Roman Shade Reveal

WELcome to my Roman Shade reveal.  Thanks to you all I decided to make Roman shades with my blue bird fabric.  Now, this fabric has more personality then I'd generally put in a public area, but let's look at the upside--I already had it and it matched the blue my mom had in her other drapery fabric.  Yes, these reside at my mom's new condo.

Pleats.  Where "the magic" happens

I thought I'd give you a "how to" and a cost breakdown.  I found a lot of how-tos on line, but none that had as detailed instructions or photos as I would have liked, which was the wood rail assembly steps.  (I'm sure a blogger has done them, but I don't know where.)  I did not watch any videos since I wanted to skip to the step(s) I was looking for.  Warning:  I may not be as detailed as you would like for the beginning steps.

You will need:

Fabric

Lining fabric

plastic rings or ring tape

dowels for hem

1" x 2" boards the width of your windows

velcro

eye screws

cording

cord end

drill

staple gun

First you need to sew your front fabric and lining together like a pillow case.  I cut mine using the exact width of the window plus one inch for seam allowances.  (You may need to modify this depending on the thickness of your fabric and how close you want to get to the window edge.  I could have added slightly more width.)  I added about three inches for the length to have enough for hemming.  I left my bottom end open, then turned it right side out and finished the end by tucking in about 1/2" and topstitching.  (No, I didn't take photos of this step, since it's pretty basic.)   One word of preemptive caution here, every time I sewed a seam and pressed it, I double checked for "squareness" (i.e. the sides are parallel to one another) of the fabric.  This is an important step as you'll want your blinds to lay straight.

Then hem the bottom up about 1 inch to leave a space to slip in your dowel.  Next, you'll sew rings to the back or ring tape.  In the past I have used ring tape and didn't think it was any easier than sewing on individual rings.  Mine are 10" apart up and down and the width is divided into three, so on my narrow sections they are about 8" apart side to side.

I sewed all of my rings on by hand.  You could do it by machine--it would probably be faster.  (Photo is of bottom of shade with hem sleeve for dowel.)

After you get all of the fabric work done, cut your 1"x2"s to 1/2" narrower than your window casing.  (I did all of my cutting myself(!) with my Darling Husband's power miter saw.)

Attach your velcro to the 1" side of your board using a staple gun.  My vecro was sticky, but I added staples, too--no telling what FL heat would do to the glue over time (I already had it on hand, that's why I used it.)

You can see here that I left some spaces without the velcro on my smaller boards.  Why?  It's all I had...

Set your board on top of your blind and mark where you will want your eye screws to go by matching up with your sewn on rings.  Drill pilot holes, then put your screws in.  (I purchased all of my hardware at JoAnn's 'cause I was there and didn't want to make an extra trip.  If/when I make these again, I'll go to Home Depot or Lowe's and buy it.)

Now it's time to add the cording.  Again, I did not add those instructions here.  There's a ton already on line if you can't figure it out.

You basically use one string of cord for each column of rings, tie it to the ring nearest the hem, string it up through the rings, through the eye screws and down the side about 2/3 down the length of your shade.  After all four rows are strung, add your cord holder.  I made all of mine right drawn.

To hang, use long screws and drill your 1"x 2" straight up into window frame.  We counter sunk the screws, as well.  Add cleats to hold blinds up and secure cording.  (My mom's walls are pale beige.  It was starting to get dark, so the walls are looking golden...)

Although a bit low for seeing outside, the middle photo is my favorite position since it covers the mid window frame.

MY cost breakdown, rounded, for three Roman shades two @  25"Wx50"L and one @ 35"W x 50"L :

Bird fabric, 3 yds.  $15

Lining $21 (forgot coupon, ugh, bad blogger!)

Hardware and dowels $40

cording and velcro $0 (I had on hand)

Total for three custom Roman shades:  $76

I could have purchased Roman shades for these windows for less, but they would have had to have been an external mount.  Well, that, and they'd be plain-Jane fabric.  This is not a difficult project, but it is not a fast one either.  I'd suggest spreading it out over 3-4 days.  They probably took me about 8-10 hrs. to complete.

I enlisted my Darling Husband for this part, since sometimes near window frames, I've run into metal framing that I'm not good at bruising my way through.  Darling Husband is better at "bruising," and he's cute, too.

Hip, hip hooray, all done!  I'm eying some pretty green fabric to harmonize with the blue.

I'm linking with these charming hostesses: