2023 Year In Review & Some Fun Things Coming Up In 2024

2023 was a fun year for Sew Lovely! Here are some highlights from the year…

• We were featured on HGTV after a producer reached out saying she wanted us to be a part of a home renovation show. We made some shades and curtains for them.

• We made about 1500 shades and also several pillows, cushions, curtains and bedding items with just a small team of under 5 people.

• Our farmhouse striped shade was added to the shop and became a very popular choice for buyers. We sold a couple hundred of them.

• We expanded our clientele and had many more interior designers purchase products from us than previous years.

• Our town did a nice write up about Sew Lovely and our family was featured on the cover of the town magazine.

• Added some very talented assistants/seamstresses to our team

We have a few fun things planned for 2024, as well. So far…

• Making 35 custom cushions for the Grammy’s Museum rooftop cafe in LA

• Adding some more farmhouse shade fabric options to the shop

• In talks about manufacturing some items for a popular furniture company.

• January sales doing very well in just under 2 weeks. 5000 visits to our Etsy page in 11 days and over 30 orders

We’re always thinking of new ideas, products and hope to add more fabric to our shop, as well!

Sew Lovely Was On HGTV!

It was so hard to keep the secret for 7 months (we shot this back in March), but we were featured on HGTV in the beginning of October, and our episode will re-air again October 20th and Nov.21st! Due to production contract terms, we were not able to announce publicly about our episode until after it aired, but we hope if you’re reading this in time, you can catch the re-air dates! The show is called, “What’s Wrong With That House.”

It was such a fun experience being on the show and so exciting to get that call from the production team last spring! One morning, I was sitting at my computer working, when my phone went off and it was a text and email from a TV producer. She mentioned the host of the show, Noel Gatts, a local interior designer and actress, follows my Sew Lovely page and work on Instagram, and wanted to have me on the show! I was super excited to hear all the details and do the project!

They picked out a few fabrics from my website, as well as some budge friendly ones from Joann Fabrics. They had to keep it pretty budget friendly, since it was one of those redesign shows and the home owners had to stick within their budget. The fabric they selected from our shop is called, “Embroidered Dove.” It’s such a pretty choice and traditional style, in fact, I chose it once for my own dining room a few years ago! (I change out my shades and curtains often here, since I can! HA!) But it’s a lovely fabric! They also chose one from Waverly for the office space, a check pattern, that was super nice and cost efficient.

We made a total of 3 shades for the HGTV show, one pretty wide one for the office and then 2 for the kitchen space. We also made 2 curtains (straight top for rings) for the living room. We installed all of the window treatments, as well. The new window treatments really helped transform their space and the owners seemed very happy when they did the reveal!

The shoot took just a few hours and it was really fun to meet Noel and Joe (Home Inspector Joe). Everyone on set seemed very chill and friendly! They interviewed us for longer than what aired but I was happy with our air time, as I was expecting even less time. I know, working in the TV biz myself for 20 years, they do a lot of editing, post production, so even the 30 seconds of air time was fun! They mentioned they’d like us to do future shows, so we are very excited about that possibility !

You can watch the full episode (Episode 6 “What’s Wrong with That House”) on HGTV on youtube or catch it live on October 20th and Nov. 21st. Check local listings for times.

With the host of the show, Noel Gatts

Sew Lovely On HGTV

The reveal! We did the office shade, kitchen and dining shades and living room curtains

Let's Talk Railroading! Be Extra Careful When Purchasing Those Striped Fabrics

Let's talk about the term "railroading" and how it can be a little confusing. I've attached a nice description and some photos from Stout Textile's website, but I will also try to further explain. Not understanding the term can sometimes cause some confusion and misfortunate issues with the final product of the shades (if you had expected the stripes to run a different direction).  

"Railroading" refers to the way a fabric is printed on the bolt. A bolt is usually 54" wide x how ever many yards you got. So if you got 2 yards, the fabric will be 54" wide x 72" long. Selvage is the finished ends of the fabric (side to side). Sometimes the selvage has a bit of a jagged edge so you can see it's the sides. It also often has the name of the company and fabric printed on it and arrows to show which is up and down.  

If you get a striped fabric, it is especially important to notice if the fabric comes railroaded off the bolt. Railroaded means the stripes will run HORIZONTALLY, selvage to selvage. Even if a company shows a photo of the fabric running vertically, it can still be railroaded. Usually they show a photo of it vertically when it's a window treatment or on a sample even. But it should say in the description if it runs horizontally or railroaded.  

The reason for railroading is because a lot of people use the fabric for upholstery and want the stripes running front to back on the cushion or sofa. So there is no seam in the cushion, the fabric runs horizontal stripes so it can go the width of the chair.  
If you choose a railroaded stripe for shades or curtains, and you want it VERTICAL stripes, there WILL be a seam in the fabric, likely, bc if the shade is longer than about 45" (we need wiggle room for the hems and top board), it will need to be pieced together. So for instance, the width is only 54" off the bolt. We're turning the fabric so the width then becomes the length of the shade or curtain. So there will be a horizontal seam to make it longer. 

