Friday 27 April 2012

A new lampshade

Hello lovely people!
I'm really excited to share my first home-project with you! As you might know we just moved into a new place and I have decided to make all my lampshades myself. So far we have bought the very cheap Ikea light hanging fixtures to at least have light, as obviously 4 handmade (or hand decorated) lampshades don't just craft themselves over night...
So I had to do some research and pinned quite a few lampshades that interested me. Surprise surprise, the crochet ones inspired me most and after I saw this gorgeous lampshade from Solveig in Norway I just couldn't stop thinking about it.



And then we happened to find a perfect lampshade in a thrift store and I got straight on the project!
My pattern is simpler than hers because I have very basic crochet skills...(But I am working superhard to figure it out for my next lampshade!) I started it off with a round of single crochets and continued with a round of double crochets. And that's how I continued it all the way through. I started decreasing from the very beginning, always keeping it tight around the wire frame. I never decreased in the double crochet rounds, only in the single crochet ones.
Here is an in progress picture almost halfway through:


And here is a close-up so you can see the pattern. It really is very simple, these are the only two stitches I know and it worked for the whole thing.


And here we go for the finished shade!!! At first I was worried it would look a little grandma-like (and it kind of does!) but I love it!


That room feels more finished now, even though it is far from done! I really like the soft light it casts and the orange border... And I'm telling you anyone who has been crocheting for a day can make this, it really is super simple... The best thing about it is that I now have many more ideas for the next ones and I can't wait to try them all! So here we go two last pictures for you all. One down, three more to go...




Did you make any lampshades lately? Have you got much better ideas for hand crafted lampshades? Let me know!! I hope to be back with number 2 soon...