Roman Shades

My sister made me a Roman blind about this big for my central bay window at our old house. There were no problems with it. I gave it to my neighbour when I left, as he had an identical window, but if memory serves, it had about 5 rows of rings (counting horizontally), which were about 12" apart (counting vertically). It was made from cream curtain lining. The dowels were about a quarter inch, I think.

:) Trish

Roman Shades

Last winter, I made a set of Roman shades for my niece and the dimensions were, I believe, 90" x 70". They were out of a medium weight bengalene (TM?) fabric and had a lightweight drapery lining. I put twill tape across the back every 12" to form a pocket for a dowel for weight (1/2" dowel) and sewed the rings to the twill tape. So far, so good, and they get raised and lowered at least twice a day, due to a southern exposure and way too much sun in the kitchen and living room.

Linda

Cea, I hate to disagree, but I have made one for my slider door that's

72"x96". The key is to put the columns of rings closed together. I also forgot to mention in my last post that I mounted the shade on a piece of 1x3 wood screwed to the wall.

If you go here you'll get the instruction that I used to make my shade (more than 10 year old and going strong). BTW, I'm not affiliated w/ this company but can vouch for the effectiveness of the material.

Binh

Re: Roman Shades

Heh, heh, and another key might be to replace the impatient H, who yanks on the cords; not to mention the kids... Cea BTW, I used rubberized sunblock material backing, and wanted to lessen the effect of the light permeating holes, so used less rings, not more, and they are still too many. Did you use ring tape instead of sewing the rings on individually?

Well, after reading all your posts, I certainly have my answer and the right ways to go about it.

Someone mentioned my next question, however. How to mount it? I wanted it to sit inside the window frame. Would a wooden dowel curtain rod suffice? Or is there something much stronger and less noticable that I could use?

Addie

Re: Roman Shades

Heh, heh, and another key might be to replace the impatient H, who yanks on the cords; not to mention the kids... Cea BTW, I used rubberized sunblock material backing, and wanted to lessen the effect of the light permeating holes, so used less rings, not more, and they are still too many. Did you use ring tape instead of sewing the rings on individually?

something stronger. Remember that you will be pulling on it everyday when you open it. And the shade itself will be pulling on the mounting when you close the shade. (just the weight of the thing will pull on it....darn that gravity anyway. ;})

What I do is leave about 4" at the top of the shade above the length I need it to be. I wrap that around a piece of 1x2" lumber that has been cut the width of the window opening. I staple the fabric in place with my heavy duty staple gun. This gives me something sturdy to mount the screw eyes (for the pull cords to go through) in as well as something stout to screw into the window opening. I usually put 3 long screws through the wood into the window opening. One at the center, and one at each end of the board. By leaving so much fabric to wrap around the board, I don't see any of the board.

Make sense?

Sharon

I sew the rings on by hand, was a SAHM w/ plenty of time ;-)!!! The insulated material is very thick and I can't see the light of day out of the holes made by the rings.

Since the shade is heavy, I stapled it to the back side of the wood, and then screwed the wood to the studs on the wall above the door. That way, when the shade is all the way up, it clears the door completely. I think the "designer" way to do it is to first wrap the board w/ the same fabric before mounting, but I skipped this step, and I don't think it looks too bad either.

Binh