OceanView French Door Shades
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Copyright 1996- Terrell Sundermann, Castle Rock, Colorado, USA I made these four French door shades in 1996 for an interior designer in the Boston, Massachusetts area. Each panel is 32" wide and 84" long. The design is called OceanView and is an example of a watercolor "quilting" technique. You can purchase instructions for this pattern in our online store. Even though the shades are shown in my book on Pieced Roman Shades, the technique was not covered due to a lack of space.
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The interior designer, Linda Stimson, is a regular client. I design and make shades for her clients every couple of years. She was gracious enough to share the story of these homeowners. They had grown up in Massachusetts and spent many eventful vacations on Cape Cod. He proposed on the beach as the sun set. They made the decision to move back from California to be close to their families in Massachusetts and they decided to start a family during two more sunsets on the beach. It still makes me tear-up when I think about their wonderful story. The family room in their new house backed onto open space, but they wanted a scene that depicted a Cape Cod sunset.
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This job was done long-distance. I have worked with Linda before so that was not an issue. She sent finished shade measurements and paint chips. The colors were pulled from the Oriental rug. She also specified the height of the horizon so that it could be seen over the sofa and chair. I drew up the design, picked out fabrics and sent her swatches. After approval of the design and fabrics, I made the shades and shipped them to Massachusetts. |
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This photo shows a close-up of one shade. The pattern is simply 4” squares placed on-point. They are joined with ½”-finished sashing. The sashing is made from a 1”-strip placed on the straight-of-grain. You don’t want to use bias strips for your shades. The 4” blocks are made from one fabric or from random-widths of fabric strip-pieced together.
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You can see a “learning experience” in this photograph. That is my terminology for total goof-up. If you look at the edge of the shade on the left-hand side of this photograph, you can see that it is “warbled”. That is what happens if you don’t follow the online directions for sewing your side seams. Instead of having the lining-side up when I sewed the seam, I had the lining-side down. My directions are based upon many learning experiences just like this. This shade had to be returned and the side seam re-sewn. You need to follow the directions explicitly so that you don’t have to re-sew your shade.
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