Covering Your Shade, Part 2

It's time to cover the shade with your fashion fabric.
Supplies:

• Tacky Glue or any fabric glue (can use Elmers)
• Wooden Toothpicks
• Damp cloth or paper towel

Cover your work space to protect it.

• Put one fabric section upside down. Spread a thin bead of glue along the bottom curved edge.   Turn a 1/4-inch hem and glue the hem to the wrong side.
• Place a thin bead of glue along the bottom shade edge of just the section you are working on.
• Align the bottom hem of your fashion fabric (just hemmed) along the edge of the shade, covering the bead of glue on the shade.  Have the left side of the fabric just 1/4" over the left rib.  Press to secure along the bottom edge and let it dry for a minute.  Wipe any oozing glue before it dries.

• Run a bead of glue along the right rib of the shade in the section you are covering, stoppin about 2-inches from the top rim of the shade.  Smooth the fabric upward along the right rib, pressing and smoothing over the middle of the section as you go.  Let dry for a few minutes.
• Repeat with the glue bead along the left rib stopping about 2" from the top.  smooth the fabric tautly up along the rib and in the middle of the section and press along the ribs.
• Trim the fabric at the top so that you have about 1/4" above the ring.  Run a glue bead along the top ring of the section and turn the top of the fabric under about 1/4" making a hem as you did on the bottom of the fabric, glueing the cut edge down and to the inside, against the lining fabric.
• Repeat every other section and let all sections dry.  Now repeat this process with the remaining sections and let the entire shade dry.

The top and bottom edges will be turned under so there is no raw edge but the sides of the sections will not be turned under.  Their edges will be raw fabric edges.  You will be covering all of the edges with trim later.

Tips and Tricks:

1. I dry-fitted (without glue) each piece of fashion fabric on top of the section to be covered before applying any glue.  I found that all sections were not exactly the same size.  I purposefully allowed extra fabric when drafting the pattern piece so I was able to trim each section perfectly to fit before applying the glue bead.
2. I trimmed the fashion fabric again on the opposite side (before glueing it down) if needed after applying the fabric to the first rib.  This way I got less glue on my scissors.
3. I used Tacky glue instead of a hot glue gun specifically because Tacky glue allows you to pick up the fabric and smooth it out for a little while before the glue dries.  Hot glue dries immediately which does not allow for adjusment of your fabric once it is glued down.
4. Be sure to wipe any oozing glue from the seams.  It will dry clear but your shade will look much nicer if you remove glue any before it dries.

Up next:  Part 3, Adding Trim To Your Shade.