I am going to try to make valences for my dining room and my living room. Sort of open floor plan - the two sets of windows are more or less next to each other.

I was planning on a "classic" simple box pleat on a rectangle, staple to a board valence for the living room.

So for the dining room, which I'm trying first, I want to do the staple to a board thing with less formal slight gathers so they don't look totally the same. I would do a little bit of scallop (don't prefer too much) but think its beyond me. I was hoping that a little of the fabric behind would be seen where gathered since I'm going to use a coordinating fabric.

For the dining room I have two long sliders - 75" each and two small windows 20" each.

So some questions - I had thought to do a cording along the top of the board but I'm not married to that. If I find my machine in the basement I do have a foot for it though.

Generally - would I basically make a back to back two fabric rectangle, turn inside out, close, gather and fold over at top where I want gathers and staple to the board?

Specifically -

1) Should I use some sort of fuzing treatment btw the two matierals so they stay stuck together and look nice and crisp? (I suppose I should plan on washing this sometime but will vacuum instead:)

2) Because of my 8" ceiling and window heights, finished length will be 13". Will it hang nicely or tend to "wing out" away from the board. Do I do something to keep it from winging out?

3) Will the folding and stapling at the top give me the just slightly gathered look? I was thinking say 3 close folds, staple and then the next group spaced fairly far apart. (I prefer an almost straight look).

4) If I wanted to do the cording where the material folds over the top of the board - do I basically make two rectangles - the very small part that staples to the top of the board and then the one that hangs and sew both to the cording?

Any other tips, pitfalls etc. more than welcome. I'm not a 3-D spatial type which means I'm really baaad at this stuff.

Thanks!

Mary