Zippidee-do-dah!


Zip ties, cable ties, whatever you call them, they are useful little strips of plastic!  
When we bought Beans the Roman shades wouldn't work.  I thought it was a problem with the pulleys, but on closer inspection I found that the cord on the back had pulled out, on nearly every shade.  Normally Roman shades have rings on the back in two or more columns, spaced about 8 or 9 inches apart.  Ours only had the cord at the top, going through a grommet, but not connected to the rest of the shade.  So, off I went in search of plastic rings, a spool of thread and a needle.  Of course, I have lots of needles and many, many, many spools of thread, tucked away all safe and sound in our storage locker.  But, needles and thread are easy to find - small plastic rings - not so much.  


I'd looked at fabric stores before.  I'm making Warm Window shades for our trailer in Terlingua and have been looking for the rings (off and on) for awhile.  This time I decided to try Ace Hardware, home of the helpful hardware man (and woman).  But, no rings.  However, our helpful hardware woman took me to the electrical aisle to see what might be there.  She was looking for rings; I saw small zip ties.  I was pretty sure I had my solution; plus, I wouldn't have to hand sew at an awkward angle.  Sure enough, zip ties did the trick!  In about 20 minutes, I had my shades repaired, working beautifully! I didn't even trim the extra plastic off the zip tie - it faces out and I'll never see it.