The Shade Book: How to Make Roller, Roman, Balloon and Austrian Shades

Rating:
Summary: To Many Steps Assumed
Review: The author gives a good overview of several different types of shades you can make. But too many steps are assumed... and for beginners it's easy to not understand what the author meant. I spent too much time trying figure out what some of the instructions meant. I had to make a small sample to truly understand how to make the roman shade. I do not recommend this book to a beginner. If you really want to learn how to make roman shades buy "How To Make Roman Shades" and "How To Sew Balloon Shades."

Rating:
Summary: Great Resource Book
Review: This shade book is a wonderful resource/library book. The author gives good instructions and uses many pictures to help the beginner create their shade. I highly recommend this book for anyone interested in creating several different shades. Judy Lindahl wrote a complete book - you only need this book to create any shade.

Rating:
Summary: Practice Makes Better, Maybe
Review: Too many corners are cut in these instructions (for the Roman shades, at least) to produce quality items. For example, the author recommends using fabric glue to hold down tapes for machine sewing. In my (admittedly limited) experience, only thorough pinning will produce straight seams and unwrinkled tapes and fabric. The instructions leave raw edges on finished shades; fabric stapled to mounting boards is unaccounted for in calculating measurements, so that shades end up too short, etc, etc. Perhaps after making quite a number of shades from this book, you'd have developed a corrected set of instructions that would produce a satisfactory shade. Never having made shades before I bought and used this book, I found my results very disappointing. I doubt very much that I will make shades, or use this book, ever again.