So you’re looking for Bamboo or “Matchstick” Shades and Blinds…

The craft of manufacturing bamboo window coverings originated in Japan around the 16th Century and spread throughout much of Asia and the Orient. Some of the processes involved with making your blind have been mechanized for modern times, but others must be done by hand, just as they were nearly 500 years ago. The creation of your bamboo blind begins with the shaping of an individual, natural strip of bamboo into a thin pole of less than 2mm in diameter. There are a total of fifteen steps in all involved in the making of each individual bamboo slat- from removing the joints and shaving of the outer “skin” layer of the natural bamboo shaft, weaving, crafting the edging and installing fittings. The edging of your bamboo shade or blind, for example, requires two craftsmen working simultaneously on both sides of the blind in order to achieve the precision that’s required to meet our quality standards.

One of the strongest assets of your new bamboo blind/shade lies in its ability to comfortably blend with almost any decorating style or theme. From classical Asian to Eames Danish modern, desert primitive, Island breeze, country rustic, western standard and many others- the bamboo window covering has been utilized with more success across a wider range of decors than almost any other window treatment. This can be partially attributed to the structural flexibility of the bamboo materials, allowing it to offer the customer different lifting and stacking abilities, such as “roman fold” or the more traditional “roll up” versions. This same flexibility dynamic also allows us to install custom liners directly into the blind, offering a wide array of light filtering and room darkening capabilities while retaining the classic look of the bamboo window covering.

The bamboo itself is a fascinating material that has been used by mankind since the beginnings of time. It is considered to be a “woody” perennial evergreen in the “true grass” family. It is strong enough to construct scaffolding, yet flexible and gentle enough to be used in fine art. When treated, bamboo forms a very hard wood which is both light and exceptionally tough. In tropical climates it is used in elements of house construction, as well as for fences, bridges, toilets, walking sticks, canoes, drinkware, furniture, chopsticks, food steamers, toys, construction as a substitute for steel reinforcing rods in concrete construction, hats, martial arts weaponry and various musical instruments. The Bamboo Organ of Las Pinas, Philippines has pipes made of bamboo culms. When bamboo is harvested for wood, care is needed to select mature stems that are several years old, as first-year stems, although full size, are not fully woody and are not strong.

The stems, or 'culms' of bamboo, can range in height from a few inches, up to 40 feet tall. The stems are jointed, with regular nodes; each node bears one side bud. These buds do not necessarily develop (especially in lower portions of the culm of tall bamboos) but are present. Buds that do develop ramify quickly with very short basal internodes into a cluster of several shoots, which usually develop into branches and occasionally into adventitious rhizomes. Branchlets form from the branches, and leaves grow off the branchlets. They are thus, unlike most other grasses, extensively branched; in large-growing species a single stem may carry many thousands of branchlets.

Although bamboo is a grass, many of the larger bamboos are very tree-like in appearance and they are sometimes called "bamboo trees". The reason bamboos are so different from trees is they lack a vascular cambium layer and meristem cells at the top of the culm. The vascular cambium is the perpetually growing layer of a tree's trunk beneath the bark that makes it increase in diameter each year. The meristems make the tree grow taller.

Bamboo is also widely carved for decorative artwork. Modern companies are attempting to popularize bamboo flooring made of bamboo pieces steamed, flattened, glued together, finished, and cut. However, bamboo wood is easily infested by wood-boring insects unless treated with wood preservatives or kept very dry.

Bamboo canes are normally round in cross-section, but square canes can be produced by forcing the new young culms to grow through a tube of square cross-section slightly smaller than the culm's natural diameter, thereby constricting the growth to the shape of the tube. Every few days the tube is removed and replaced higher up the fast-growing culm.

Several Asian cultures believe that humanity emerged from a bamboo stem. In the Philippine creation myth, legend tells that the first man and the first woman were split open from a bamboo stem that emerged on an island created after the battle of the elemental forces(Sky and Ocean). In Malaysian legends a similar story includes a man who dreams of a beautiful woman while sleeping under a bamboo plant; he wakes up and breaks the bamboo stem, discovering the woman inside. The Japanese folktale "Tale of the Bamboo Cutter" (Taketori Monogatari) tells of a princess from the Moon emerging from a shining bamboo section. Hawaiian bamboo ('ohe) is a kinolau or body form of the Polynesian creator god Kane.

An ancient Vietnamese legend tells of a poor, young farmer who fell in love with his landlord's beautiful daughter. The farmer asked the landlord for his daughter's hand in marriage, but the proud landlord would not allow her to be bound in marriage to a poor farmer. The landlord decided to foil the marriage with an impossible deal; the farmer must bring him a "bamboo tree of one-hundred sections". The benevolent god Bụt appeared to the farmer and told him that such a tree could be made from one-hundred sections from several different trees. Bụt gave the him four magic words to attach the many sections of bamboo: "Khắc nhập, khắc xuất", which means "put in immediately, take out immediately". The triumphant farmer returned to the landlord and demanded of his daughter. The story ends with the happy marriage of the farmer and the landlord's daughter.

The Following links are a great resource for your bamboo needs, questions or curiosities!
• The Best Prices On Bamboo Blinds, Shades and window treatments
• Bamboo Institute
• Bamboo Craft
• International Network for Bamboo and Rattan
• Environmental Bamboo Foundation
• Bamboo of the Americas
• American Bamboo Society
• Bamboo Web - Bamboo enthusiast community