Techniques

How to: Make Your Own Swedish Blind

This simple Swedish blind is easy to make and quick to hang. Give it your own look by painting the fabric with Chalk Paint™.

A Swedish blind is perhaps one of the simplest blinds to make yourself. This simple window covering is completely cordless. Instead of rolling it up, you fold it up and hook it in place onto a batten heading. By using two strips of fabric, the finished blind is quite opaque too.

With their simple construction, Swedish blinds have a rustic, home-made feel. In terms of fabric, you can go for a neutral colour palette that is perfectly in keeping with the Scandinavian look. Here we’ve chosen a bright green linen fabric and painted on solid vertical lines with Chalk Paint™ in Aubusson Blue.

To make a Swedish blind, you will need:

  • Two strips of fabric
  • Loop and hook Velcro
  • Jupiter rings (a.k.a. eyelets or grommets)
  • A staple gun
  • Sewing machine and thread
  • Scissors
  • Tailors’ chalk.

To hang a Swedish Blind, you will need:

  • 10mm stock steel mesh
  • A wooden batten
  • Screws
  • Electric drill
  • Staple gun
  • A hacksaw or grinder

Step by step guide to making a Swedish blind

  1. Measure your window. Add to this measurement a seam allowance of 1.5cm all around. For the top of the blind you need to add an additional 2cm.
  2. Cut two pieces of fabric this length. Here Annie has used Linen Union in English Yellow + Antibes Green painted with Chalk Paint™ in Aubusson Blue.
  3. Put the two pieces of fabric right side together (making certain the painted sides are on the inside).
  4. Pin and sew three sides of the fabric at the 1.5 seam allowance. Leave the top unsewn.
  5. Cut off the two bottom corners with a pair of fabric scissors.
  6. Turn the fabric inside out, revealing the painted sides.
  7. Iron.
  8. For the top of the blind, fold over 1.5cm onto the back (non-striped) side. Pin the soft side of your Velcro to the fabric and stitch it down.
  9. Measure where to put your Jupiter rings, so that the blind folds in the right places. You only need one pair of rings at the top of the fabric, one on either side. The rest of the rings need to be positioned in pairs vertically down the sides.
  10. Use the inside of the ring to mark where to cut your holes. This must be accurate!
  11. Open the Jupiter rings and clip them to the holes you made.

A Swedish blind made from Annie Sloan fabric and painted with Chalk Paint® furniture paint in Aubusson Blue

Step by step guide to hanging a Swedish Blind

  1. Use a single length of 10mm rebar (i.e. a reinforcing bar as used in concreting). Cut into two 17cm lengths using a hacksaw or an electric grinder.
  2. Measure and cut your wooden batten the width of the window.
  3. Mark the timber where your Jupiter rings will go. Drill all the way through the batten with a 10mm drill bit.
  4. Bang the steel pins that you have made through the batten using a hammer. Make sure they go all the way through so they are flush with the back of the timber.
  5. Attach the other side of your Velcro to the top (not the front!) of the wooden batten using a staple gun.
  6. Attach the batten to the wall with screws.
  7. Hang the blind from the Velcro at the top and by positioning the Jupiter rings over the pins.

Perhaps the greatest joy with this Swedish blind technique is in its simplicity. Once your batten is in place, you can change up the fabric and make new blinds for every season or as often as you like. All you need to do is velcro the new blind in place, and you’re set!

Our Swedish blind was painted with Chalk Paint™. To find out how and learn more about this project, see Annie Sloan Paints Everything (published by CICO Books). Photography by Christopher Drake © CICO Books.

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