I ordered some inexpensive backdrop drapes from Amazon. When they arrived, they were still too light-weight, and I would need more of them to get enough fullness to get any sort of light-blocking effect. Most of the drapes you can get at any retail store are really designed to just be hanging on the edge of the window — they are in no way designed to be drawn across the window, even when they are advertised as black-out drapes. The panels aren’t full enough, and if you need 2 (or more) sets, then you have the gap between panels.

Time to design drapes. In this case, I wanted something full enough that it would give good coverage when drawn, but be able to be tied back most of the time, so I could easily adjust the blinds.

The last time I made drapes, I did balloon shades for my room at parents house, over 25 years ago. Balloon shades can be raised to various degrees or left down. They should be long enough to puff at the bottom when fully down. In this case, I also put a swag and jabots at the top. Because it was a bow window, I ended up doing 5 separate drapes, one for each window, and put the pulls into two batches. These replaced the classic pinch pleat drapes and sheers, which had finally fallen apart from the heavy sun exposure. My mother was concerned that they would “look like a sheet” from the outside, but you can put in enough gather that it looks just fine.

Given the size of the window and the length I wanted, and a deadline for an event, I took a look at what I had in my stash. Natural linen was an easy choice, but would need a lining to get me adequate light blocking. I could use the cheap drapes as the lining. But I would need a bit more length. Color block patterns seemed like a good way to go, and I picked a green that would work well with the walls.

Fabric ordered, should have been easy. FedEx sent the package from LA to Texas, instead of to Northern California. And then lost it. Deadline blown. They found it a week later, and got it to me nearly 2 weeks after the date I was aiming for having these done. Oh well.

Wash fabric. Iron fabric. Re-iron fabric using steamer. Cut panels of the natural linen. I thought about using it cross-grain, but the natural creases would then have been horizontal, and I didn’t think that would look all that great. On the other hand, the green didn’t drape quite the same way, and was perfect for railroading the contrast bands. Find enough floor space to lay everything out (the hardest part).

I opted to use a series of inverted pleats. This is what you will see in theater scrims (the drapes on the sides and back of the stage). It provides a lot of volume but isn’t that fussy to do — certainly not like pinch pleats. But I didn’t want a lot of volume at the top on the rod, so added the header block after the pleats were finished. And then finally added the tie-backs to hold them back when I don’t want them down.

I started with a pattern that had been used for the Single Pattern competition at Costume-Con. McCalls 2233 is a set of pieces designed for kitchen staff — chef’s jacket, shirt, pants, apron, and toque. While the folks using this for the Single Pattern competition were very creative (klingon chef anyone?!), only one person actually made the shirt. It looked awfully big on her, with sleeves at least to her elbows. I decided to make it using some leftover fabric from the stash — the pink camo.

The pattern is actually pretty straight forward, but it’s not a true camp shirt, as the collar is not designed for the open and flat spread. It has an interesting trick of double-folding the front facing and not needing interfacing. And the shoulders are dropped *significantly* — 3″ on me — which is part of why the sleeves end up so long. And it’s really long.

Next up: McCalls 2149. This is a men’s shirt set, with collar options (camp vs band, but no stand collar style) and sleeve options (short vs long). It was interesting to see how this men’s pattern differed from the women’s patterns. It was “old-fashioned” one-size only, instead of the multi-size patterns that have become the norm for most women’s patterns. One of our friends used this for her husband’s geek shirts.

This one used the leftover purple camo, although I was short fabric for the sleeves. I got some plain purple to use for the sleeves, collar, and pocket. The assembly was interesting, as they had you attach the collar, then attach the facing, then clip deep into the collar seam to be able to close it off. It worked far better than I expected. The shoulder seam is forward of center by about an inch (which I top-stitched). The finished sleeves are still nearly elbow length.

Third time: New Look 6197. This one has both men’s and women’s multisized patterns in the same packet. The difference is in the fit of the body (with darts or not) and hem (straight vs curved). This has a back yoke in addition to the camp-style collar. Both the yoke and collar are cut cross-grain.

I grabbed some fabric from the stash – a green linen that I had picked up for Faire years ago and never used. After assembling the yoke and lower back piece, the assembly is fairly typical. This also used the collar construction as in the McCalls pattern above. However, if you want to have the yoke with two layers (as in most commercial shirts), better to cut a second yoke piece, and attach the inner yoke layer to the front facings at the shoulder seams, and then sew the entire collar down in a single seam – no clip specifically to be able to put in a hem as in the instructions (but you still will need to clip the seam so it lies flat). Then close the shoulder seams and the bottom of the yoke with a fine top-stitch just off of the seamline.
The only problem with this pattern is that there is no indication for where the pocket should be set. I used one of the other patterns for the basic location.
Total time was about 4 hours, from layout/cutting to buttonholes. And the only thing done by hand was the actual buttons.

I had gotten a 4th pattern to try, but the New Look pattern was definitely the winner. So far I’ve done 4 shirts and have 2 more on the list.