Now that I am thinking about it, this year has definitely been a year of non-selfish knitting – a year of requests. There are several projects that I have completed and are to be described in the future and some of them were for my mother.
More than a year ago, my mother was looking for a way to re-style two ceiling lamps we have in the living room. After some trial and error, we concluded in making two crochet lampshades. Two pieces of crochet that could be easily put on and off a circular disk. Why not a permanent installment? Well, cotton tends to gather a lot of dust and dirt, so easy removal for washing had to be an option.
Designing was a bit tricky – I was really looking forward to making some intricate lace, but after thinking over it for a while, I decided that I would do something simple. The size was different for each disk and I also had to find a way to give a shape to the piece, without using glue or wires.
I opted for a simple netting lace – on the one example a chain net, on the other a combination of double crochet and chain stitches (and a few bobbles here and there). The work was completely in the round and bottom up. That gave me the ability to try it on as I worked it, and also to increase the size circularly and evenly.
To create shape, I incorporated stones at the center of each design. I worked around each stone and then, after securing them in a crochet shell, I continued to work on the main body. The stones were neither too light, nor too heavy, and worked well in giving some weight, but not weighing down the lamp from it’s foundation.
The yarn used is 100% Greek cotton, a few discontinued skeins that we bought on sale on one of our LYSs. Unfortunately we took only one skein per color, and one skein was nowhere near enough to cover one disk, so I had to do some color matching. Having those two color combos in the same room is not ideal, but it did bring some (more) color to the room. As you can see, one of them actually matches the color on our walls!
I am quite pleased with the result, but I am not sure I would try this again – as far as the process goes, it was not the most interesting.
What about you? Have you ever created some home decor with crochet or knitting? What kind?
