making blinds

[minimisa]

I want to try making some blinds, but I'm not brilliant at this sort of thing so any advice would be brilliant. I want ones that pull down in the middle (i think this means spring loaded with a toggle in the middle) and also want to make them blackout so would I need to stick some other material over some blackout?

Hmmm, are you looking to make the actual spring loaded part - I reckon that would be very difficult.

Perhaps you can buy a kit for them with instructions with the spring loaded part included? (look in fabric shops, I've seen Roman blind and Austrian blind kits in them so maybe they do roller blind kits too)

Or get a cheap readymade blind and cover it with your material of choice (or replace the material on it with the one you want).

If you are replacing/covering the material on it with a thicker one, it may be too thick for the mechanism (so a kit might be best if you can find one as it will tell you what thickness you can use).

Whether you need blackout material or not will depend on the closeness of the weave of your chosen material. Perhaps you could buy a blackout blind and stencil a nice design on it - that would be much less work I think!

Going on the theory you can buy everything in the world from ebay, you can buy a spring roller blind kit and probably blackout fabric as well.

Roller blinds are best in a single layer of fabric so they roll neatly, you need to stiffen it with special spray stuff. If you want more layers, better with a Roman blind or similar.

Thanks, I was planning to buy a blind kit and use my own material