Millinery Lampshade Project

January 21, 2011

In my vast collection of millinery supplies I have these straw hat bodies (hoods) that I found in France on one of my recent trips. The colors are fabulous and the texture is like a hand woven linen. The best part of these braided straw hoods is that they are the perfect shape to create my next project.

The idea to use these hoods to cover lampshades has been rolling around in my head for years. Of course I've been collecting sturdy old lamp shade frames for a while now just for this purpose. Maybe I will try to scrunch up a straw hood and make the shade all crusty and frayed, or knowing me, I will strive for simple perfection in technique.

I found a frame that will fit nicely with the hood, and pulled it right over and pinned it in place.

The next step, just like when blocking a hat, is to get the hood wet by spraying plain tap water with a spray bottle, then pull it as tight as I can get it.

The pins are leaving bumps in the wet straw so I need to take them out and run a basting stitch around the bottom and top to keep it taught.

Now for some surgery, I'm thinking I should remove the top to let the heat of the light bulb out. Even though the new energy efficient bulbs are much cooler than the old ones, better safe than sorry.

Now to tuck under the cut edges before stitching down with matching thread, then remove the basting stitches. The same basic idea is done on the bottom edge as well.

Now for a little decoration. I purposely did not trim the top and bottom since that would be way to predictable. Instead I thought I would sew a narrow velvet ribbon in just the right place, which reminds me of an empire waist dress. The delicate vintage glass beaded flowers and leaves complete with rust and loose strings, give me a touch of the crumpled look I was originally thinking of, but went instead with simple and clean.