A few of my shade photos show an example of this. A good example is the fabric, "Surf Stripe" from Serena & Lily. It's shown vertical stripes in a few photos and even on their website, but it runs horizontally. If you look at the description off their website, it says "railroaded." So it does say that it will come horizontal stripes off the bolt. Sometimes on shades, you do not see the seam bc it's hidden under a fold. If your shades are mostly for looks and you don't plan to lower them often, this seam will barely be an issue and barely be noticeable. We do try to match the pattern nicely, so even if you lower, you should not notice it much.

Flipping the fabric to be vertical stripes (if fabric runs railroaded or horizontally), requires more fabric often bc we need to piece it together.  

We often try to confirm if you want the stripes vertically or horizontally when we get a fabric, however, we get a TON of fabric delivered here and make a ton of shades, so it's super important for customers to really make sure they're purchasing the fabric just like they want it off the bolt. If there's a special request to change the fabric appearance off the bolt (flip fabric or anything custom that is not the way we receive it off the bolt) we will need to know this before starting production of the sewing.  

If ever a rare situation where we maybe need more fabric to complete the item, we'd ask the buyer to please kindly send us more fabric. If the extra yardage request is due to a mistake on our part of staining, cutting incorrectly, or any other issue that was our fault, we will cover the costs of the extra fabric. If the fabric needed is due to wrong calculated yardage (rarely happens) or the vendor sending defective fabric or the incorrect fabric, the customer is responsible for purchasing the yardage and supplying the extra fabric needed to complete the project.

Thanks for reading!! So please remember, whichever way we receive the fabric off the bolt (selvage to selvage) is the way we are making the item (unless it is communicated to us that you'd like it to be different). 

Serena & Lily shows the sample vertical stripes but it really runs horizontal off the bolt.

Description mentions it runs railroaded and left to right, horizontally, for drapes (which also includes shades).

Fabric came railroaded (horizontal stripes). We flipped it to make vertical, which requires a seam and more fabric yardage.

Our White Fabrics- A Popular Choice For Roman Shades

Many use white solid fabrics for shades and ask my opinion on the different options, so I thought I'd post about that . We have a lot of different shades of white and fabric types listed in our shop for sale. Here's the breakdown and some things to consider.

WHITE CANVAS- $20 per yard.

Pros: Thick fabric, canvas duck fabric, nice pure white. Basic fabric but a nice quality. Budget friendly option, works well for shades and ribbon trimmed shades.

WHITE FLAX- $20 per yard

Pros: Thick fabric, similar to white canvas but has more of a texture, nice pure white. Basic fabric but a nice quality. Budget friendly option, works well for shades and ribbon trimmed shades

Cons: wrinkles a bit easily so will need to be ironed possibly before hanging

WHITE TWILL- $20 per yard

Pros: Budget friendly, Pure white. It works well for shades and ribbon trimmed shades. Very basic white fabric, no texture. Doesn't seem to wrinkle as easily as the flax and canvas.

Cons: A little thinner than the flax and canvas and can see through it a little more if using regular liner.

WHITE SLUB LINEN- $20 per yard

Pros: Nice medium weight, not too thick. Off white/ivory shade of white. Nice texture, similar to a linen but heavier weight than a light linen. Doesn't wrinkle as easily, normally, as the flax and canvas. Budget friendly. Works well for shades and ribbon trimmed shades.

Cons: Not as pure white as the canvas and flax. Folds might not be as crisp due to linen fabric blend.

WHITE QUARTZ LINEN- $40 per yard

Pros: Nice medium weight, not too thick. Off white/ivory shade of white. Nice texture, similar to a linen but heavier weight than a light linen. Doesn't wrinkle as easily, normally, as the flax and canvas. Works well for shades and ribbon trimmed shade. Slightly better quality than the white slub linen above.

Cons: Folds might not be as crisp due to linen blend fabric. A little more costly than the ones above.

JAMES WHITE- $40 per yard

Pros: Great weight fabric for shades. Medium weight. Pure white fabric. Has a nice soft feel to it, almost like a brushed twill. Works great for shades and ribbon shades. Nice quality, Basic fabric, but a bit of a step up from the canvas, white slub, flax and twill. One of my personal favorites.

Cons: not as budge friendly as some of the other fabric. Once in a while in the past, the stock is low or backordered, but not recently.

Some of the others below are pure linens and will have much looser folds and may wrinkle more:

White Tuscany Linen

Harlow Linen blend

Landen

Hope this helps when choosing a white shade fabric!

Quoting Process & The Fastest Way to Started

Sometimes, someone will land on the Sew Lovely website or Etsy shop page and go to the Contact Me link and message, “I want roman shades… how do I get started??” I thought I’d provide some more information here, and tips to getting a quick quote.

Since I’m a rather small business, I (Kelly) do customer service as well as construct the shades. I’ve thought to hire some help with the customer service, but haven’t figured out the best way to do that and I really do enjoy being the one who is communicating with customers. I get to know my customers and also since it’s my own business, I really care about the customer service end of it and making sure the customers are happy etc. The downside is, since I do both the customer service and construct the shades, my response time is not always super fast. Over the years, I think it’s been much quicker, but I do still sometimes have a little delay in responding. If you don’t hear back for some reason, please do send me a quick reminder and I’ll usually check back on any missed messages etc. If you placed an order and need help with the order, or have any issue at all, you can also text my work number listed on the website, or if the order was placed on Etsy you can click “need help with my order” and those messages show up in a particular folder on Etsy so they stand out in my inbox. Thankfully, I get a large amount of messages and quote requests each day (so thankful for that because business is good) so it’s usually a good amount of computer time for me and workroom time during the week.

