Monday, February 13, 2012

Granny Love

The other day I showed you the progress I was making on a new granny square craft I was working on and I am happy to say it is finally finished! Even though I really enjoyed hearing your guesses on what it was going to be, no one pegged it. How about taking a closer look at the squares now and see if you can guess:


What's this? Glowing light coming from them? Yup! I made a granny square lamp shade cover! Finished project reveal!:

Link
Hooray! I actually blogged about wanting to make one of these back in January (link) and unlike many of my dreamed about but never executed projects, I actually made this one! It was, however, much more difficult than I had ever expected and hope this little lamp lasts my lifetime so I never have to try to recreate it.

So how did I manage to make this one? Well it started with a lamp. I searched many a thrift store in hopes of finding a simple and inexpensive lamp base but sadly was unsuccessful. I figured I might be able to find one at Wal-Mart and yet again there were no lamps to be found! Finally Fraser and I decided to try out Zellers and behold - one beat up bright red suede table lamp:


Yay! It was even 30% off making it a reasonable price for my experimental crafting. When I got it home I carefully ripped the red suede off the lamp shade and recovered it with some off white cotton I had left over from my craft show table cloth. I really wanted the finished product to have a nice neutral backdrop behind the squares and since the red certainly would not d0, the off white cotton was perfect! The stretched cotton turned out pretty well and I figure if I ever need a new career I should consider lamp shade recovering!

Then it was time to figure out my gauge so I could make a strip of squares that would match the size of the shade. Then it was just a matter of crocheting those squares, sewing them together, and getting them on the shade to get the finished product:


Tada! It would have been a much less frustrating project if I hadn't run out of the white cotton yarn halfway through, but that is just the way things go sometimes. My least favourite (and most time consuming) step was definitely trying to attach the granny square cozy to the shade. What a picky finicky mess that turned out to be! I single crocheted two rows on either side of the squares in hopes to have it slightly fold over the top and bottom of the shade. I then attempted to thread a draw string on either edge to cinch the cozy on, but the threaded draw strings kept snapping and after many attempted I figured it was hopeless. The granny square cozy really needed to be tight against the shade to look nice so I ended up running string inside the shade at the edge of each square like so:


Then it was just a matter of sewing the ends in and putting it on the lamp! Hurrah! Take a peek at the lamp when the light is off:


Yay! I love how it turned out, but I am particularly fond of how it looks with the light on:


Yipee! Although I do enjoy how nice it looked on the bookshelf in the living room, I did make the lamp for use in my craft room but with the rainy (and mild) weather we've been having I decided the bright daylight from the patio window doors would give me the best light to photograph with. So I'm dying to know - what do you think? Are you ready to attempt your own granny square lamp cozy?

14 comments:

  1. I am not ready to attempt my own granny square lamp cozy... But I think it's awesome!

    Fraser

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  2. Wow! You must take after your mother. Starting a big puzzle of a craft and hoping it turns out. It is lovely! Mom

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  3. Wow kate I LOVE it you did an amazing Job, it looks so pretty with the light on !

    Have an awesome monday (:

    Carmila Ponycat

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  4. I am most certainly not making one of those myself (having a giant granny square blanket it enough for me - the one you blogged about a zillion years ago from BUST), and the lampshade isn't really my style. However, I will certainly admire it whenever I'm at your house! It's perfect for your wish-I-were-an-old-lady-with-a-million-doilies style :)

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  5. Looks great, Kate! And I think the colours you chose work perfectly ^_^

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  6. LOVE THIS! It looks so great in the space too!

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  7. This to me is like a modern take on the granny, and I'm totally going to make one. I think the difference between old lady chic and modern is the color choice and the surprising placement on a lamp. And the string to attach was a brilliant idea.

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  8. This to me is like a modern take on the granny, and I'm totally going to make one. I think the difference between old lady chic and modern is the color choice and the surprising placement on a lamp. And the string to attach was a brilliant idea.

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  9. This is so great!!! Do you have the pattern for this and will you share it with us! Just AWESOME!!!

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    1. I don't think a pattern would work for this lamp because it all depends on the size of the lamp shade. It is just a rectangle of granny squares to fit the shade dimensions and then two rows of single crochet at the top and bottom.

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  10. Pattern Please!!!

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