DIY Roman Shade Fail

OMG I have had so much trouble with this roman shade.  All I wanted was a beautiful Roman Shade for my kitchen.  I had dreams of making this first one and then making more for other rooms in the house.

But NO, this was not to be.  My attempt to make a roman shade failed miserably. 

First of all, I don't know if you are aware of this, some of you might be, but there really are no good roman shade tutorial out there on the net (if you know of one please link it to my comments section).

I thought I had a good one.  The tutorial looks simple and did not require a whole bunch of supplies.  So try I did. 

Roman Shade Attempt One

I tried to make the roman shade using only little round brads.  This was my first mistake.  it took me hours to hand stich the little brads on, and then when i put up may shade this is what happened.  It got all bunched up.

The theory was good, but in practice, the shade did not have enough thickness and weight to hold it's shape.

After months of looking at my miserable shade (I don't open or close it much), I decided to try to fix my poor shade.

I figured that what my shade needed was something to hold the creases and folds in place.  So I bought some dowels and glued them to the shade right next to my little brads.

The problem was that my dowels were too small for the width of my shade.  I also had faulty glue and made a big mess.

This is what I got.  A bit of an improvement, but not perfect.

What I'm going to have to do is make a whole new shade.  It needs to be a little shorter in width, and i will use proper wood pieces on each layer.  I'm thinking of lining the shade and creating little pockets for the wood or dowels (the dowels might work just need a shorter curtain.

I'm  not sure if you can tell but I stenciled the fabric and attached the ribbon.  I really had a lot invested in this shade.  It is a sad day when I will finally get rid of this project and do it again.  I think I might just buy some red fabric.  I do like the ribbon though, it just needs to be a little closer together.

I can live with my shade like this for now.  Maybe i will keep an eye on the sales and get some red fabric when I see it is on sale.

Any of you had any luck with roman shades?  Please, any advice is greatly appreciated.