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.

 

Hybrid shades

These are the widest I've ever made this hybrid shade, a cross between a London and a relaxed shade..  London shades droop too much in the center to be used on wide windows, but with the addition of a lift line in the center section, the long point is controlled.
If this style had a center pleat, it would simply be a balloon shade with tails, or a double London shade.  

This woven upholstery weight fabric is French blackout lined.
The railroaded fabric is pattern-matched at the pleats.  With a 14" repeat,  that is a LOT of fabric in each pleat.
These shades are quite heavy, but stationary.  Their success lies in the beautiful dressing at the installation.

The Lazy-S Valance

For a variety of reasons, our workroom is most often associated with shades.  What many people don't know, however, is that we also do a brisk production of valances which are rarely seen here on the blog. 
Sheffield, Queen Anne, scalloped kick pleat- they are all the same basic shape.

I call these the "Lazy-S" valances, because they mostly begin with a serpentine bottom shape like this.

These valances are reduced to five steps: draft, cut, mark, make, and mount.  Whether it's a one-off or multiples of the same valance, my procedure and tools are the same.
Meticulous preparation allows us to feed valances like these through the workroom quickly, efficiently, and accurately.
First, the valances are broken down into numbers.  Sometimes I'll make a sketch to scale, like these I did recently to help a client narrow down shape, size, and proportion.

On a large roll of graph paper I draft the pattern; in the case of 10 identical valances I made a full pattern, flipping the first scallop and horn to repeat.  More often, I choose from scallop and horn patterns which I have made in every size and join them together.

 The notcher is my most indispensable tool for efficient marking:

The pattern is weighted down and since these valances were railroaded I could layer the face and lining and cut them both at once.  I got two out of the width, and I cut and sewed the first two to test the fabrics and trim, before cutting the remaining 8.  These valances are white fabric with white lining, sorry it's not more visually appealing in the photos!

Then I rolled out 8 layers of fabric and lining to stack-cut the remaining valances with my electric rotary cutter.

The notches are transferred to the fabric at the bottom.  This allows me to sew efficiently, with a minimum of pinning.  These valances had lip cord at the bottom; I applied it first to the face then used the notches to align the layers as I sewed the lining.

Most importantly, before moving the valances off the table, I carefully mark the tops with black Sharpie pen.   I've standardized a system of marking for myself which allow me to staple the valances to the boards quickly and accurately after they're sewn and pressed. The permanent ink ensures that the marks will still be there when I'm ready to mount, sometimes days or a week later. 

A length of fabric is cut and sliced with a rotary cutter for the dustboard covers.  I always cut the dustboard covers when I'm cutting valances and shades!

And there you have it!  With careful preparation, the sewing is the least of the effort. 

Grosgrain and French blackout

Four rows of grosgrain ribbon: this is why I got a Dofix!  Well, one of many reasons.  But grosgrain ribbon application was near the top of my reason list. 

With the many widths to choose from, the tape fit from edge to edge.   We marked the finished width with blue tape and then applied the ribbon, so we knew the lines were symmetrical without any fussing.

French blackout lining adds such substance to a roman shade.  I love how it's thick yet sleek. Although adhesive tape plays important roles in the workroom, when it comes to shades with interlining or French blackout, we always hand-sew side hems.  The bottom hem is reinforced with fusible buckram to encourage a straight bottom line.  A weight bar tube is hidden in the hem.  This is the essence of the Leatherwood shade method.

The fat folds make me smile :)
We left the shades hanging in the workroom for a day to let the folds train.  

Afterwards, these beautiful shades went to their forever home.

Some recent projects

I have been so remiss lately, totally forgetting to document our daily fabrication adventures!  Partly because we're busy, and partly because I some projects can't be photographed, and partly because I just forget.
So here are some post-installation photos of some recent projects.

Denise Wenacur turned this window seat into a colorful and tasteful space that a young girl can grow into.  Is glazed cotton making a resurgence?  Both of these prints were somewhat glazed, especially the cushion fabric.  It was a delight to sew, and the geometric design made it super easy to match the pattern on the boxing to the main body.

I opted to alternate motifs on the valance.  The valance is 18" long, and to have the sections all literally match just seemed too much.

In the guest room, I got to reprise the hybrid soft cornice with kick pleats that I had so much fun making earlier in the year.  You can't tell from the photo, but the light color diamond pattern is a fairly heavy chenille, so there was a bit of a challenge keeping the bulk off of the board at the ends. 

Here is the same style we made back in March.  I posted a how-to at the time, here.  We made these new ones the same way, on buckram with interlining, minus the trim and lip cord.

The room is not quite finished, but the window treatments will be an important component.

Let's see, what else?  For Suzie of Cottages to Castles: blackout draperies, 4 widths each side, out of a horizontal striped faux silk?  I did have help fabricating these- that's quite a handful of fabric!  We used double-wide "Silky" blackout so there would be no seams with light leakage.  These curtains are installed on a motorized rod.

And how about this room for D. S. Interiors, full of inverted pleat, mock wave curtains?  Every single space had a slightly different finished length, so we pattern matched from the top down, using 4" fusible transparent Dofix buckram.  What a breeze that product made the project!  The tucks were pleated to pattern so the geometric motif is the same on every "wave."  The bottom hems were barely 1" so there would be a minimum of embroidery showing through the double fold.  White chain weight helps the fabric stay put.  The measurements were so unequal, sometimes even on one single window, so we mostly split the difference to keep the bottom line of the curtain as much the same as possible.

 

Well, that's all for today, folks!  More next time........

Another bit on basting

This was a single pillow project for Cottages to Castles; a gift from Suzie to the homeowner.  The mission was to center this beautiful embroidered elephant piece in a field of velvet.

It was up to me to decide: I could applique it onto the velvet, or add mitered borders.
Because the edges of the piece were uneven, and cut so close to the embroidery, I thought I'd do a better job if I turned under the least tiny bit I could, then applique it.
Also, I didn't like how I thought the nap would behave if I tried sewing the velvet on the diagonal.

To stabilize the piece on the velvet, I considered fusibles, sticky tape, and pins, but hand-basting won out.  I started basting as a quilter bastes a large quilt: in an X shape, from the center out to the corners.
After basting around the perimeter, I stabilized the vertical edges further with this stitch shown below, which I know has a name that I cannot remember- I wanted those horizontal stitches to fight against the tendency of the fabric to slip along the velvet nap.

All that basting kept the elephant perfectly in place.  I used the tip of my snippy scissors to help ease in while sewing.

After applying self-welt I decided to have a go at sewing front to back with just pins.  I wasn't sure if I'd need to baste the seams, too.  It took more pins than usual (well, usually I don't use pins at all on pillows) but it sewed up just fine.

It took extra time and care, but, everyone was very happy with this big pillow!