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Kelly Rinik 2/7/20 Kelly Rinik 2/7/20

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:

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.
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

Kelly Rinik 12/30/19 Kelly Rinik 12/30/19

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

Kelly Rinik 11/1/19 Kelly Rinik 11/1/19

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.

Kelly Rinik 9/13/19 Kelly Rinik 9/13/19

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:

Kelly Rinik 8/15/19 Kelly Rinik 8/15/19

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

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

Kelly Rinik 8/12/19 Kelly Rinik 8/12/19

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!

Kelly Rinik 8/9/19 Kelly Rinik 8/9/19

"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.

Kelly Rinik 7/8/19 Kelly Rinik 7/8/19

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

Kelly Rinik 5/14/19 Kelly Rinik 5/14/19

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

icm_fullxfull.201750088_7gz0yiseagkcscgg44cc.jpg

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.

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.
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.

Liner protects the main fabric from sun damage.
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.
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. :)

Kelly Rinik 4/5/19 Kelly Rinik 4/5/19

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. 😊

Kelly Rinik 2/12/19 Kelly Rinik 2/12/19

Endless Trim & Ribbon Options for Roman Shades!

I thought I would post some photos of the different kinds of banding options we do for roman shades. As you can see, there are many different options! If you see something that isn’t shown, we are always up for a new design, as well! Sew Lovely usually provides 1 1/2” and 7/8” grosgrain ribbon in many different colors. We also have greek key ribbon tape and some other options. Many times the buyer provides the trim tape too! There are so many beautiful trims out there and they range in pricing, as well, from very affordable to very expensive designs. I have some websites listed here.

Below is an example of our most requested ribbon roman shade! Pottery Barn sells similar ones but only offers standard window sizes and a few color options. It’s Sew Lovely white canvas/twill using Sew Lovely grosgrain ribbon, inset on the sides and bottom of the roman shade. Many colors of ribbon available. Click here for the ribbon chart.

Below is another highly requested ribbon roman shade! It is our Sew Lovely white canvas/twill with inset double size grosgrain ribbon on the sides only. Many colors of ribbon available! Click here for color options for ribbon.

Below is another great option for roman shades! It is our Sew Lovely white canvas/twill and double sized layered grosgrain trim inset on the sides and bottom. Many color combinations and sizes available! Click here for our ribbon colors.

Below is an example of Sew Lovely white canvas roman shades using 2 different colors and 2 sizes of Sew Lovely grosgrain ribbon trim right along the edges on the sides only (not inset). Click here for ribbon options.

Below is an example of 2 different sized grosgrain ribbon trim inset on the sides AND bottom! These shades use Sew Lovely white canvas/twill and Sew Lovely provided grosgrain ribbon. Click here for ribbon colors.

Below is an example of Sew Lovely roman shades using buyer’s provided ribbon inset on the sides and crossed on the bottom. Click here to see some websites to buy your own trim!

Another lovely shade with ribbon trim! We have buyer’s provided fabric and buyer’s provided greek key ribbon trim! Click here for some websites to buy fabric and trim! Sew Lovely can also provide greek key trim.

Below is an example of Sew Lovely provided navy canvas fabric and Sew Lovely provided grosgrain ribbon inset on the sides and bottom. We can provide many basic colors of canvas including, white, navy, black, grey and more! We can also provide many colors of ribbon trim! Click here to see our ribbon trim options.

Below is an example of a roman shade we made and added piping and a ruffle on the bottom! We can add a ruffle in the same fabric as the shade or in a different fabric. Trims can also be added to the bottom of roman shades.

Below shows a roman shade we made and added the buyer’s pom pom trim to the bottom of the shade! Pom poms can be found online on many websites and on Amazon!

Here is an example of buyer’s provided fabric and buyer’s provided braided trim inset on the sides and bottom. Braided trim looks so nice on a roman shade!

Sew Lovely Roman Shade with Greek Key Ribbon! Sew Lovely can usually provide 2” greek key ribbon trim tape. Contact us for details and options!

Sew Lovely provided Charlotte Moss trim tape ribbon using customer’s provided fabric. This trim comes in a few different color options! Contact us for colors!

Kelly Rinik 12/28/18 Kelly Rinik 12/28/18

Happy Holidays!

