September 28 2011 Newsletter

I've been back from France for two weeks. It was a wonderful trip with great weather, lots of bicycling and time sharing the experience with friends. After a brutal week with jet lag, I now feel refreshed and energized.

I did manage to examine the window treatments as we moved across the country. I saw lots of Roman shades. They were all custom-made with fabric, but there was very little hand-sewing going on, even with the lift rings. One set of shades had tiny lift rings with little cloth loops that were sewed to the shade at the batten pocket. Another set had lift rings with clips that slipped on to the battens. The bottom rings were hand sewn. Now I just need to find those clips.














Reflections on French Window Treatments





Southwest France was full of lace and sheer fabrics on the windows. The public rooms often had no window treatments at all, or simple sheer Roman shades. Many of the homes that we pedaled past had stationary lace panels on the ground floor windows. Almost every hotel room we stayed in had lightweight Roman shades for subtle privacy combined with heavy drapes for total privacy and darkness. The shades were unlined and made with linen or sheer fabric. They all had another thing in common: battens in pockets on the Up Folds (where the lift rings are sewn) and no battens on the Down Folds. I did find myself dressing the Down Folds when I raised the shades to look at the gorgeous view.

This shade was in the Breakfast Room of our first hotel in Libourne. It is a large unlined Roman shade covering a double sliding door that is made with a horizontally-striped sheer fabric. This photograph shows the front of the shade early in the morning. You can see the battens shadowing through the shade.




The plastic battens were inserted into pockets on the back of the shade. You can see the batten pockets in this photograph of the back of the shade.




A close-up of the back of the shade shows the pocket and also the lift ring. The batten pocket was made by simply folding the fabric back and making a small horizontal tuck. I have directions in a Blog entry on this technique. It is a great way to make an unlined shade with battens.





This photograph shows a close-up of the lift ring. It has a small loop of fabric that passes through the ring. This fabric loop is sewn to the shade while making the batten pocket. Clever!

Lift Rings with Clips




Our hotel in Les-Eyzies-De-Tayac had simple unlined linen shades with both a back tucks for the battens and larger decorative front tucks.





I can't tell you how often I get calls or e-mails asking if I have a source for lift ring/batten-clip combinations. These lift ring/batten clips were simply pushed onto the batten pocket on the back of the shade. I really don't see any advantage of this option over the lift ring with the fabric loop. Since you are already sewing pockets, you might as well attach the rings at the same time.





Since the rings clip onto the back, they couldn’t be used for the bottom row. The bottom rings carry all of the weight of the shade when it is raised. A clip would pull off so the bottom row of rings were sewn on. These bottom sew-on lift rings had a slit at the top. You tie a knot in the lift cord and then pull the cord up into the slot. You can also see the weight rod in this photograph. I pulled it out from the side of the shade. It is an aluminum slat. The end of the pocket had a narrow strip of Velcro that held the pocket closed. I'm guessing that was so the slat can be removed for laundering. The battens were just inserted into the pockets, so they could easily be removed also.

What I did NOT see in France: I saw no internal wood shutters, wood blinds, mini-blinds or cellular shades. These are what I call "manufactured" shades and are usually made in China. Our American homes are full of these products. When I think about hotel rooms in the United States, I recall double or even triple draperies that provide filtered light, blackout conditions and lots of color. I don't remember any US hotel room using Roman shades. I also didn't see any cord lock pulleys in France, just cord cleats. In some cases, as is shown in this photograph, there were two cleats spaced about 6-inches apart. The pull cord was looped around both cleats. This works well on a long window since there is lots of cord when the shade is raised.

Another thing I did not see was any evidence of child-proofing the exposed cords. There was no cord shroud, cordless shades or even continuous loop systems with the loop attached to the wall. In fact, I found only one continuous loop shade and the loop was hanging beside the shade.