Easy, Illustrated Instructions on How to Sew a New Shade Structure Canopy for your Patio

Here's a shot of the fabric's full width. There was almost 50 feet on that roll.

The pattern was a bit complex. Wide blue and green stripes with black, yellow and white accent stripes. The stripes would have to be aligned wherever they met another piece of fabric.

I had the measurements, but I didn't have faith that following the pattern would result in a well-fitting canopy. Luckily I had a slice of the old canopy. If I could just re-create the old canopy, I knew the fit would be perfect. In the photo above, you can see where I left five inches of extra striped fabric. This is the fabric for the scalloped edges.

I added a half-inch onto each edge, to allow room for the cloth which would be used in the seam connecting two pieces of fabric. That is a "seam allowance".

In addition to the triangular sections, I cut straight sections for the center panel of my trapezoids. Most of my panels began and ended in the middle of the blue stripe. As long as every part ended in blue, I'd be able to fashion a regularly-striped span of cloth, and a uniform-looking canopy. I'd have to adjust the width of the stripes to end up the correct final size (141"). I have to say I got lucky with the stripe width though. None of them ended up too thin or thick to be obvious.

Before connecting the large panels of the canopy together by their sides, I put a seam into the top and bottom edge of each trapezoid.

Next I pinned together the first two panels and prepared to sew them together.

In the photo above, you can see the width of a stripe on a seam compared to a regular stripe. I used chalk to draw temporary construction lines on the fabric.

In addition to my large panels, I needed four triangles for the smaller top pyramid.

Even these smaller parts were large pieces of cloth, measuring 36" along the short edges. I didn't have quite enough cloth for all four of these to be unbroken panels. I had to construct two of them.

You can see a constructed one on the left above. It has a narrow blue stripe in the center.

Pinning an edge before sewing. This isn't the usual way to pin cloth, but I did it this way until Meaghan pointed out the easy way to pin.

To help with my confidence in this project, I completed the top pyramid first. It looked great!

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