The fastest way to get into the production line, without waiting for a quote, would be to purchase the roman shades directly using the link “Purchase now without a quote.” You can plug in your numbers and purchase, and then I will contact you soon after via email with how many yards to send us (or your may purchase our fabric) and instructions on where to mail fabric. If you have a unique order, or a wide shade etc, please do not use this option and fill out the other quote form. Most average size windows (around 38 wide x 62 long) and under, require 2 yards of fabric. If your shade is wide, over 51” wide, you will need more fabric because most fabric is only 54” wide.

Please don’t purchase the generic listings on Etsy. In the description on the listings, it mentions to please contact us for custom listings only or purchase on sewlovelybykelly.com. The generic listings on Etsy are estimated prices to give customers an idea of cost of labor, and not specific to your size. We provide lining materials, and the generic ones do not include that cost either. You can message us via Etsy and copy and paste the quote form that is on the Etsy listings.

A few more thing I just wanted to mention that will speed up the process a bit if submitting. quote or emailing …

Please provide the following details for roman shades. If it’s in this "list type format and not a very long email, it will read easier and might provide faster quoting.

Format preferred for requests (copy and paste):

number of shades-

W X L of each in inches (please put the width first and then length) -

Corded, cordless or continuous chain-

Liner type-

Inside or outside mount-

ship to state-

any additional comments:

Sending me attachments (PDFs, Excel sheets, photos with your measurements on them) are NOT the preferred method to send your information.

Also even though they’re very nice, I prefer NOT to get only a PDF, Excel sheet or drawings attachment with your measurements. I prefer it in that list format above just to speed up the process for me. I usually copy and paste the information in that list above and it’s harder when it’s an Excel sheet or attachment to copy and paste and I don’t want to risk re-typing any numbers and making an error. I see a lot of numbers throughout the day, so it’s just easier if I see it in that simple list format with minimal unrelated details etc. For information on measuring please see our page that shows some photos and a lot of helpful information. If you’d like to send me a photo of your window (if you are unsure) that is also super helpful.

Hope this is helpful! We are usually able to respond within 48 hours to quotes and messages. I usually do most new quoting later, at night time, and respond to other messages throughout the day and also at night when I’m able.

Happy New Year! 2022 Sew Lovely Year In Review!

I just realized I haven’t posted a blog in over a year! Wow! It’s been a busy year and I just wanted to share some of our highlights from 2022!

I want to first off thank all of my new customers and repeat customers! It’s so nice to hear back from former customers who are enjoying their shades we made (some even many years ago) and also nice to meet new customers from all over the country! It’s very fun to hear a little about everyone’s space and see their interiors and design ideas. I also really appreciate all the reviews and photo tags! Thank you! I really love seeing photos!

In 2022, our Etsy shop sales were almost equal to our sewlovelybykelly.com website sales! So that’s very exciting to me. When I first started, my sales were all Etsy. I created a website a few years back and each year the website sales increase dramatically. I like having a few different places where I sell. I was thinking of Amazon, however, it was a really tricky process to get started, so for now, my items will be available for sale on Etsy and sewlovelybykelly.com.

In 2022, we made between 1000-2000 shades! We also made hundreds of pillows, valances, curtains and cushions. We’re a very small team here, so we definitely got a lot of work done! On average, we make about 120 shades per month!

I saw a lot of fun prints in the workroom this year… A lot of unique prints. Our white shades with ribbon continue to be popular (the Pottery Barn style ones), as well as the modern farmhouse styles, like our striped fabric. Neutrals are also pretty popular in our fabric shop. The Salt Bleach and Sky Bleach and Ticking Stripes fabrics are very popular.

One major improvement we’ve made this year is our timeframe. For a while, a few years ago, our timing has been very slow, some times over 2 months, due to a few factors (family and lack of help mostly and way too much workload for just one person), but we have speeded up our timing in 2022, and figured out how to be more efficient and I got a little bit extra help with production. We’re sometimes just a 3 week time frame! We tell customers there is a 6-8 week time frame still, just to be on the safe side in case of any unfortunate circumstances, but it’s much much faster normally. I really don’t like making customers wait a very long time, so I’m really happy the timing issue has improved.

In 2022, I found a new cushion seamstress and she’s really talented and she says she really enjoys making Sew Lovely cushions! Cushions are not very easy to make but she’s very good and has a knack for it! She’s been sewing since she was a little girl and studied sewing and worked as a professional seamstress her whole life. It’s been great to get someone new like her on the team and we’ve had an increase in orders, so it’s been really good to have her help.

Well, that’s about all for now… But I hope everyone had a fantastic New Year. And thanks for all of your support, feedback and kindness.

Kelly

DIY Santa's Workshop and Mini Ice Pond

This has nothing at all to do with shades, BUT when I’m not making shades, I have a passion for decorating, especially holiday decorating!! So, I thought I would share a fun project that I recently worked on, a Santa’s Workshop and Ice Pond for our front yard Christmas display! I used a few of my workroom supplies for this project!