2018 was a great year for us! Besides having a record year for sales, we got a new addition to the Sew Lovely family!! Baby Dylan was born in March and has added so much joy to our home! It’s definitely been a challenge to manage the business, construct a mass amount of shades and have a newborn and a toddler at home while I work. But I do feel extremely lucky to be able to work out of the house and be around my kids all the time. It’s been a blessing, for sure! I’m so thankful that most of my customers were so understanding and patient while waiting for their shades to be completed during this busy time in my life :)

We have some exciting things planned for the new year! I recently received a really awesome sample binder of natural fabrics. These fabrics are made of materials like wood, bamboo and more. They’re so beautiful and a nice alternative to typical shade fabric. I will be ordering some yardage after the new year and making some roman shade samples soon to be certain they will work well for shades. I will be offering this material to customers so they will not have to supply anything for their shades. The shades will look and function much like my current roman shades and can be made with blackout liner, as well.

Hopefully, in 2019, we will also have a faster production time. We’re still at about 8 weeks, but I can offer a rush fee option if projects are needed sooner.

We look forward to an exciting 2019!!!! Thank you to all of our customers for your support and business in 2018! Happy New Year to everyone!! Many blessings to you and your family!

Natural fabric! Coming soon!!

Natural fabrics coming soon!

Kelly Rinik 10/27/18 Kelly Rinik 10/27/18

Linen! It’s Pretty, but Often Not For Roman Shades!

Here’s an example of a fabric that does NOT work well for our Roman shades, a light weight semi-sheer linen. Even most medium weight linens are similar. As you can see, the dowels shine through more, the sides are not straight bc the fabric is very thin w no structure. The fabric is also super wrinkly, even after ironing. We do have a disclaimer on our website and Etsy shop about not using linen. We’ve used it up until now if a customer insists, but we now have a “yes/no” button on the quote form that makes sure the customer has read fabric requirements before sending. We won’t be using linens at all anymore bc it’s just too hard to sew and time consuming.Also we want the shades to be a great representation of our work and the linen ones just don’t look as nice. You can find the linen look with another blend! 😁

Linen! Ugh! It doesn’t look pretty for Roman shades !

linen wrinkles easily!

Linen wrinkles easily!

Linen doesn’t tend to work well for Roman shades. Dowels shine through.

Linen- Not enough structure to sides of shade, therefore, won’t be as straight on edges. Not ideal for shades!

Many fabrics look similar to linen (like the photo above) and have much nicer results than linen. The above is a 100% cotton fabric called ANGELO FOUNTAIN SLUB CANVAS by Premier Prints.

Premier Prints make really great Roman shade fabric! And they are inexpensive!

Kelly Rinik 9/10/18 Kelly Rinik 9/10/18

A Busy Summer!

Hope everyone reading this had a great summer! It definitely flew by! Sew Lovely had a busy summer, for sure! With just one seamstress and myself constructing them all, we had a lot more work than we could handle. My seamstress worked diligently day and night and sometimes would be sewing 25 shades per week. It’s a lot of work for one person! So I decided to hire on another seamstress to the team! It wasn’t easy finding a seamstress in an era where not many people have a sewing background. I was very lucky to have found Linda, who has a passion for sewing and has been sewing since she was a little girl. She’s seems really enthusiastic about this new opportunity! She loves working with the customers different fabrics and creating beautiful window treatments. With the addition of Linda, we will finally be able to speed up our production time, which is exciting!

Kelly Rinik 5/16/18 Kelly Rinik 5/16/18

What Makes Us Different

We're always striving to make a better product! Here are just a few things that make Sew Lovely roman shades different from a lot of the other shades out there...

* NO HORIZONTAL SEAMS ON THE FRONT OF THE SHADE

Many other shade makers sew pockets up the entire shade, making for obvious stitching on the front of the shade. This disrupts the pattern and can also allow more pinholes to shine through the shade. Sew Lovely roman shades have pockets on the back side but the stitching does not go through to the front of the shade.

* NO RINGS SEWN ON THROUGHOUT THE SHADE

Rings are commonly used on roman shades made by other vendors and in stores. Rings may break with time from sun exposure and also may fall off because they are stitched on. Sew Lovely shades no longer have rings and only have one small stitch up the middle of the shade. This also eliminates light pin holes on the front of the shade, making for a more streamlined, prettier shade. On blackout roman shades, the stitches are covered up by blackout tape on the back, so light does not shine through.

* THE CUSTOMER IS NOT LIMITED WHEN IT COMES TO FABRIC CHOICE

The customer can supply any fabric of choice! Many other shops supply fabric but then the customer is limited to fabric options. Sew Lovely shades are made using any fabric. The customer sends the fabric to use directly from any store. The customer can even use an existing curtain panel or shower curtain to make the roman shade. If trying to match decor or a collection, the customer can use the same fabric for the roman shade if they'd like.

