The Best and Worst Fabrics for Shades
I love roman shades. Every morning, I pour my coffee then head to my front room where I raise the roman shade on my front window. I’m spoiled now because a few years ago I motorized it and now I just touch of a button and it’s open. Motorizing that shade was the best choice I ever made. I wish I could say the same about my fabric choice.
I made that shade a long time ago. In fact, it was the first one I made after starting my business. I fell in love with the textured neutral fabric. Unfortunately it was upholstery weight. There were so many other, better choices out there, because this one broke one of my rules when choosing shade fabric.
Avoid Upholstery Fabric
Heavy weight fabrics, especially those with backings can make a shade difficult to operate. Often a motor will be your best bet if using a heavy fabric. It’s not that an upholstery weight fabric can’t be made into a shade (my front room’s shade is upholstery weight), but when you take into account the weight of the actual face fabric, it becomes too much for a spring system to operate. Often the only choices left are motorized or chain loop.
Use On-Grain Fabrics
While cotton is always my favorite, you can really make just about any fabric into a shade as long as it runs on grain. That means if I pull a thread across the fabric (from selvage to selvage), the sides with the selvage are perpendicular to the pulled thread. When a fabric is too much off-square, that is when it can become a nightmare. It may look good at first, but as time goes on it can get wonky as it goes up and down.
Print Fabrics
Prints make great shades, especially when the pattern repeat can be folded to pattern. However, they can be difficult when the print runs both horizontal and vertical, like a plaid, gingham, or check. It can become very obvious that the fabric isn’t on grain, even if it is a very slight tilt.
A Note on Linen
Just like with drapery, linen is not the best choice for a shade unless it is going to be stabilized before being made into a shade or if it is going to be a very relaxed, loose, unlined, breezy shade. Shades made in linen often sag over time, which means if it is supposed to be a straight flat fold, over time it may not be. It doesn’t mean you can’t have a shade that has the great texture of linen. I just suggest going with a linen-look or, at the very least, a linen blend.
Q&A Roman Shade Fabric
What is the best fabric for a roman shade?
Definitely go with a fabric that is on grain. That is the most important thing. Mid-weight fabrics work well for structured roman shades, and lighter weight works best for relaxed shades.
Why should I splurge on good fabric?
Often fabric found at outlets online are seconds. They can be woven incorrectly, be a poor color, or be off-grain. That could be okay for a pillow, but definitely not for a shade. Spend the money on fabric that is high quality and passed all the quality checks in the mill. Since having a fabric true-to-grain is so important to having a shade that operates smoothly long into the future, this is definitely not the time to skimp on fabric. Honestly it doesn’t usually take a lot of fabric to do a shade, so go ahead and splurge.