Sharpening the Problem-Solving Skills

As John Lennon sang, there are no problems, only solutions.....

Two layers of this brown linen gauze..... though I had a plan for this shade out of this fabric, it turned out not to work, and instead I had to improvise at every step.

With a finished shade width of just 2" less than the fabric width, there was not enough of this flimsy gauze for substantial side hems.  We wanted a 2" brown border all the way around.  A piece of ancient, hoarded leftover brown cotton was recruited.  It was laid inside the shade as a trim, instead of outside, the usual way.   Hoarding justified!   The gauze was pressed over the cotton to create a crisp side hem.

Thread pulled to mark straight of grain for pockets

For the rib pockets on the back layer, a pulled thread marked the pressing line, and though the fabric was wobbly, it sewed up nicely into neat, parallel lines.

I wish I had a pedometer: laying these fabrics out and keeping the layers straight I probably walked 3 miles back and forth around the table.  The layers were joined with hand-stitching up both sides, rings sewn by hand, and clear ribs inserted into the pockets and secured.  

For the final challenge, I had to devise a weight bar pocket:  I made an outside pocket out of the last full-width strip of brown cotton and top-stitched it on, basting it first with that mother's little helper, double-sided adhesive tape. 
The lowest row of rings was attached to the cotton pocket at the stitching line, so no stress was placed on the gauze by the rings or the weight bar. 
The second row of rings was placed a half-space above the first row, so 2" of brown border shows at bottom when the shade is raised. 

Before moving it off the table the top was basted securely just above the board line.

On the very first draw, this fabric pulled up into even folds.  The opaque brown border worked out perfectly.  I joined every scrap of brown cotton I could find to cover the boards- barely a thread left over. 

The photo is deceptive: these shades are 58" wide and 75" long.

Modern-Dreamy

Panels-over-top-treatment is a look that is new to me, and I'm totally loving it!  This is the third time this year we've done panels over, and there is another such project coming up next month.  
The faux-hobbled valance is 179" wide, hinged in the middle.  We used Firm-A-Flex for the front to keep the weight down.  Ant-trail stapling creates the folds.  (That's a lot of staples!)


 

The horizontal stripe is sophisticated and works perfectly as inverted box pleat panels, which are attached with velcro to the dustboard.  They are lined in a dusty brown super-sheer voile to give substance and soft definition to the pleats.  Everything was hand-sewn.

To keep the corner uncluttered, the adjacent window is treated with a relaxed Roman shade under the faux-hobbled valance.

Hobbles everywhere lately

Ah, a 118" fabric for a hobbled shade, AND I had some 108" lining sitting here- what a treat to make this wide hobbled shade without seaming widths together!

Such a nice fabric to work with... I'm not sure of the fiber content: it feels like it has rayon in it, but it could be blended with silk or cotton.  It was woven perfectly so it was easy to have the pattern match on all the hobbles.  

Because it has a cord lock, I opted not to use encased cord tape, which is my usual first choice for hobbled shades; but without a clutch, I would have wasted a LOT of encased cord tape running the strings across the width of the shade.  Instead, I made the shade the old-fashioned way with twill tape and rings, and shrouded the cord with ladder tape. 

A little self-fabric flap wrapped around the returns hides the mechanism.  I started using a new way of attaching the flaps so they don't add bulk to the top of the board- they are stapled to the front board face under the shade, wrapped taut around the return, and stapled to the back of the board.  With this method they don't stick out like wings quite so much.

Fussy Work

There have been a few projects lately that have required some "fussy work."  Here are a few little details that I enjoyed:

The front......

A laundry room rod pocket curtain needed to clear part of the washing machine, so we made a cut-out and bound the edge with a facing.  The 1/2" hem was topstitched all around. 

The back.....

When we cut this shade down to size, there was just enough left over to use for the mount board cover, so the trim continues up over the board, a nice detail that probably no one will ever notice!

This metallic & cotton fabric was 54" wide, and so was the shade finished width.  We made a self bias binding to finish the edge instead of piecing the fabric.

Rings and loop cord shroud was a very unobtrusive way to meet the safety standards for this unlined, sheer shade.

Another metallic cotton sheer shades was self-lined, hand-hemmed, and strung with rings and loop cord shroud in a blending color.

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No words needed

Gathered London shade valances

Gathered London shade valance

Gathered London shades need to be planned a little differently from regular London shades. 

A perfect pleated London shade

The fullness in London shades is controlled by the pleats.  The fabric is flat across the shade and all the fullness is in the pleats,  You can make a deep pleat without excessive drooping, because the pleats contain all the fullness.  When gathers are what you want, the fullness must be reduced considerably to achieve the London shade silhouette without bagging.

Way too full!  yuck

Exactly one year ago I had a bad experience with 4 gathered London shades.  It didn't help that there was a double ruffle in the bottom, which added weight and caused an even more pronounced "droopy drawers" look.  Thinking these should be made at the same fullness as a balloon shade, the designer specified 2.5x fullness.  Naively, I complied.  As you can see, that was clearly way too much.   I took them apart and cut out a lot of fabric to end up with 1.5x fullness.  Of course I forgot to photograph the remake.  

Double gathered London shade valance

Wiser now, I planned these gathered Londons, one single and one double, with just under 1.5x fullness.  There wasn't enough fabric to allow a lot of extra folds at the bottom, and I was afraid that in the centers of the swoops, the few folds would flatten out, but with the 1.3x fullness that didn't happen, and I think the gathering is ample enough.

Here's one more from last winter: 

Ordinarily we love this popular fabric.   We've used it for shades as well as cafe curtains.  But this last batch was a nightmare- so irregularly pleated that the horizontal lines were off by as much as 3" on one shade.

To straighten it somewhat we had to do a lot of manipulation from the wrong side.  It improved somewhat but was far from perfect.  

At the bottom, trim can be used to disguise a wobbly line, but this trim is so narrow that it didn't serve that purpose very well.

The weight bar is 3" up from the bottom in its own pocket.  Below it, the bottom refused to hang straight.  A wooden slat helped keep the bottom taut.  

But the slat kept wanting to hike up.  So I took little tacks through all the layers just above the slat, hiding the thread under the pleats in the front.  They helped to hold the slat in place.