Love Affair with a Roman

Move over, Salma Hayek and Uma Thurmon.  I shan’t be jealous of your european love affairs.  I’ve got a Roman in my life.  A shady Roman … a Roman Shade!

And move over Martha Stewart!  ’Cause I didn’t buy these shades at Pottery Barn nor from Etsy seamstress nor from Nashville curtain maker.  Sure didn’t.  I MADE THEM.  You read that right, folks, I made 2 roman shades totally from scratch for my very favorite little breakfast nook.  And I think they look quite lovely, if I do say so myself.

I don’t know what it is that makes me want to pull out the sewing machine every so often.  Sometimes I imagine there is this huge wad of creativity inside of me but there’s some part of my occasionally overly practical brain that keeps it from flowing free.  Sewing is the right balance of creation and structure to keep my twisted self smiling.  Or maybe it’s just because I’m Southern.  Whatever the reason, I find it super gratifying to sew something up every now and then.  And this time I might have just made myself a new full-time hobby since my hubby Will LOVES how this turned out and now wants Roman shades for practically every room in our house.  He even took all of the measurements this morning!  We’ll see how far I make it with this sewing thing.

But first, dear readers, lest you be thinking that it’s time to abandon this blog because “Julia has just gotten WAY too complicated for me”, I’d like to enlighten you on how totally easy this is.  If you have a clue about how to use a sewing machine, you could do this project.  There is no pesky welting to cover (that is a pain in the a$$), no perfect corner to achieve, no curved line, no complex measuring.  Below I’m going to hit the highlights of just to show you that this isn’t that big of a deal.  If you decide to take this on for yourself, I recommend buying Sewing for the Home which runs you through all of the detail on this project and many others.

Step 1: Measure, Plan and Gather

As recommended by Sewing for the Home, I measured the inside of my window and sketched out the finished product, calculating both the finish size and the cut size of  my fabric.  I wrote down all of the notions I would need and the amounts and took this list with me to the fabric store.  My first tip to project success?  Let the store associates calculate the fabric repeat and resulting total yardage.  They will do a much better job of this than you could and you’ll be sure you have everything you need before you start sewing.  Then, start gathering up your supplies.

Below you’ll see Sewing for the Home, my sketch and measurement paper which I referred to all the time, a cardboard cutting and measuring board (INDISPENSABLE!), decorator fabric and black-out lining.  I chose black out lining because when my decorator fabric is held up to the light, you would most definitely see the ring tapes running up the center of it and I didn’t want that distraction.  Smaller windows wouldn’t require ring tapes up the center so regular old lining would do.

You’ll also need (starting from the upper left) drapery cord, 5″ ring tape, and sharp scissors.  I actually found my rolling cutter to be pretty worthless for this project so I didn’t even use it!

Next up, the hardware.  You need as many eye hooks as you have rows of rings.  For me, it was 4 per shade.  Home Depot only sold small ones as hook and eye combos (think screen door latch) so I had to buy that.  You’ll need awning cleats to fasten to your window frame to keep the shades in place when the are pulled up.  And you’ll need corner brackets to hang the shades.

You’ll need a weight rod for each shade (the book spells out the diameter and your fabric store can probably custom cut them to the length you need – mine did!), and a mounting board for each shade (cut to length before I even left Home Depot).  And for heaven’s sake, get  yard stick.  It makes life SO much easier.

Step 2: Cut

You’ll cut decorator fabric to match the inside dimension of your window + seam allowances (all spelled out in Sewing for the Home – no math required!) and you’ll cut lining to match the inside dimension of your windows with no seam allowances.  Then you’ll cut a strip of fabric called a facing that’s 5 inches tall and 2 inches wider than your finished shade.  That’s all the cutting you do!

Step 3: Pin Together & Sew Facing

Next you’ll pin your side seams in place and press them with an iron.  Then you’ll take the lining and slip it under the side seams and repin.  You can see a few little pin heads down the left and right sides of the picture below.  You will sew on the facing strip, turn under a seam, then sew 2 straight lines to make the rod pocket.  Your weight rod slips right in there.

Step 4: Pin and Sew Ring Tapes

Next you’ll measure the position of your ring tapes and use your yard stick to draw a line for where they go.  You want to make sure the rings are perfectly in horizontal line.  This is another spot where the cardboard measuring tool and yard stick are insanely helpful.  You’ll want to pin the heck out of those suckers because they are squirrely little things and if you don’t they’ll move around all over the place under your sewing machine presser foot.  But if you pin them at each ring and in between each ring, the sewing part is really easy work.  Check out all those pins!

Step 5: Prep and attach the mounting board

Next you’ll mark an X above each row of ring tape and drill a little hole for your eye hook in your mounting board.  Then, you attach the mounting board to the decorator fabric and lining with a staple gun.  Now you are ready to screw in your eye hooks and get to threading!

Step 6: Thread your cords and hang!

Now all that is left is to thread the cords and hang your curtain.  The threading part is very well explained in the book.  But in a nutshell, you thread one column at a time, starting by tying off the cord at the ring closest to the weight bar at the bottom.  You go all the way up the row, and then across each eye hook at the top.  You’ll want to decide which side of the window will hold your awning cleat in advance and thread the cords to end in that direction.  It’s so crystal clear in the book.

La voila!  Let’s close this post with a few more beauty shots.  Yay!

posted by Julia on Feb 19th, 2010 in Decorating, Julia Original, Sewing
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