The payoff

Moonrise at dusk after storm.
No sewing today! 

They weren't kidding this time

On the inside, looking out.......

I love surprises

Here is a color, fabric, and trim combination you're not going to see every day!

The decorator who designed this has a fabulous sense of color.  I wish I had a photo of the whole dining room, completed, but I don't at this point. 

These draperies pull together elements in the room and make them all work together, including an antique painted Chinese screen with soft blues and corals, and framed antique wallpaper samples with the same color palette.

The embroidered fabric is a heavy cotton, interlined; it's all hand-sewn, including the yummy fat pleats, which are pleated on pattern.

  The orange fabric is not a banding- it's a separate panel, meant to look like a second drape peeking out from behind, but it's not really a full drape.

The blue striped trim hints at the hardware, which was hand-made wrought iron by a local iron-worker, with a distressed finish to coordinate with the lighting fixture which I'm sorry you can't see.

Seen on its own one might it is a little wacky, but in context, it's brilliant!

Tussah tussah!

Tussah silk.  Hand-sewn braid.

And now for something fun.....

Here is my solution to a bizarre window treatment challenge- in my own bathroom.
The house is an early 20th century Craftsman house in a Hudson River town.  There is an addition on the back which resembles nothing so much as a shed- however, it is a bedroom.
The bathroom wall used to be the back wall, but now it looks right into the bedroom!  Nice.

I didn't want to cover up the window entirely, because it would have felt too closed in, yet I didn't want anyone in the bedroom to be able to look right into the bathroom, obviously.

So I dug out an OLD fabric, printed with Van Gogh's Starry Night, and covered a board 2/3 the window length on the bathroom side, and a different fabric on the bedroom side; wedged it into the window frame on the bedroom side; and put a shade in the bathroom that is usually raised but could be lowered if someone in the bedroom is sleeping and doesn't want light shining in from the bathroom. 

Or if the bathroom person wants total privacy.

In the bedroom, there is only one place the bed can go, and that is right under this window, so the covered board acts as a headboard so one does not have to lean back against a window.  

Making and Creativity

Check this out.
Make and meaning  explores issues pertaining to the crafting world, but many of these issues are relevant on a wider scale to people who make all kinds of things. 
I am SO lucky to be able to sew for a living- but while I'm sewing window treatments all day, my mind is exploding with all the zillion ideas for other textile journeys that I never have enough time to take.
I wish I knew why I feel so consumed by these ideas.  They never stop even though I make such slow progress in making them become reality. 
Soon I hope I'll begin mixing into this blog some of these ideas, projects, and dreams, because these are what fill up my inner life while I'm busy working.
Working as I do, fabricating custom products on a wholesale basis to the trade only, I appear to be in a creative business, but since I'm making what someone else has envisioned, it doesn't feel very creative much of the time.  Although there are projects on which I have more design input than on other projects, still, I am not the principal "imaginer" in most cases.
My dream, as far as window treatments go, is to be able to design and sell fabulous treatments that people will want to own as art pieces, and will go to the trouble of decorating around!
I think this must become a goal for me.

Two little cuties

Here are two little cuties before heading out to their desitinations.  I was in a hurry to get a picture before they were picked up,  so I didn't have time to dress them, which is why they were a little disheveled as they sat for their photos.  The returns need fixing, and I wanted to raise the striped shade but forgot; also I can see one tassel on the hobbled shade needs adjusting.  And the gathers on that funny little topper desperately need attention.
 

Dressing is such an important part of window treatments!  Here in the studio we usually don't see the treatment at its best because there's not much point in fully dressing it when it's just going to be wrapped up and put in a truck anyhow.  We dress enough to make sure everything is cool, then the installer or decorator re-dresses at the installation.

Window treatments look so much better in their homes than they do here, on speaker stands!