Before and After... and a little plug...

I have been dying to add this before and after to the blog for sometime now. Most of you know about An English View , my real business where I actually sew real things such as curtains, blinds, bedding, pillows etc...  

I was going to wait until I had made all the throw pillows before I posted pictures! Ha! no such luck in getting those done anytime soon so I'll have to post those pictures another time! 

When we moved into this amazing house back in July we quickly changed the paint and I made the blinds for Ella's bedroom that kind of left me a little winded, after all making 5 interlined roman shades is no easy task... 

Well crunch came to crunch and the wretched blind in the living room finally fell down one to many times, grrrrrrrr do you know how hot and sweaty and flipping irritating that can be to keep having a dog chewed blind (not ours, we only have cat's and a bunny) fall on you 20 million times!!!! it makes you that way!!!!!

So I HAD to do something about it but you know me I'm not happy with run of the mill fabric from some cheesy craft store, no that would make it way to easy!

Instead I peruse the world wide web in order to find delicious and exciting new and different fabrics, one of my fav places to shop...

HAWTHORNE THREADS

They have an amazing selection and a great website. The colors are really close to what you receive. You can tell they  really spend a lot of time with it.
They also have the site set up so you can find coordinating colours. It really is well done (thank you :) hope its also ok to use your Logo picture?)

Well I saw this fabric from the lovely  Anna Maria Horner  and bought a half yard to make some nice cushion covers with, but I fell in love! yep sorry Micah, move over and make room for Innocent Crush Velveteen... Turn of Events in Pow! love the name!


So back to the dog chewed ratty blinds! Here are some (awful, I'm not a photographer!) pictures of the suspects! THEY HAD TO GO... HAD TO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 Not that they were too horrible!

okay sorry I can't do it I HATE these types of shades, I know they serve their purpose and are very cheap and practical etc, etc, etc... but they are so sad looking and did I mention they fall down really easily? Just a pet dislike, rather like walking into Walmart! we all have standards... don't judge me!

 

Can you see how bad this was, it was always so close to my head too... bletch ( am I building it up enough for you?!)

So I hired (ahem married) a hunk and he set to work helping me remove these blimnin, dog chewed, head wrecking awful blinds.

Can you see a glimmer of the delicious fabric?




And I just had to post a picture of the drill-set my lovely man bought me... most girls like diamonds, chocolate or flowers... I like power tools (I do like the above to though ;-))

And here we go...

The first stages of the blinds, measure, cute and sew!

Yep that easy, except not! 

You really have to make sure everything has been cut "square" so it pulls up straight, again not so easy especially when the windows are old and not square.

Here I have the backing fabric laid out and pinned. The pins represent where the pockets for the rods will go. Notice I also used a checked fabric for the backing instead of just ordinary lining, that way from the street it still looks good. 

 I ended up rolling the fabric on to a cardboard roll, this helped to get rid of the half carded crease that came in the fabric.

So when I have the pocket sewn in I then sew onto the shade (by hand), again there are many more details that go with this for instance you can see I have the sides of the blind already turned in, they also have to be "squared" up, again a pain in the rear, but worth the hassle! 

 Yep, I do use my own felt rings for sewing too and not just a fun accessory!

 

I really do do the work too! 

Here is a close up of the back, you can see how nice the check contrasts with the face fabric.

... The Final Product...

Now the fun begins! 

Once the old blinds were done, I fasted the wooden battens up in to place and Voila! new blinds from amazing fabric.

 Things like this really make a difference too. Remember Joy from my last post, well she made these sweet little birds that I used as pulleys for the blind... Perfect!

 I found this little fairy thing too, I thought she could keep the birds company whilst we are not home. Hmmm I think she needs a name!

 

The view from the outside

 Oh and notice in the first picture too, the old sofa! Well thanks to my lovely Ella we had to replace it, we found this velvet one from West Elm, which happens to be perfect with the shades of the colours in the blinds... completely planned, but don't tell Micah it was!

And what room would not be complete without these awesome Mongolian sheep skin pillows?

Well if you finally got through this and are still reading, I would love to help you with your roman shade project... first person to email me about this wins a free (full day) session with me and a tutorial... yep I'm keeping it small just in case you miss it ;-) Oh I do get to post pictures and blog about it, so if your camera shy... sorry.

~ With Love

Georgina!