Level Of Difficulty

Compared to sewing other items - dresses, jumpers, a blouse - sewing roman shades is 10 times easier. The shade's fabric body has only straight stitching up and down or side to side in the case of a flat roman shade. Rest assured, if you can sew a straight stitch and measure accurately you can sew a roman shade! If you need assistance either call me at 800-939-2843 or use my forums to search for answers or ask your own questions.

Getting Started

There are some things you'll want to have on hand before you start sewing roman shades. Probably the most crucial is a large, clean flat surface suitable for holding both your untrimmed decorator and lining fabrics. Keep in mind lining fabrics typically come in 54-inch bolts so use that dimension as your guide as you plan your workspace surface. Next, you'll want to have a straight-edge at least 36 inches long. If you can find one longer, that would be even better but 36 inches should be your minimum. When sewing roman shades, especially large flat romans, you need to make long straight marks on the fabric and a straight edge is essential in doing this correctly. Steel or aluminum would be ideal but wood will do in the pinch if it's not warped. When it comes to making those long, straight marks nothing beats a good disappearing ink fabric marking pen but the old standby, tailor's chalk, will do just fine if you don't mind cleaning the fabric up after it. Next, you'll need either a sharp pair of scissors or, even better, a rotary cutter. I've found the best combination to be a good aluminum yard stick and a rotary cutter. One item that's especially handy when sewing flat roman shades is masking tape, ideally the masking tape used for room painting as the glue it uses is more "fabric friendly". Masking tape can be used to tape your roman shade tube tape down to your lining fabric and provide a visual guide when it's time to do the tape stitching. Lastly, like any sewing project, make sure you have a ready stock of straight pins.

Sewing The Shade Fabric Panel For A Flat Roman Shade

Almost every roman shade, including variations such as balloon and austrian, uses the traditional "pillow case" method to sew the basic, rectangular shade fabric panel. It's only after the shade fabric panel is complete that specialized tapes are applied and used to give the rectangular fabric panel different characteristics resulting in the classic looks of the flat roman, balloon or austrian shade. Before we get started we first have to get a common understanding of a couple of phrases of fabric terminology - right side and wrong side. The "right side" of a piece of fabric is the side of the fabric the designer/manufacturer intended for the world to see and the "wrong side" is the other side of the fabric. Hopefully if you haven't encountered these phrases their meaning isn't too confusing. Below I'll use the phrases "lefthand" and "righthand" to refer to the locations left and right so there's no confusion with the phrase "right side" of the fabric.

Trimming The Fabrics

The first step you'll do in creating the shade fabric panel is trimming your raw fabrics - both decorator and lining - to the correct dimensions required by your particular shade's pattern. Don't be thrown off by the differences in the two pieces of fabric's dimensions, the decorator fabric piece is always going to be larger than the lining fabric piece. First you'll want to iron out any wrinkles or creases in the fabrics before measuring and cutting. Using either a tape measure or your yardstick measure out the vertical and horizontal dimensions. Next, using your straight edge and fabric marking pen (or chalk) mark your cutting lines making sure your corners are completely square. Remember the old carpenter's adage: measure twice, cut once! Once you've assured yourself they're accurate, cut your fabrics to size.

Stitching The Fabrics Together

Place the lining fabric on top of the decorator fabric with the right sides together. Pin along the length of the lefthand side and stitch a 1/2 inch seam. Next, move the lining fabric to position it on the righthand side so it lines up with the righthand edge of the decorator fabric. Pin them into place and stitch a 1/2 inch seam along the righthand side. At this point use your iron to press both of the seams you've sewn open. Next, center the lining fabric so a 1/2 inch fold of decorator fabric is visible on each side of the lining fabric. Stitch a 1/2 inch seam across the top and trim the top corners to a 45 degree angle - this process is fully illustrated in your pattern. Now press this top seam open.

At this point you take the entire piece of work and turn right side out. With the lining side face up on your flat surface use your iron to press across the top seam and down each side seam to form a 1/2 inch decorator fabric border on the lefthand and righthand side of the lining fabric.

To form the hem casing for the bottom weight rod fold the raw edges of the decorator and lining fabrics toward the lining side 1/2 inch and press with your iron. Next, stitch as close as possible to the pressed edge. Now, turn up the bottom hem 2 inches and pin into place then stitch along the hem edge leaving the lefthand and righthand edges open to insert the weight rod later in the project.

Starting at the top of your shade panel measure down 2 1/4 inches and using your fabric marking pen (or chalk) and straight edge draw a straight line going from the lefthand side to the righthand side. This represents your "top of shade" and everything above it will be hidden from view because it wraps around your shade's mounting board. You'll use it as a guide later in the project.

Marking Positions For Tapes and Cords

Place the fabric panel lining side up on your flat surface. Using your fabric marking pen (or chalk) and with the physical top of shade - not the "top of shade" line drawn earlier - as zero, use the dimensions supplied in your custom pattern's Illustration #9 to draw horizontal lines across the width of the shade. Make sure you take three measurements, one from each side and one in the middle before committing ink or chalk to fabric!

Next, with the fabric marking pen (or chalk) draw vertical lines up and down the length of the shade at each of the locations shown in your custom pattern's Illustration #10. These represent the placement of your shade's cords which get strung later in the project. Make sure you take three measurements before committing ink or chalk to fabric!

Applying The Shade Tapes and Sew-On Velcro

Using the pieces of Roman Shade Tube Tape your pattern's preparation step had you cut to size earlier, pin each tape centered on each horizontal line drawn earlier then turn under 1/2 inch of tape on each side edge of the shade panel. Stitch each tape as close as possible to its top edge being careful not to sew over the cord slots incorporated into the tape itself. To ensure your tapes are straight you can use masking tape - described earlier - to hold them in place by placing the masking tape over the tube tape covering all but 1/8th inch of the upper edge. You can then use the masking tape as a stitching guide when sewing the tube tapes. Remove the masking tape when finished stitching the tapes. The best results are achieved using a zipper foot with all the tapes being sewn in the same direction.

The last sewing step is to stitch the soft loop side of the Sew-On Velcro to the very top of the lining side of the fabric shade panel. Run your stitch along each long edge as close to the edge as possible. Congratulations, you've done all the sewing necessary for a flat roman shade!

Sewing Roman Shades Using Custom Roman Shade Patterns

As mentioned throughout this description Make-Roman-Shades.com offers you the ability to make and print custom shade patterns for Flat Roman, Balloon and Austrian shades. Each custom pattern contains both a detailed, accurate shopping list and fully dimensioned, step-by-step, illustrated guide to preparing, sewing, assembling and installing your specific shade and shade size. Please feel free to make a free Preview Pattern and see for yourself how essential they are to making your project a success.