First off, I was going to make the structure from scratch with wood, but since the price of wood is so high these days, and it was easier to buy already cut wood, I went in another direction. I purchased an unfinished playhouse on Amazon for $250. It came fully unassembled but it was fairly easy to construct and took me about 2-3 hours out on my deck, on a nice fall day. I didn’t mind the cost so much, since I figured my young kids can still play with it after the holiday, and I could possibly turn it into a firehouse, so it wouldn’t be just a once a year use. I was really impressed with the quality of the cedar wood. It smelt great too!

I picked up the “North Pole” sign at Home Depot. I randomly saw it and thought it would be perfect! Originally, I wanted to put a lit “Santa’s Workshop” sign on the house itself, but it was too small of an area so we put it on a post instead.

I then painted the house in “Real Red” by Sherwin Williams. I loved the color because it’s a true red and perfect for holiday decor! I used 2 coats of paint.

I then went to Michaels and bought some gingerbread men and floral pieces and foam and burlap and made some cute, festive arrangements for the flower pots on front.

Next, I made some candy cane poles for the front. I picked up some 2” PVC pipes at Home Depot. I spray painted them red. I then wrapped them with white Gorilla tape and we drilled them into the house.

At first, I was just going to paint the roof white, but decided to make it look more like snow, so I used some batting that I had leftover from some cornices I have made. Cornices are fabric upholstered wooden valances and are usually lightly padded with the batting. I got some warm white netting lights on Amazon and put them underneath the batting. Then I sprinkled some white crystal/glitter on it. I stapled the batting down to the roof so it wouldn’t blow off. If you want it to look a little more realistic, fluff up the batting (pull on it and tear apart a bit, before you lay it down)

I got the larger candy canes on Woodpeckers Crafts, unfinished wood, because it was cheaper than buying them already painted. I painted them white and red and used trimming nails to nail them the house.

I added a shelf and then got some scrap wood I had laying around the garage and made the 2 wooden tool panels inside the house. I ordered a kids tool play set kit off amazon and put them inside the house. Again, I didn’t feel too bad spending the money, since I figured my boys would play with them after the holiday :)

The cute yard stake elves I found at Lakeside Collection for $8. I had never heard of this website before. They have some cute stuff and very inexpensive!

My husband and I had a lot of fun creating this LED lit up Santa’s Workshop sign! We took a scrap piece of wood we had in the garage, It was about 1/2” thick and then we painted the sign loosely. I wish we used a stencil but we kinda liked the raw look. I used the drill bit to drill holes inside the lettering. We poked some small green and red fairy lights in the back. Be sure to count your letters before buying the lights, or vise versa. For instance, I purchased 2 sets of 100 lights and counted my marks for holds accordingly. So 100 holes for the Santa’s and 100 for the Workshop. We then put another board on the back and created a frame for the top and added more batting and glitter and drilled it into the PVC candycane.

The “Ice Rink Pond” was a last minute addition. I wanted to make it feel more like a winter wonderland, so late at night, I came up with the idea of the fake ice. I’m really glad I added this because it came out so cute.

I laid down some lattice that we had in the backyard and never installed. I put cool white and blue twinkling lights over it. I lucked out because I was looking for something that looked like fake ice. I went to Lowes and found exactly what I was looking for, right away! I used a few frosted window panels. They were about $15 a piece and I got 4 to make up my little “rink.” It’s cool because when it rains and it freezes, it really does turn into ice! I hope the weather gets colder next week so I can see it frozen more. I love my penguins (Wayfair and Amazon) and Polar Bears. It was a bit hard to find some polar bears at the last minute! I added some more batting around the ice. It’s been super windy here, so a bit hard to keep everything in place!

So that is how I created this little Winter Wonderland! Hope you enjoyed reading about it!

We put some candy canes out each day for the kids walking home from school. The middle schoolers really seemed to like it!

Hope everyone has a happy holiday season!!

Our White Fabrics Explained

It’s a snowy day here in New Jersey today! Thought I’d take some time to work on my website and write this new blog :).

White roman shades (with or without ribbon trim) are very hot sellers and offer a classic and clean look that go with many styles. They work fantastic if you have some patterns in other parts of the room, like your rug, pillows and linens. You can tie in a color in the room, by adding some ribbon trim along the edges or keep the shades plain for a nice classic and simple look.

I offer a few different white fabrics on my website, so I wanted to explain the differences between them.

White Canvas (our most popular fabric), $20/yard

White Canvas

Most of the ribbon trim shades on this website are made with our own supplied white canvas. It’s our most popular fabric. It is $20/yard and I also have samples for sale. The weight is great for our roman shades. It has a slight texture to it and the color is a pure to soft white. It doesn’t have any blueish or yellowish tones. The base cloth is 100% cotton.

Works well for:

Roman Shades

Pillows

Curtains

Cushions

White Flax Linen, $20/yard

Our second most popular fabric is our White Flax Linen. The color is a pure-soft white and does not have any yellowish or blueish tones. It has a very nice texture to it and it is a cotton/linen blend. It’s a nice weight and comparable to the white cotton canvas, but has slightly. more texture to it than the canvas. It’s also $20/yard.

Works well for:

Roman Shades

Pillows

Curtains

Cushions

White Slub Linen, $20/yard

White Slub Linen

Very popular fabric, as well. Our White Slub Linen is similar to the flax linen but the color is slightly less pure, so more of an off white. The fabric has a bit more slub texture than the flax and canvas. It appears more like a heavier linen and works well for our roman shades. The linen blend makes it less likely to wrinkle than a 100% linen fabric. It’s $20/yard.

