The Roman Blinds are finished!

It was a pretty exciting last weekend when we hung the last three roman blinds. After the first two I'd learnt so many easier ways of sewing them that I am really happy with these ones.

Taking down the old curtain fittings

Nearly up - kitchen window



first of the small sun room blinds up

Sun room windows

A great view from the sun room window - amazing how much more light comes in without the old curtains

Happy with these roman blinds on the sun room windows

The loungeroom roman blind is finished!!

I can't believe that I have finished the biggest of the roman blinds for Andrew's house. It looks fairly good although I can see the slightly crooked stitching lines, little pins marks and of course all the creased from being folded up after a little delay with my hand and foot.

The blind measures 314cm wide and 133 cm long. I had to put five pulleys along the top for the cords and as you can't buy doweling that long I had to join pieces into the pockets.  

I am so pleased that the blind is fairly easy to put up and down. I was worried that the width would cause a problem but I guess with t only being 133cm long there is not to much curtain weight going through each pulley.

I have three more roman blinds to make. After this one they have been a breeze to sew. The blinds are all sewn and the pockets for the rods are ironed and ready to sew... my planned job for today.

  

this is the old yellow curtain that I'm replacing with the roman blind.





Starting the mammoth technical operation to get the blind up



..almost there





..being swallowed by the blind



It's finally up.. a little creased but hopefully they'll drop out



one very happy man



One Roman Blind finished and hanging on the door

I've finished my first ever Roman Blind and think it's turned out rather well... a bit proud of it I am! We hung it on the door on the weekend and it's amazing the difference it makes to the room. I'm now working on the biggest blind for the lounge room.

My dinning room looks like a sewing room with the table covered with 3 big dressmaking cutting boards. I've had to use ironing boards and whatever else I have around the house to help prop the boards up. On Saturday I borrowed my neighbours ironing board and Andrew brought his down for me to use as well. A bit of improvisation to make a cutting surface big enough for a 3 and a bit meter wide blind but it works.

I thought finding patterns for Roman Blinds would be easy but it wasn't. There are a lot of patterns on the Internet and some videos but I couldn't find anything that told me exactly what material I needed and how to cut and sew the material. I brought a simplicity pattern but that just made me more confused! After a bit of sewing and unpicking making the first blind I have been able to work out ways that have made the cutting and sewing much easier.

One really simple change was with the pockets for the rods. Rather than sewing the material right side facing and then turning the sleeve inside out, I now cut the material into strips adding a bit extra to fold the raw edges on both ends over then iron the whole strip in half. Once in half I then iron a small fold on each side of the strip and press it towards the centre. With the sides folded into the centre fold and pin the whole strip in half and then stitch as close to the edge as possible. Voila!! You now have a pocket for your rods without having to turn them inside out. The pockets are then sewn onto the back of the blind in the same way.

I used pulleys instead of eyelets on the mounting board for the cords to pass through. The cords seem to move more smoothly when putting the blinds up and down.

The other thing I'm doing on my blinds which none of the patterns I found suggested is to sew around the edges of the blinds on the right side. To me it gives the blind a more 'finished' look.
Well.... enough of this and back to sewing ....