THE HOMEMADE THERMAL SHADE

Enlarge Image Image Gallery [1] Homemade thermal window shades can be as decorative as they are functional. When Velcro strips are used as fasteners, the quilted shades can be placed on the windows without interfering with existing drapes or shutters. [2] A close-up view demonstrates how the Velcro strips are placed on the window frame [3] When not needed as a window treatment, this shade becomes a snuggly quilted sleeping bag for the baby. [4] The design variations are limited only by your imagination. Here, a cattail applique dresses up the Westbrooks' bedroom window shade. MIKE WESTBROOK AND MOTHER EARTH NEWS STAFF

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When Mother-reader Mike Westbrook of Kirkwood, Missouri wrote to tell us about the homemade thermal shades that he and his wife whipped up after seeing costly commercial models at an energy show, we were intrigued — and decided to come up with an easy-to make, inexpensive window blanket that our other readers could duplicate.

The Westbrooks' window cover (see Image Gallery) consists of two layers of fabric surrounding another two layers of polyester quilt batting. (The whole affair was tie-quilted to keep the filling from shifting.) Mike attached the shade to the window using Velcro brand fastening tape, which was stapled to the frame and affixed along the back edges of the quilt. As a result, Mike's thermal covering is versatile as well as attractive: He and his wife sewed the Velcro onto the shade in such a way that it could be folded to serve as either a child-sized sleeping bag or a puffy pillow cover when it wasn't screening out gusts of wind.

What's more, Mike claims that his thermal shades moderate room temperature in 30°F weather by as much as 15 degrees. And a window quilt for a fair-sized single unit cost the Westbrooks only $23.16, a price that included all of the fabric and batting.

Well, we liked Mike's idea so much that we set out to see if we could trim the cost a bit and improve upon the design. After referring to William K. Langdon's book, Movable Insulation (Rodale, 1980) we came up with a thermal shade that's handsome and even more efficient than Mike's window blanket — since it incorporates a draft- and moisture stopping vapor barrier.

There are three different approaches you can use in assembling your window curtain, depending on your sewing skills and the materials you have available. All of the cost figures that follow refer to the expense of covering a 34-by-56-inch single window, but we believe that the technique we're going to describe will be practical for swaddling smaller and larger (up to 4-by-8-feet) units. Excluding shopping (or scrounging) time, a single shade should take two to three hours to complete.

THE PRELIMINARIES

The first steps will be the same regardless which of our quilts you decide to make. Begin by measuring the inner dimensions of the window to be covered, adding 2-to-3 inches to the resulting figures to provide for seam allowances. Then go out and buy the amount of fabric you'll need.

Up to a point, you'll have the same shopping list for any of our thermal shade designs. Because of its low cost and ease of handling, we recommend using a pretty, chintzlike cotton-blend fabric that's already quilted to a layer of polyester filling and to a backing of thin cloth (such piece goods are customarily used for bedspreads). We also backed two of our models with muslin, and took advantage of' a nearby cloth outlet where we were able to buy all of the necessary fabric by the pound. (When making our 34-by-56-inch trial window covering, we spent $3.20: $2.25 for the prequilted material and 95¢ for the muslin.)

Next, we hunted for the best price on Velcro, since five yards of this rather expensive fastener were needed. We were able to find a source that would sell it for $1.09 a yard ($5.45 total), a price that compared very favorably with the $3.00 per yard that was most often quoted. By judicious shopping, we were able to limit the base price for our thermal drape to $8.65. (We did, of course, also need a spool of heavy-duty cotton thread, which was already on hand.)

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