Works well for:

Roman Shades

Pillows

Curtains

Cushions

White Cotton Twill, $20/yard

White Twill

Very nice pure-soft white fabric that works well for many projects, as well, including our shades. The weight is slightly lighter than our white canvas fabric and there is very little texture to this fabric. It’s more smooth than some of the others. It’s 100% cotton with no undertones.

Works well for:

Roman Shades

Pillows

Curtains

Cushions

James White

James White, $48/yard

This is a gorgeous polyester/cotton blend with a very soft texture. It’s a pure-soft white color with no undertones. This fabric is similar to our white canvas but has a smoother texture and softer feel to it. This one is a bit more costly than some of our others above.

Works well for:

Roman Shades

Pillows

Curtains

Cushions

White Quartz Slub

Off White Quartz Slub Linen, $48/yard

This gorgeous cotton-linen blend in a warm, neutral white is soft to the touch and has a rich weighty quality. The slightly nubbly weave has a natural slub texture giving it a beautifully organic character. It’s very similar to our White Slub Linen but is slightly lighter in weight and has a slightly looser weave. It’s a cotton/linen blend.

Works well for:

Roman Shades

Pillows

Curtains

Cushions

Harlow

Harlow Linen Blend White, $48/yard

A nice option if you want a white linen blend for roman shades. Since this is a blend, it won’t wrinkle as much as a 100% linen. This is a pure white fabric. The weight is light and more airy than some of the other linen blends. The folds may not be as crisp using this fabric for our roman shades as some of the others above. It’s a poly/linen blend.

Works well for:

Roman Shades

Curtains

White Tuscany Linen

White Tuscany Linen, $48/yard

This is a crisp bright white linen. This fabric has a soft hand and a slightly textured slub—it is everything you want in a linen fabric. It’s a bit lighter weight so it may wrinkle a bit more than some of our others and may also make for looser folds in our shades.

Works well for:

Roman Shades

Curtains

Creamy White Linen

Creamy White Linen Blend, $60/yard

This fabric is a hearty, washed cotton/linen blend in a creamy soft white color. This one is a bit heavier than some of the other linens above. It is a linen/cotton blend.

Works well for:

Roman Shades

Curtains

Cushions

Pillows

Chalk

Chalk, $45/yard

Gorgeous white textured fabric. Nice weight to it. Great for roman shades. It’s a thicker fabric and works well for roman shades. It’s polyester base cloth.

Works well for :

Roman Shades

Cushions

Pillows

Our Designer Client's Beautiful Before & After Reveal

It’s so fun working with designers! Recently, we made some roman shades for a nice woman named Katherine, Interior Designer and founder of Hausmatter Interiors out of Tennessee. She sent us her own fabric to use, and we made them to her custom size and added the nice touch of grosgrain ribbon down the middle. I love this design that she requested, since it is unique. Most we’ve done are similar to the Pottery Barn roman shades, with the single ribbon inset on the sides and bottom, so it was fun to create something different. The white shades with ribbon are very popular and offer a clean, classic and modern update to any room. These shades goes well with many different decor styles and you can add pops of color and patterns in other places without it looking too busy.

Check out her recent blog with before and after photos of her home office, featuring the shades we created!

Photo Credit: Hausmatter Interior Designs

Photo Credit: Hausmatter Interior Designs

Photo Credit: Hausmatter Interior Designs

Mask Making! Doing Our Part During Covid 19, Along With Many Other Workrooms Around The Country!

It’s crazy how much the world has changed in just under 2 months! I hope everyone is staying healthy and safe during this crisis. This is definitely a challenging time. When I first heard about the mask shortage back in March, I wanted to do my part and help out in any way I could. I saw some other ladies in my soft furnishings workroom group on Facebook were making them and posting tutorials so I quickly jumped on the mask making bandwagon. I have a whole workroom full of 5 year’s worth of leftover fabric that was finally being put to great use! It was amazing to see so many workrooms quickly put their current projects temporarily on the back burner and focusing on making masks to donate to hospitals around the country. We knew how important this was and how desperate nurses and first responders were for these masks. Mask making is a bit time consuming and tedious but it was well worth the effort.

I had many first responders, doctors and nurses reach out to me and I donated hundreds of masks to them. They were driven over by the fire chief in town to Clare Maas Hospital and he said they were extremely grateful. This made me feel so good. I donated to a group home for special needs adults in CT, doctors offices, Kohls, my local first responders, USPS drivers, another hospital in Denville, NJ and sent free masks to all of my close friends and family to be sure they were safe and protected.

Donating masks helped me, personally, during this crisis. It helped me deal with my anxiety. I was so focused, working long hours making masks, that it distracted me from my anxious thoughts and feeling overwhelmed about the current state of the world. Being only about 10 miles from NYC, our small town in NJ has been hit very hard by this virus. As of 4/18, we’ve had 25 deaths here in town and our town is not very big, so I could not help but feel very anxious about the safety of my family. It felt good to put my energy towards using my skills to try to help the cause in any way I could.

A few days ago, I decided to stop making the masks for now, as it was becoming a bit too time consuming and I am still making about 30 shades a week! I need to focus back on my main job. I do see a ton of masks offered now, especially on Etsy! I see so many cool ones too (faces and fun masks etc) and the shipping speed seems pretty quick!

