Has anyone on here made their own tack room drapes? Currently just looking to start out with one wall panel for our set up (no valence or anything just yet), and it seems pretty simple.
Has anyone made their own yet? What are the exact dimensions of your wall panels? Grommets or velcro? Is the Sunbrella material the best to make them in? Pictures would be awesome!
Thanks!
Suitability has a pattern for stall drapes. It is pattern 9900 and doesn’t have actual pattern pieces, but provides instructions. It is discontinued, but www.seattlefabrics.com shows it is available online. I haven’t made them myself, but I think it would be a great resource. I use a lot of their other sewing patterns. The Suitability website also is a great resource for fabric and notion sources.
I made mine out of duck cloth. Sunbrella is the best, but by the time you buy the fabric, you might as well just buy the drapes made by someone else.
I made mine 12’ wide and I think 10’ high. See if you can find information on stall sizes (including wall height) of the show venues you frequent most often, and size your drapes accordingly.
Mine are just plain panel - no grommets, etc. I use zip ties to anchor 1x2s on the stall and then staple my drapes in place. This gives me a little more flexibility when I’m in a location where the stalls might be smaller than my drapes were designed to fit.
ETA - The valance on the tack stall was made by The Clothes Horse. I made the valance across the horse’s stall, but you can see it’s a bit less fancy and lacks piping.
I did a full set for my trainer several years ago. You can get the heavy denier Cordura through Seattle Fabrics, the Rain Shed or Denver fabrics. Get samples from the companies, so you can verify that it’s correct, and make sure you order the heavy weight. The lighter won’t hang properly as it is too light, and looks unprofessional. Order enough for everything you want to make at once, so you can get one dye lot.
A regular sewing machine will work fine, even for the heavy denier Cordura, but you’ll go through needles like you wouldn’t believe. I even did the Director’s Chair seats and Tack Trunk covers (complete with foam interlining) on my old Elna machine.
A standard stall is 12x12, so I did several 12’ panels. I would also recommend that you do the valances as a separate piece. I had the grommets set - you can do it yourself, but it’s hard to get them to look professional.
Zippers for trunk covers and doorways can be purchased through the Rain Shed or Seattle Fabrics. Get a large quantity of zipper tape (again, the large, heavyweight - not the garment zippers), and more zipper pulls than you think you’ll ever need! Inevitably they break or get lost. It’s always good to have spares.
Suitablity patterns are great, and have great directions. But I just measured the stalls at a show, and made sure I had enough length on the panels. It’s easy to fold over a drape to hide extra length, but hard to add!
Coordinating trim is easy. Get the same weight denier Cordura, cut with a rotary cutter so you can get really straight lines, use light weight iron on facing to set it, and just top stitch with a wide open zig zag stitch.
They aren’t hard to do, but the trick is to make them look professional and not home-made, so be careful with the details. Go to a show and look some sets over. That will show you the little things that those custom companies do both as short-cuts, and as finishing items.
As for hems, I just did a 1/2" rolled hem, topstitched at both edges. You can even add some drapery weights in the corners to get them to hang, but if you use a heavy enough fabric, you won’t have to.
Have fun. It’s fun to customize, and very satisfying to see them on show!
This. I thought about making them, but when I priced out fabric, time, etc…buying was a much better option.
these aren’t the nicest, but they are pretty cost effective
http://www.sstack.com/Stable_Barn-Supplies_Stall-DrapesChairs/Dura-Tech-Six-Piece-Stall-Front-Package/
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