When banding is intended to go right at the edge of a shade, rather than inset, I do love the look of it wrapped around the edges, for a super clean look.
This does present challenges for inserting a weight bar, if you like your weight bar at the bottommost ring, as I do.
Here are two similar shades which were fabricated with different methods. Yes, I know I'm showing them out of order. That's because I like Method B better and want to show the better way first :)
For both of these shades, grosgrain ribbon was used as the wrapped binding, but the same methods would apply if the binding were a contrast fabric.
You can see that the results are pretty much the same from the front:
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| METHOD B- WEIGHT BAR INTERIOR POCKET |
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| METHOD A- EXTERIOR WEIGHT BAR POCKET |
METHOD B- INTERIOR POCKET
For this three-sided shade, we sewed a pocket in the lining for a flat weight bar.
The grosgrain binding was sewn to the shade face and pressed finished.
A pocket was sewn in the lining to accommodate a weight bar. The prepared lining was layered on and the bar inserted. We used a flat bar to avoid the bulk of a heavier round bar.
We added a second flat bar to stabilize the bottom and keep it square. It also helps by adding a bit more weight.
The binding was hand-sewn.
The miters on the front were ladder-stitched by hand.
This was an aesthetic improvement over a previous similar shade, where we chose to tack the weight bar pocket to the outside back of the shade. However, the exterior pocket method does allow us to use a heavier weight bar, which helps when raising the shade, and this shade was much longer than the one I just showed. We covered the ends of the pocket with the contrast ribbon, in case it showed from the side. We also added a second flat weight bar at the bottom to keep the bottom edge straight.
In this case the ribbon was applied with Dofix fusible Bortenfix. At the lowest fold you can see the bit of navy ribbon covering the ends of the weight bar pocket. It's set in enough that it isn't visible from the front.
The results from the front are basically the same, but the pocket version is so much better on the back. Also I think the sewn ribbon folds better than the fused ribbon.
P. S. I like to cover the ends of the boards with a bit of binding material, whether it is grosgrain or fabric.
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