a life of felt

I’ve been wanting to make a felted lampshade cover for the living room for a couple of  months now.It’s not the first lampshade cover I’ve done and the delay was really only down to finding the time. As it’s in a room where my hubby will see it daily it’s important to me that he likes it too. Now, that’s when my problems start. Designing for me is one thing, designing to keep someone else happy is quite another.

Obviously I wanted to make it in British wool and Blue Faced Leicester has a lovely crimp that shows up very well on a lit lampshade so BFL is what I’ve used. I wanted the cover to extend beyond the frame a little and I didn’t want to use any kind of stiffener as it changes the feel of the felt.

Cylinder lampshades are very easy as it’s basically a rectangular piece of felt but coolie style lampshades are more difficult. You either have to make a rectangle and cut it down to size or work out your shape carefully and felt it down to size. I prefer not to cut felt so I carefully removed the old shade from the frame and used it as a template.

You can see that both top and bottom lines curve, without the curve it wouldn’t fit the frame properly. I considered using white BFL but decided in the end that oatmeal would be a better colour to blend into our room. I had some hand  dyed BFL curls spare from another project which I placed along the edge but was careful not to let them hang over. Although I’d be happy with dangly curls along the edge I know my hubby wouldn’t be. This little bit of colour lifts the shade and helps it to blend with the wooden base.

Really not sure if I like it and if the white wouldn’t be better. Hubby admitted this morning that he wasn’t sure about it when I was stitching it on but he actually likes it when lit up. Just need to decide what I think now.