Windows of Brazil
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Copyright 2002 - Terrell Sundermann, Castle Rock, Colorado, USA
These two shades were made for a sunny bathroom. They are each 34" wide and 46" long. The home owners collected art and were frustrated with this room, which had no wall space for art. I had already made two pieced Roman shade for their foyer that were based on a trip to China. They called me after returning from Brazil all excited about some new shades. I must admit, I feared they might want me to sew an image of a toucan. In fact, the initial meeting was pretty funny because the husband said he wanted me to do a window and a door in the Master Bathroom. I stood in the bathroom for several minutes until I turned to him and said "I see the windows, but where is the door?" I was looking for a French door, but he was talking about the designs he wanted placed on the two windows. He had already chosen two photos they wanted "reproduced" on a pair of Roman shades. One photo showed the door of an old stone house and the 2nd photo was of the window, complete with peeling paint.
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This project would be a perfect opportunity to use my PhotoView technique. I scanned the two photographs into my computer and used a simple drawing program (CorelDraw) to break the images up into straight lines. After the design was drawn and colored in, I went fabric shopping for 1/8 yard swatches to take to the design review meeting. There bathroom has beautiful tile, complimented by a dark gray marble countertop. The couple’s daughter had made a box using the leftover tile that I took to the fabric store, which was perfect for choosing coordinating fabrics.
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At the design review meeting, we first went over the drawings for each shade. Then we threw all of the swatches I had gathered on the bathroom’s tile floor, and discarded the fabrics that did not match. After the meeting, I rushed back to the fabric stores to purchase enough yardages for the two shades. I first choose four sage green batiks for the door and window. A medium green fabric was used for the large panels in the door and window. Dark and light green shades were used for shadows and highlights.
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I had chosen many fabrics that looked like rocks, intending to use them for the walls of the building, but as I placed them on my design wall, I found that most were overpowering. They also detracted from the central focus of each panel, which was the shuttered window and door. I went back to the fabric stores for more fabrics several times, looking for more subtle batiks.
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Since the shades were to be mounted inside the window trim, I decided to use a narrow ½-inch border of medium sage green. The wood trim surrounding the windows served as a picture frame around the shades. |
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I would love to have the “Windows of Brazil” shades in my own home. I did have visitation rights for several years since the clients lived several blocks away. However, I have recently moved, and my clients moved up to the mountains, taking their shades with them. I made a wall hanging of the “door”, this time in blues and yellows and now I see it every day in my very own bedroom! |
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