Terrell,
As I searched about the internet for Roman shades, I was very pleased to find your website chock full of instructions and encouragement. Thank you! I have recently completed my first-ever set of shades, and I wanted to share my custom-built pulley system with you and your website visitors.

I got a kick out of the fact you have a PhD in physics - I am an engineer, so my first thought about making shades was, "It can't be that hard!" Technically speaking, it wasn't difficult, but I'm a guy and I'm no seamstress! My wife freely admits I can sew better than she can. Anyway, I searched for pulleys at all the typical places and found none that I liked, so I made my own.

A package of metal sewing machine bobbins ($1.05 for a package of 5 at Wal-Mart), some wood screws and my trusty table saw were all I needed. I cut a 1/2" x 1" notch out of the headboard for the full length, and after it was covered with fabric, simply screwed the bobbins on and cut off the excess screw length on the backside. I would recommend putting the screws in the full depth of the board and cutting the excess off, for strength and to reduce the risk of the screws "unscrewing" themselves.

This method is probably beyond a lot of folks, because you can't make the notch cut without a table saw. My completed assembly works very well on a large (66" wide x 72" long) shade with 5 lift lines.

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