Thanks to everyone for being so patient with our production timing and we hope everyone continues to stay healthy and strong!

Providing Our Customers A Quality Product at A Fair Price!

We just saw this blog from back in August about our roman shades! Our customer described our business model perfectly! We provide affordable prices and so many options! Customers are able to provide their own fabric if they choose (like how this particular customer provided us with a World Market tablecloth to use as fabric for her roman shade!) or we can supply the fabric if one prefers us to supply. Our custom roman shades are a great deal cheaper than many other shops and even more affordable than bigger stores like Pottery Barn, Lowes etc.

https://hydrangeatreehouse.com/affordable-custom-roman-shades/?fbclid=IwAR1MgMC13C_QTv1ecQRCDyEMAyuFGf9c9sfBmjW6e1qwObN9YwC1vSrbwt0

REPOST: Blog Below From hydrangeatreehouse.com

How to get affordable custom roman shades – tips and hacks

In this post, I’m sharing my DIY approach on how to get custom roman shades at a low cost. This is a roman shades hack I used for my kitchen and dining room, with them constantly getting praised by guests. I’ll also share the cost breakdown on my custom roman shades.

Whenever I post kitchen and dining room photos on my Instagram, one of the most asked questions is where I got those roman shades.

The truth is, it is not store bought, but rather a hack. First of all, it is custom made – but don’t get scared when you heard the word “custom”. In fact, it is a lot cheaper than a traditional custom roman shades, and even cheaper than buying pre-made shades from furniture stores.

Originally, I was interested in buying them from a store, because DIY roman shades sounds pretty hard. At first I had my eyes on Pottery Barn’s roman shade, but it has two problems:

1. The width is not customized. I need to order two roman shades for dining room and kitchen, in the same set. My kitchen has a wide window. So even picking the largest size, it will leave a 2-inch gap on each side of the window.

2. The price is a bit high. Two roman shades will cost me over $650.

How I got custom roman shades at affordable price

So I took a semi-DIY approach. This is not a real DIY roman shades project because I didn’t make the shades by my hand. But because I DIY the process of designing, sourcing and getting them made, I’ll call it a “semi” DIY roman shades project.

Here’s how I did it:

I bought two packs of table cloth from World Market. Then I had an Etsy store make two custom roman shades with the fabric I provided. The total cost of these two shades costed me around $250, including all materials and labor. What a great deal!

The Etsy store I used is called SewLovelyByKelly, but there’s many stores that offer making custom roman shades service. I chose their custom roman shades with cord. There’s cordless version too, but it will be pricier. Also they have a faux roman shade option if your roman shades is for decoration only.

I provided my own fabric but used the store’s regular liner option rather than blackout liner, because I want some light to come throw the shades.When you decide to move forward with an Etsy store, make sure to chat with the seller first. For custom orders, a lot of times Etsy seller will create a custom order for you with the details of your order and the total cost of product and shipping calculated for you. Also, even when you are not fully decided, you can still chat with the seller to get an accurate estimate on the job and shipping cost.

Custom roman shades cost breakdown

The exact total costs of my two custom roman shades is $253 – that is $127 each! Here’s the cost breakdown:

Fabrics: $30 (I got two packs during a promotion, original $24.99 each pack)

Labor – $164

Liner – $24

Shipping(NJ to CA) – $35

When buying fabrics for roman shades, there’s a few things to keep in mind:

• The fabric should be thick enough so it won’t see through. This is important because roman shades has this folding mechanism that you probably don’t want it to show through the fabric.

• It is recommended to use upholstery fabrics. What is upholstery fabric you ask? Well, it is those fabrics that are more durable than the general sewing fabrics and can withstand quite some wear and tear. Although in fabric stores upholstery fabrics tend to be expensive, there’s really some places you can get them at a much cheaper price. I have shared some super affordable general home decor fabric resources here in this DIY pillow post. I’ll also listed a few options below that are specifically good for making your own roman shades.

• You don’t need to provide roman shades lining fabric, usually. The Etsy store I did mine at has lining fabrics. Instead of buying some cheap lining fabric and probably spending more money on shipping, I just got the lining fabric from the Etsy store to save time and headache.

• Roman shades fabric sources

  To make roman shades you really need a large size of the fabrics, so the best way to find affordable fabrics is to look at table cloth choices. Here are a few fabric I think will make great roman shades at the fraction of the price of normal upholstery fabrics from fabric stores:

  1. cream with black tripes (same one I used)

  2. linen in natural color

  3. light gray with white grid line

Happy New Year!

Wishing everyone a very happy and healthy 2020! I want to just mention how thankful I am for the growth of Sew Lovely over the years and the support we’ve gotten. We’ve had a lot of return customers and that makes us super psyched because we know our product is working well and holding up very well, even with daily use.

This year was a busy one for us, as we added a few new products to the shop and made a few changes to our roman shades so that they function even better and look cleaner and more streamlined from the backside. There are no more rings on our classic shades or iron on tape that risks breaking or coming loose. Throughout the years, we’ve been constantly trying to better our product and I think this newest method is the best yet and we’ll be sticking with it for a while! Since using this new method, we have gotten more reviews and positive feedback.

