Roman Blind

This blind came with the house. It's in our bedroom, which is at the front on the ground floor, so the massive gaps in it just won't do. And that's why there's been a blanket covering the thing since we moved in.

 

Time for a new one. One that doesn't have gaps in the first place so they can't get bigger. I'm going to make a Roman Blind.

I need sticks of some kind that will go across the blind horizontally. These are called batterns. I've been to the 99p store and bought this trellis. I need to take it apart. It's held together with these little plastic knob thingies; I just pull them out so I'm left with a bunch of sticks.

They're not long enough so I'll need to stick them together. I glue cocktail sticks inside to make them more stable. They don't need to be very strong - they won't be taking any weight, they're just there to help the blind keep its shape.

And then I trim them down so they'll fit.

I need a big piece of fabric. As luck would have it, we have way too many bedding sets (and nowhere to keep them all) so I can use a duvet cover.

I want my batterns to be 27cm apart, with an extra 4cm above the top one. I turn the duvet inside out and mark where they'll go before gluing them down.

My duvet cover is too wide for the window so I need to trim it down. I trim one side and glue a new edge on.

I found some curtain rings in Wilkinsons, which I'll use as guides for the cords. I'll sew them in at regular intervals across where the sticks are. The rings will be on the outside of the finished blind (on the back). The stitches go around the batterns to make sure they stay put. I do the bottom battern first, and turn the blind right side out as I go.

Next I need to attach my blind to its window. I've been to B&Q for some wood. My top piece is two bits, which I've glued together and cut to size. I trim the corners so it will fit around the picture rail. Then I glue the top of the blind to the wood and staple the corners in place at the back. I glue a final row of curtain rings to the wood and secure with staples. While I've got my stapler out, I use it to secure to join between the two wood pieces as well. And I screw the wood to the window frame.

Now it's in place, I attach the last battern to the bottom edge of my blind, using the windowsill as a guide. This one's made from wood, also from B&Q, because I wanted something a little bit heavier to weigh the blind down. I glue it to the lining then chop off the bottom of the fabric. I glue the fabric to the bottom of the stick. Once it's dry I trim the excess.

Finally, I need something stringy to use as the pull cord. I know! I'll use some string. I get 4 pieces of string and tie them each to a bottom loop. Then I feed the string vertically through all the other loops, and once at the top I feed them all to the left. I tie them just outside the top left hand ring so they'll stay together.

And when I try to open the blind, the top rings just fall off :( I guess gluing them in place wasn't going to do the trick. I need to figure out a plan B.

I went to Wilkos and got these little screw-hook things and screwed them into the wood by hand. And I thread the cords back through and tie them together. To open it, I just have to pull on the cord. To keep it open, I wrap the cord around this bit that was there to hold up the original blind.

Well, it works. It's not perfect; that's because I made it quickly without all the obsessive measuring and re-measuring that you're supposed to do. Maybe I'll be a bit more careful when I make one of these for a house I actually own.

Sporran

In the old days before I used to carry a handbag, sometimes I used to want a pouch on my waist to carry extra things. Now that I do carry a bag I sometimes find it can get in the way if I wanna take my coat off or if I want to move it's position it gets tangled in my hair. So sometimes I still want my bag to be attached to me. So I'm gonna make me a sporran. That means the kind of bag you wear on a kilt.

I found this handbag in the charity shop. I think it will do nicely.

I cut the strap off it and trim it down to be a few inches longer than the circumference of my waist.

I stitch the strap to the back of the bag.

Next I stitch over the ends of the strap to neaten them up. I fix half a snap fastener to one end and half a hook and eye to the other.

I add the hook from the hook and eye further down the belt, measuring to make sure it's the right distance from its counterpart. The I do the same with the second half of the snap fastener.

And that's it. My very own sporran.

Lampshade makeovers

See this light. See what's wrong with it? Now, consider the fact that we've lived in this house for seven months. Still not finished getting the place sorted, obviously, hence no light-shade.

But we struck some luck the other day. We found these, just outside on the street. Someone had obviously left them out for the bin men, who neglected to take them. So we did.

Once we got them inside and looked at them, we figured out why they'd been thrown away. Not having a clue how to clean them, I decided to tear the covers off and re-cover them myself.

For the first one I took out my fabric scraps and I selected this blue stuff. It's quite a dark colour, but it's shiny too, and thin so it won't be too shadowy.

I made a pattern on some baking paper by tracing around one of the segments in my frame. If you're going to copy me on this, you want to trace on the outside of the section, not inside it, so you can wrap the pieces around the wire.

I pinned my pattern to the fabric and cut out a piece for each section in the frame.

Then I got some all purpose glue and stuck the pieces in place. I did four alternating ones first, and glued them around the wire.

Then I did the other four so they were folded at the outside edge (to make it look neat).

I glued the bottom edge last and it turned out I hadn't quite cut my pieces big enough so parts of the frame were still showing at the bottom.

No matter, I've found something to cover it up with.

For my second shade I wanted to do something different. I did a little Internet hunt for ideas and came across this (picture is a link). It's quite an interesting technique using starch, which means you can make multiple shades from one mould.

I didn't follow their tutorial though; I just thought I could stretch something over my frame and glue it in place, so I set out to find something that would look pretty when stretched. I found this lovely scarf in the 99p store. It's one of those that's like a tunnel, which is why I chose it.

I put the tunnel scarf over my frame like so, and glued it to the bottom of the frame.

Once that had dried (about ten minutes) I stretched the scarf upwards as much as I could and I snipped the top off. Then I glued it around the top of the frame.

After that had dried I trimmed it a little closer and glued it again to make it neat.

Voila! Two brand new lampshades.