Roman Blind Making

Right then - This is the blind that we have in place over the one window of our living room currently. It was originally made, along with the full drop curtains, for our old house.

These window decorations have worked hard for us over the last 11 years, and we have certainly had our moneys worth out of them, however it is time for a change, and something that will match the decor (once it's complete) in our current lounge room.

It all began with some floral wall paper, and an idea at the back of my mind, that I could DIY the blinds!

I managed to find some curtains in Trago, (as I have already told you in a previous post), and the colour was an exact match to the green flowers in the paper.

My first task was to undo the tape header that was on the first curtain. I was taking it easy on myself, and using the current blind as a template, although I do have some pretty good instructions to follow (message me if you would like a copy of them).

I then unpicked the hem and cut the surplus fabric from the bottom, and then refolded and ironed the new cut line into place just below the line of the current lining.

All of this had to be done by hand, using a hidden stitch that would not show through onto the good side of the blind.

I laid the blind out onto a sheet on the floor and placed some tubes of fabric that I had run through the sewing machine. These tubes are then measured at intervals and will hold the doweling that allow the blind to fall in folds when pulled open.

Again these had to be stitched by hand, so that the stitching would not show through to the good side.

I pinned a few tubes at a time, as this took a while to do.

Once all of the tubes were stitched in place, the original baton was used for the top of the blind, and was attached with Velcro, which I was able to sew on using my machine thankfully. The side of the Velcro that went onto the baton was self adhesive, but we ensure that it was stapled in place too, just to make sure.

Finally the baton was fitted above the window once more, and the doweling rods inserted into the tubes. I stitched the ends over to hold them in place.

I sewed some small rings along the tubes at intervals for the cord to run through, and then ran the cord up to some screw rings in the baton and hung them down one side as the pull cord. The blind put in place on the baton using the Velcro.

Not bad for a first attempt, just one more to go!