We did a bunch of custom cushions this year, as well, and started also supplying foam. We also added fabric and trim to our website. For 4 years, we only really offered white canvas fabric and our customers supplied their own. But we know some customers may not have the time to buy the fabric or they do not know which kind to get, so we started adding more and more fabric options to our site, and fabric that we know works well. Customers seem to like to browse through our selection. We will continue to add new products and more fabric in 2020!

Hope everyone has a very happy New Year! And thank you for your kind support and business!

Kelly

Trim Tape Now Available and Many More Fabric Options!

Just a quick note to announce that we now offer a huge selection of trim tape!! Many of them are designer brand but we also have more affordable options. We offer embroidered trim tape, geometric trim tapes, greek key, solids, stripes and more! We also added more fabric to our fabric page and will continue to add more and more. Please check back often for updates and additions.

Sew Lovely Featured In Haneen's Haven Blog

We recently collaborated with blogger, Haneen (haneens-haven.com) and created a lovely custom roman shade for her using her custom fabric from Spoonflower for her powder bathroom makeover! Love her blog and I encourage you to check it out! https://haneens-haven.com/dramatic-powder-bathroom-makeover/.

Some photos from her blog featuring the roman shade we did:

We Make Cushions and Also Provide Replacement Cushion Foam Inserts

Just met with some really nice people over at a local foam supplier. We are now going to offer foam for our cushions and not just the replacement covers! This will a great addition to our shop, as we do get a ton of requests for cushions, but haven't ventured into this direction too much. The supplier is right in town so it's really great and we can make sure the covers are a good fit before shipping them out to our customers! You can send us your old template/fabric to use, or send us a paper template. If the cushion is a basic square or rectangle, no template is required... just the measurements! 

Types of cushions we can make (replacement covers only or replacement covers with foam) 

* bench cushions
* dining chair cushions with ties and piping
* banquette cushions
* outdoor cushions and back cushions and more!

dining chair cushions we recently made to replace old cushions, using buyer’s template

dining chair cushions we recently made to replace old cushions, using buyer’s template

Below are some examples of types of cushions we can create (Photos taken off the internet for example purposes :)

dining cushions

chair cushions

banquette cushions

dining chair cushions

bench cushions

New Improvements to Our Roman Shades

Hello! Thanks for reading our blog. Just wanted to update on some nice improvements to our roman shades. We’re super excited about it! I’ve been making these shades for 5 years now. I’ve changed my methods of construction a lot throughout the years bc I am always trying to improve the quality of the product and the supplies. There are many ways to make a roman shade. I’ve experimented with most ways and the ways that most other shops tend to use. I don’t like many of the methods for certain reasons. I don’t like stitching rings through to the face fabric like a lot of shops do. This does 2 things… It causes pin holes of light to shine through where the stitches are. It also looks funny because there are random tack stitch marks throughout the face fabric. Even if the thread matches perfectly, you’ll still see it.

I always ran into a dilemma bc the face fabric must be adhered to the liner some how. If not, when the shade raises and folds, the face fabric will droop and it will look bad. For a long time, I’ve been using this method where I make about 3-5 small tacks up the middle of the shade to hold it together in the middle to avoid the dropping. This worked well, but again, there were visible tack marks and also some of the light would shine through there, making it look like a small hole. For blackout shades, I would use a blackout “tape” to hide the holes. The method worked pretty well but wasn’t ideal, but it was better than a lot of the other methods out there and had way less of those tack markings.

So, as of a week ago, I’m going to do it a new method! This method seems to work extremely well and avoids all stitch marks down the middle!! So no pin holes of light or threads in the middle of the shade. This also means blackout shades will have total blackout down the middle. We still do sew our side seams and bottom hem, but the stitching blends very nicely with the fabric and I haven’t had any complaints about this at all in 5 years. The only thing that seemed to need to change were those tack marks down the center.

We are always trying to improve and educate ourselves to make the shades better and higher quality. Can’t wait to get these into some homes!

"Thank You For Standing By Your Work"

“Thanks so much for taking care of this and so quickly. It’s so nice to work with someone who stands by their work.” A customer said this to me today and it was so good to hear! This IS what I do. I do stand by my work and my goal is to make customers happy and love their new product! I know how the shades have a personal meaning to many of my customers. I’ve had customers email and say how excited they are to receive them bc they’re for a new nursery or a gift to a parent or friend, or for a new big boy room etc. Customers are super excited to complete their room with our window treatments and that means a lot to us! Many of our customers are moving into a new home or a new construction. I’ve had people tell me very personal stories and how important these are to them. It feels good to make something that I know will be special to the customer and they can look at it every day and feel good.

Since our products are all handmade there is always a very slight chance of human error, just like a machine can have errors also. Luckily, we haven’t had this happen often and we produce about 25 roman shades per week and have been making them for almost 5 years! So I think we have a great record! The customer I quoted above was actually not liking the way her shade was hanging and asked me if i’d be willing to make an adjustment to it. She was so appreciative that I was willing to fix it 100% free and send her a return label to send it right back to me. I definitely want to make sure she’s happy and will fix anything. Almost all shades are fixable and easy to adjust. I can’t recall having to ever remake anything. It’s mostly just a slight adjustment and this, like I said, happens very rarely.

Please don’t hesitate to ask us to adjust something for free that could have been an error of ours. We stand by our work and want customers to be happy in the end.

