Custom Roman Curtains For The Kids

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Very early on in my Pinterest career, I came across this great tutorial from the blog, Pure of Faith, for No-Sew Roman Shades. I instantly knew I HAD to make these. Armed with Amy’s great tutorial and 5.5 yards of Amy Butler’s Love Paradise Garden Wine ($8.98/yard from fabric.com at the time of this post) I set out to complete this project.

I won’t bore you with my step by step woes because the aforementioned tutorial is so good, so easy to understand, and so clear. Once I got beyond Amy’s detailed six steps, I found myself full of questions. Since I completed three shades, I will share with you what I learned after completing one and two. Third time’s the charm, right?!

Problem 1: What to do with the thick upper heading piece of the blind?

3735864 1367541577Do I leave the ends open? Should I cover them up? I ended up cutting a slit in the fabric on the top and bottom (as shown in the picture, right) and folding it of the end like wrapping a present (shown in the picture, left)

 

 

Problem 2: Should I glue across each blind slat or just on the end pieces

930985 6440598To me, the tutorial wasn’t exactly clear if you actually glue the entire slat or just the ends. I was pretty sure the author indicated to glue the whole piece, so that’s what I did & it was the right call. (pic, left)

I also found it tricky to square each slat up – the first shade I did was a tad crooked & it continues to annoy me every time I put the shades up and down! I found using my measuring square helped this problem. (pic, right)

Problem 3: It is hard to move the blind up & down

After completing my first shade and hanging it up, I found having the pull string behind the shade was really annoying. Since this project’s home was in my daughters’ room I knew they would get a lot of use. I decided to pull the string to the front of the shade by cutting a rectangular slit in the fabric (figure a). I reinforced the edges with some packing tape (figure b). I should note that by shade #3 I found it easier to first make the square, then reinforce it, then glue the top header piece down. I then pull the string through to the front of the shade (figure c).

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I know what you are thinking…so now you have an ugly rectangle in the front of this nice shade. My next step (see picture, left) was to create an approximately 8 in panel to glue to the top header piece. While I created this panel with fabric glue, you could sew it, but then it wouldn’t be a “No-Sew” project. I am really happy how the panel helped complete these shade. See the difference below

 

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I hope my tips & tricks help a little! I hope you like the original blog post idea as much as I do. Give it a try!
–Nicole

May 2, 2013 | Categories: Blogs.