*.FABRIC IS CHEAPER FOR THE CUSTOMER BECAUSE OTHER VENDORS WHO SUPPLY FABRIC OFTEN HAVE AN UP CHARGE FOR FABRIC

Sew Lovely saves the customer money on fabric by giving the customer the freedom to send in their own fabric of choice. Other vendors supply fabric, but likely have an up charge for the fabric. Sew Lovely only charges for labor and lining, and the customer can send in their own fabric and find the best deals on fabric.

*.SEW LOVELY SHADES COME IN ANY SIZE

Stores like Pottery Barn have nice shades but they only come in standard sizes and colors. Sew Lovely shades are created in any size, allowing for the best fit in the customer's window.

Kelly Rinik 3/18/18 Kelly Rinik 3/18/18

Sew Lovely Roman Shades Featured in Holy City Chic Blog

We just love how our roman shades look in Rosie's simple and beautiful nursery! Love the fresh and clean look of the room. Check out the blog link below for more inspiration :)

https://www.holycitychic.com/2018/02/rosies-nursery.html

Kelly Rinik 12/29/17 Kelly Rinik 12/29/17

2017... A Great Year For Sew Lovely Roman Shades!

Happy New Year and I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas! The Sew Lovely/Rinik family had a great holiday and now we are just awaiting the exciting arrival of our newest addition, due on March 1st... another little boy!

2017 was a really great year for Sew Lovely and we're so thankful for the continuous support and business. We hope 2018 is just as good or better! In 2017, we had over 100,000 Etsy shop views and 287 sales (multiple shades per sale) on Etsy alone, compared to last year's 44,000 shop views, trending up 107% from last year. We've almost doubled our revenue from last year. We made over 800 roman shades in 2017 and also many curtains and pillows. We also had a lot of orders and traffic on sewlovelybykelly.com, which we didn't have in 2016, thanks to a higher ranking on google search, appearing on the first page for the search "roman shades." We're pretty excited about that! As it turns out, we didn't have to pay for SEO help to improve our ranking. In addition, we exceeded 100 5 star reviews and currently have 143 reviews. We thank our customers for taking the time out to write a nice review when they love their roman shades!

Sew Lovely's Instagram followers have also increased in 2017 and we were featured and tagged in a few really nice Interior Designer blogs. It's so nice to see photos of the roman shades hanging in our customer's home and not just on the floor of our living room lol

This past year, we also made some nice improvements to the roman shades in order to reduce our production time and improve our product. In April, we started using child proof safety knobs in order to comply with the window safety standards for shades. The knob breaks away if a child puts their head into the loop of the cords, so no loop is formed when force is applied. We also started putting the pockets on the backside/lining of the roman shade. This cut down on production time by a great deal, even though the cost was a big higher for the supplies. We were still able keep our cost down for the customer and only increased the cost per shade by $10 each. The rib tape is great also because it makes the shade flatter and not as buckled, and also eliminates the need for rings sewn onto the shade and less stitching on the front of the shade. The pinholes from the rings are also eliminated. The dowels are also able to be removed and replaced, if needed, whereas, when they were inside the shade, they were almost impossible to remove.

A huge thanks to all of our customers, friends and family! Wishing everyone a happy and healthy 2018!!!

Kelly Rinik 10/4/17 Kelly Rinik 10/4/17

Solar Roman Shades Are Here!

Now offering Roman shades made with solar fabrics. Solar fabrics don't require any liner on the backside. Theses fabrics are great for privacy and for sun and temperature control. Here's a little info taken from the Sheerweave website :

"SheerWeave® Interior Fabrics

Natural light can enhance the function of any room with proper sun management. Phifer’s SheerWeave fabrics are designed to provide high performing solutions to the sun’s harsh rays. Our broad range of sun control fabrics reduce solar heat gain, protect against damaging UV and improve the comfort of any interior space. Suitable for the home, office, business, hospitality, healthcare, education, government and retail locations SheerWeave fabrics are durable and easy to maintain. Quality made in the United States, SheerWeave fabrics are the perfect complement to any decor."

Check out their website for more information:

http://www.phifer.com/sun-control/interior/features/

Below are some fabrics that I have available to make Roman shades with. You may choose from 1%, 5% and 10% openness. The higher the number, the more sunlight will shine though.