Sew Lovely Now Offers Fabric Choices

We are so excited to finally offer fabric choices for customers! We realize that some customers do prefer us to source the fabric to make it a little more of a one stop shop! Until now, we have only provided some basic fabrics like white cotton for ribbon roman shades. We still use customer’s own fabric for roman shades, sent from any vendor of choice, but we have added a nice collection of our own on our website, sewlovelybykelly.com/fabric. Most of these fabrics we have worked with before, so we are confident in these brands and quality for our products. You will also receive free shipping if you select one of these fabrics and have them sent directly to us. If you would like to see the fabric first, just use your own address as the shipping and then you would have to just send it to us.

In addition to these fabrics, we also are now a supplier for Greenhouse Fabrics! They have a huge collection of high quality fabrics and a ton of sample books to look through on their website. The pricing varies but it usually around $35-$80/ yard, as they are a higher end fabric vendor. But they are used often in the Interior Design biz and the fabric is admired by many! Check out their huge sample book selection here and then contact me for pricing.

We will be adding to our fabric collection often, so stay tuned!

Kelly

Liner... Why It's Needed & Why We Don't Recommend Light Weight Fabrics for Shades

I was just emailing a customer and I realized it sounded like pretty good information so I figured I’d post it in a blog! :) So a customer just emailed me to ask if I can make flat/classic roman shades (the same kind I make 99% of the time) using a light weight fabric and possibly use NO liner. She wanted the airy look for the shades. She sent me a photo of the fabric. Here it is on the right.

As you can see, it’s pretty sheer and looks almost like a linen and there is no stiffness to it. Certain fabrics like might be listed as “drapery” fabrics on websites. While they might work very well for curtains, they don’t usually work as well for our roman shades for a few reasons.

1. This type of fabric does not sew well and it’s harder to sew a perfect rectangle. With curtains, it is not as obvious if a side seam is slightly off so this fabric might still be ok. But for roman shades, the rectangle (or square) has to be perfectly on point or it is obvious when it hangs in the window. There would be crooked areas of light shining through on the sides etc. So we like to use fabric that is easier to sew. Even the best experienced seamstresses may have this issue bc the fabric moves a lot in the sewing machine and also shifts when hung. The weave is very loose. Drapes are meant to flow and the fabric is sometimes nicer if not so stiff. For our roman shades, we like the fabric to be a little more sturdy.

2. Classic roman shades look best when the folds are straight across and do not droop. When using this thin fabric, the fabric tends to hang a bit in the folds, so it’s almost comparable to a relaxed roman shade. So if a customer is looking for those nice defined folds, we recommend a different type of fabric.

After explaining this, I wanted to also answer my customer’s question regarding liner, and if it is necessary on roman shades. I recommend liner on all roman shades for a few reasons.

1. Liner protects the main fabric from sun damage.

2. The rod pockets are glued/sewn onto the backside so we use liner so the glue dots do not ever bleed through to the face fabric and it won’t look bumpy where glue is.

3. The liner gives the shade a bit more sturdiness and helps guide the folds into place nicely.

I hope this helps a little to explain why we like to use liner always and why we don’t recommend using a thinner fabric with a loose weave. :)

Affordability and Quality is what we offer!

While shopping around for any product out there, you’ll be sure to find a wide range of pricing.  You’ll see some super cheap and junky products, super cheap and surprisingly nice, mid range options and some very expensive high end ones. Sometimes you can tell a difference right away if something is going to be junk and want to steer away. Sometimes the product isn’t a high priority on your buying list, so you can take a risk and buy a less expensive product and it will suffice.  Sometimes you want to go with the most expensive because it might have something you really want that the other options don’t.  Often times, the more expensive one is no different but it’s got a known label on it so people assume it’s better.  It’s great that there are options for all budgets and needs.

Here at Sew Lovely we like to provide both quality and affordability.  We have done a TON of brainstorming and research to figure out how to maintain our quality, reduce our production time and save on over priced materials to keep our cost down for our customers. We know that when you’re a new homeowner, covering multiple windows, you may have other things to purchase for your home and have to budget in the window treatments, which can seem add up quickly. While the labor is VERY intensive and it is tedious to make them, and materials are not cheap for the products, we have found ways to lower our pricing to help our customers be able to afford these custom products without breaking the bank.  We have found ways to cut back on the time it takes us to make shades.  I am now making about 25 shades per week (with the help of my lovely and talented seamstress) and 4 years ago it took me more than double the time to produce that many.  We’ve also done many trials and research to find better materials that do not cost as much for us. To many people who normally get treatments at JC Penny or Kohl’s etc, Sew Lovely products are still are not considered “inexpensive,” but they are much more affordable than many other options out there if you have to stick to a budget and also want a nice quality made product that will last years (I have my own shades I made hanging and still looking and functioning beautifully 4 years later!)  Also we realize that the customer’s fabric can add up too.  Maybe you want to purchase the fabric you absolutely love and it’s expensive so you need to save a bit on the labor to afford them.  We want our customers to still be able to purchase their dream fabric and not get hit hard on both the fabric cost and labor.  

We started on Etsy, a friendly crafters marketplace. We consider ourselves a friendly small business with the consumers always in mind.  We love happy customers.  It used to be that “custom” was mostly for the wealthy.  But now there are buying options for everyone. 😊