ROMAN BLINDS - MAKE YOUR OWN

I decided a little while back to pull down the curtains in the girls' rooms and make them roman blinds instead.

Although they've been 'hanging' for a while, today I finally got around to threading the cords so they actually go UP & DOWN. There were some very excited girls in our house this afternoon. Go figure.

This is how I made mine:

1. Measure the windows from outside of architrave to outside of architrave. This is the finished size of blind.

Add 2 inches to each width [side to side measurement] for hems, and 3 inches to length [the up & down measurement] for hems.
3. Work out how much fabric to buy. My windows are wider than the fabric you buy on the roll so I had to join two bits together to make it wide enough for each window.

4. Join [if required] & hem your fabric.

5. On the back, I added pockets made of calico along the width of the blind at 25cm intervals. If your fabric didn't have a pattern like mine, you could make your blinds longer and form the pockets out of the blind fabric itself.

6. Attach small plastic rings along top of pockets at regular intervals. I sewed mine on by machine [wide zig zag stitch, 0 stitch length] but by hand is okay too, I'm just lazy.

7. Thread long timber dowels down each pocket. Tie cord to bottom ring and thread up blind.

8. Attach sew & stick Velcro to blind & window frame [sew part to blind, stick part to window].

9. Put blind up & thread cord through hardware attached to window frame by Mr E.

VOILA!!