Fixed Roman Shades

After several mistakes, and a couple hours of unpicking....the fixed roman shades are done!

Autumn designed fixed roman shades with mitered square trim for my master bedroom. She had a clever idea to cut up a pair of  beige IKEA Merete curtains, to make faux roman shades. They match the merete curtains with trim that I have hanging behind the bed.  I never would have thought to cut up a good pair...or two pairs of curtains in this case, to create roman shades.  This reminds me again of our mother's words, "measure twice...cut once." It looks like my son's room with smaller windows will soon be getting new roman shades! 

I used Google search to find my fixed roman shade inspiration. I came across this great fixed flat roman shade tutorial by Darby: Fly Through My Window, via Centsational Girl's fixed flat roman shade tutorial.  Be sure to check out both of the roman shades made by these talented ladies.  There's minimal sewing involved, a bonus!

 I  found another great tutorial for functioning roman shades at Make Roman Shades.com.  I followed some of their directions for measuring and adding my lining. I made the mistake of using weak drapery lining, and had a difficult time sewing the large amounts of fabric. The window I am covering is about 100 inches wide, with a little curtain overlap on each side.  So, each shade is about 54 inches wide.  They are really large and I had a hard time getting the curtains to tack up straight.  I resolved the problem by adding thin wood moulding with staples, and later drilling holes with curtain string to pull and pleat. I had to make a trip into the JC Penney window treatment department to grasp the entire roman shade concept!

 To add the mitered square trim, I found on Pinterest this GREAT mitered square tutorial by Grosgrain. 

 After using her pattern, it was much easier to figure out how to space the squares on the curtains. 

Fabri-Tac is such a great product, it makes my life so much easier. 

Can you imagine sewing all the trim on? The glue grabs and bonds quickly too. 

There you go!  Fixed- flat roman shades, a major hurdle down in the master bedroom!

More to come!