of the front of the frame, before stapling the shade on.  Here I've tried to pull the fabric back and get a shot of the inside of the front.  It's made to be open, so the installer can get his drill in there and put in a couple of screws up into the top of the window. 

The Empire valance is soft and sweet, made from an upholstery fabric with the shade matelasse as the lining.

Lip cord defines the edge.  I forgot to take a close-up of the draperies, which are made from the same face fabric plus the lip cord plus brush fringe.

Did I mention this is for a newborn baby girl's room?  A nice room to wake up in!

 Sweet dreams, baby!