Sewing

Reply to: I love to organize and collect fabric. The way I store my bolts of fabric is in several upright wrapping paper containers. Not sure if you can find them this time of year, but if so they hold up to four full bolts of fabric. For better fabrics or ones you don't want the fold line in, you can roll them onto cleaned PVC pipe. Much sturdier than the cardboard rolls the fabric comes rolled on. If you don't have the long bags from the fabric store you can use heavy duty drop clothe and packaging tape to make your own. As for smaller amounts of fabric. I carefully fold them and put them in large clear containers according to what type and color of fabric they are. Calico, knits, flannels, pant weight, etc. The containers are stored on shelves that can be pulled out like drawers. Very easy to find just what I'm looking for.

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Reply to: lascatx -- I think I came across a tutorial for a top down/bottom up roman shade once, but I didn't save the link. lazy_gardens -- I don't mind sharing what went wrong! I forgot that I'd already posted the "ugly" shades before, in a help-me post. Anyway, here's what I noted during the whole process. These are the tutorials I used: How to Make a Roman Shade -- Sailrite How to Make Roman Shades Using Iron-on-Roman Rib Tape -- Sailrite How To Make A Roman Shade (part 1) -- Scott Weaver How To Make A Roman Shade (Part2) -- Scott Weaver How To Make A Roman Shade Part 1 -- Kim's Upholstery How To Make A Roman Shade Part 2 -- Kim's Upholstery How-To Make a Basic Roman Shade -- Rowley (plus many other videos from here) I liked the look of the Sailrite roman shades, but decide to use the child-safe precautions in all the other videos. I bought the shroud tape and iron-on rib tape, and spaced the dowels 8" apart, tacking down the shroud tape at those points. The results were less than stellar... the shade looks like a hobbled shade (lots of folds throughout) as I'm raising it. It doesn't raise flat as shown in the Sailrite videos. I realized this is a result of the shroud tape. It bunches up immediately in ALL spots, especially the top, which makes every segment fold up at the same time. I have to manually pull down to flatten the top layers to get it to look the way I want. This is what it immediately looks like when I start to raise the shade: And this is what it looks like when I manually pull down the top parts to flatten the segments that aren't supposed to be raised yet: Super annoying. So, for my next test, I decided to do it the way it's described in the Sailrite video, with 12" spacing (actually 11.5") and rings sewn every other rib, and regular cord instead of shroud tape. I don't have very young children, so I'm not worried about child safety. The result is the shade in the original post, and I LOVE IT. I might make my next one with shorter segments, but still stitching the rings every other rib. I did do the tying method for the rings as shown in the first Scott Weaver video above. SO much faster than sewing!

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Reply to: I'm tying the rings in place instead of sewing. I found that tip in this video. The first knots came undone and my rings fell off, so I realized I have to triple-knot them. Use a "strangle knot". Those will NOT come loose. http://www.animatedknots.com/strangleend/

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Reply to: I'll GIVE my newer Brother POS to anyone who wants to torture an enemy with a crappy sewing machine that drops stitches and won't sew anything reliably that isn't mid-weight woven cotton. I replaced it about 2 years ago with a 35-40 year old Viking workhorse (6000 series) I bought on eBay for under $100. That old Viking can transition from 4 layers of faux-ostrich + piping to silk charmeuse in the blink of an eye without skipping a stitch. I LOVE that machine! I don't remember the whole saga, but remember speaking to the older man who repairs sewing machines at the local repair shop, and he was the one who suggested that particular model when I told him I wanted a "workhorse" machine and didn't give a flip about computerized fancy stitches. He said that series was one many schools used in their Home Ec. programs and that they just couldn't kill them. Mom's ancient Bernina was another workhorse. I'd have snapped it up in a second, except it was Mom who gave me the Brother POS. (And for anyone wondering, 'POS' is not the model number -- it's my 'quality rating')

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