I have had this project on my mind for a while. Our bedroom doesn't have much light, so I wanted to come up with a way to hang a lamp from the ceiling to give light off to the whole room. I looked around at some pre-made options and was surprised at how expensive they were. Also, I didn't see anything that really looked like it would match our style. So for the last few months, whenever I stopped by a thrift store I made sure to check out the home goods section to look for an interesting-shaped lamp shade. With a little persistence, I finally found exactly what I was looking for! I decided to rip off the fabric and crochet around the skeleton in hopes of casting the light to the corners of the room. I am really happy with the end result, and the project wasn't as hard as I thought it would be, nor did it take very long to do! I kept a running journal of my process below, let me know what you think of my little project!
| the finished product! |
Day 1
Success! I found a lampshade that has the shape and size I was looking for. The pink color reminds me of a grandma's house, but I think the bones will be perfect for what I have envisioned. I really love the scalloped bottom edge, I think it will look great with some yarn wrapped around it!
| before |
Day 2
I feel a little bad for ripping the satin off the shade, but it also felt kind of therapeutic hearing the fabric rip apart. I am surprised to see that the bones of the shade are pink too! I was wondering if I should try to paint them but I think the yarn will be able to cover up the pink without it being noticed. I was going to buy some new yarn, but good thing I decided to look through my stash first because I found the most perfect vintage yellow skein of yarn hidden away.
Day 3
I can't decide on a stitch. I want it to be sort of lacy but all the patterns I am finding are too big (require too many stitches) for the size of the small shade. I'd love to do a pineapple design, maybe I will have to make one up. I'll test it first.
| the pattern i used |
Day 4
No luck with making it up. I think this small shade needs a simple design that doesn't take many stitches across to accomplish. I think I have found just the perfect style! It has one flower focused in the middle of the pattern, with a simple diamond shape surrounding the flower. I started to cast on the first row of stitches on the bottom scallop of the shade, and by the time I finished it was all twisted. Because I made the stitches so tight and because of the glue that was left from the original fabric, I couldn't twist it back around to the right orientation so I had to rip out all of the stitches and start over. (no photos of this because I was so frustrated!)
Day 5
The diamond pattern I found has been perfect! I figured out that I need to end up with 17 stitches across for each section of the shade. I ended up casting-on double the amount of stitches directly onto the bottom of the skeleton to make sure that the pink wouldn't show through, and then crocheting two stitches together on my first row of stitches to end up with the right amount of stitches for the pattern. I'm crocheting directly onto the shade because I think it will be easier to make sure the pattern fits tightly across each section of the shade.
Day 6
So far so good! The progress is slow but steady. It's exciting to see the pattern of the little flowers start to show. Nearly done now, all I need to do is figure out how best to decrease the pattern to fit towards the smaller top of the shade.
Day 7
Done! I ended up randomly crocheting some of the stitches together as I was making my way up the lamp shade, which really worked out. I don't think you can tell I didn't have a pattern for anything about the flower. Once the crochet part was done, I was ready for the hanging of the lamp! I had an extra hanging-lamp set from the hardware store so I simply threaded it through the hole at the top of the shade, screwed some hooks into the ceiling and voila! I think the pattern might splash onto the ceiling with a more powerful bulb, but this one works great for now!
Do you have any questions about how I made the lamp shade? Please make sure to leave any questions or comments in the section below!
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