No-Sew Roman Shade

When it comes to repairing and remodeling our 100-year-old house, the structural stuff pretty much falls to Dan. The interior decorating is more in my domain. In our newly finished kitchen bathroom, I wanted something besides mini-blinds. And definitely something other than this...

My first idea was a louvered shutter, painted white. I fell in love with that idea but quickly discovered how expensive a custom shutter would be. Then we added a small wall cabinet, which would be in the way of opening the shutter to clean or open the window. So that was out.

After scouring the internet and bathroom books for ideas, I finally decided on a Roman shade. At least I can make one of these. I found an excellent how-to website (now gone) called Terrell's Designs, read everything on it, looked at the videos, did all the calculations, and then decided to give this a try. I also decided to buy all the accouterments locally, which proved to be more difficult than I thought. Then I remembered that my sewing machine is on the fritz (bobbin case needs replacing), and so looked for a plan B. Ah, what would we do without those plan Bs.

I found several tutorials on no-sew Roman shades using mini-blinds, but this is the one I used.

Day 753's second try at The Newlywed Diaries

It had good photos, which I find infinitely more helpful than descriptions alone.

Disassembling the mini-blinds

Gluing the strips into place to make the shade's folds.

I used a thermal panel instead of a new piece of fabric. Yardage-wise, I didn't pay any more for it, plus it's already lined, plus it means I'll only have to cut and glue two edges instead of all four. I wanted a thermal shade because the bathroom is both farthest from the wood heater, and has no air vent duct work from the heat pump. We gain a lot of heat in summer through the window, and lose a lot of heat in winter. So, I figured this would help.

I was really pleased with how it turned out.

Shade open.

Shade closed. The picture on the left is a counted cross
stitch of blue irises. It was an inexpensive thrift store find.

This remodel turned out well and I think the Roman shade is the perfect touch! You can see the whole thing (with before and after photos) over at my homestead blog ... Project Complete: Bathroom.

No-Sew Roman Shade © February 2011 

by Leigh at Leigh's Fiber Journal