Shady Deals

I wanted window shades for my 1930's-ish museum and started going through the catalogs.  Everything I saw looked kind of clunky -- too much fabric, too much trim, the shade pull was too big, the pull cord didn't hang straight. . . . So I set out to make eight window shades.  Here's how it went. . . .

I cut the fabric using a precision cutting wheel on the cutting mat in the picture, along with a straight edge.  Then I used round toothpicks to make the lower dowel in the shades.  Once the glue was set, I clipped off the ends of the toothpicks so the ends were flush with the fabric.

To make the upper rod, I cut even sections of some tiny dowelling and then dipped the ends in silver paint to simulate the end caps.

To center the shades on the rods, I put a couple of pieces of painter's masking tape on my cutting board.  The shades are 2" wide, so follow the lines on the board, while the dowels fit between the tapes.  That way I didn't have to make any marks on the dowels.

All eight shades (the smaller one goes in the third floor window) with both top and bottom dowels installed.

These will eventually be the shade pulls.  I looped thread through jeweler's jump rings, twisted the two ends of the thread tightly together and coated the doubled, twisted thread with PVA glue.  I could have used Alene's, but the PVA is more fluid and easier to apply.  Then I pinned the assembled pieces over wax paper to set up, stretching the thread so that it would dry straight.  Once they were set up and off the board, I cut them to even lengths and used gesso to paint the pull rings white.

 

And here they are!  Each shade is six inches long, so it can be rolled up or down to give the desired effect.  I've attached them to the window frames with museum wax.  While it would be great to have actual hardware, I haven't yet solved that little problem.