DIY: Roman Shade

On my hunt for bedroom curtains I found metallic animal printed panels at West Elm in the clearance bid. They were $55-$70 per panel. How could I resist? But, with all great finds there was a catch. I needed three 96” panels, but they had two 108″ and one 63″. The two longer panels worked because I could cut them to the length I needed. But what was I going to do with the 63″ panel? I didn’t want to leave the store without them, so I purchased the two longer panels and left the shorter one behind. I got home and felt very foolish about not buying the third panel, because I knew I would figure out a way to make all three panels work. And that’s when I had my aha! moment. I decided to use the longer panels on the large window and make a roman shade with the shorter panel for the smaller window. I spent most of the night hoping the panel I left behind would be there the next day.

The next morning I called the West Elm store, they were showing one panel in stock. After I got off the phone, I hurried to the subway and raced to the store. And it was there, all 63″ of it. I whipped out my debit card and purchased it!

Next came the task of altering the panels and making the roman shade. I took the two longer 108″ panels to my neighborhood cleaners and for $25 bucks, had them cut to the length I wanted. I think it ended up being 92″.

Then, I moved on to the roman shade DIY. I chose to make the shade myself to save money (custom roman shades can get pretty pricey), and since the panel was inexpensive I figured I didn’t have much to lose. I found a DIY roman shade tutorial on Pinterest (btw, she also has a great blog), and couldn’t wait to tackle the project. However, as with many of my DIY projects, it took me an extremely long time to get started (I get really overwhelmed). I purchased the supplies weeks in advance, figured out the instructions, then I waited.

Finally, one Friday night out of the blue at about 9 pm, I decided it was time to make the shade. I got my poor husband involved, he did the measurements. Then I followed the tutorial.

The panel was too wide. So I cut along one side to my desired width, keeping the original stitch on the other side and used an iron-on fabric fusible bonding adhesive to seal the cut edge. This type of adhesive bond works perfect on light weight fabrics and it’s great for people who don’t have a sewing machine (or patience). Instead of using the wood bar suggested in the tutorial to weigh the bottom of the shade down, I re-purposed the bottom board of the mini blind. It was just the right size and weight.