Occasionally, people ask me to make shades using dresses or other garments that have special meaning to them. The one pictured here is made from a cocktail dress of a friend's deceased mother. My friend held the dress for 30 years and wanted a keepsake, so I made this shade for her.

Please note that the lamp base and finial are for display only as, she already had a base that she wanted to use and this antique lamp base is slated for another restoration project. This was a "shade only" project.

Finding the Right Frame

My friend is not a fan of the "Victorian" style, so I went with this frame called "Gaslamp". The size seems to sit just between medium and small and while still considered a "Victorian" frame, it does not look much like one. It can fit inconspicuously into most home decor, and based on her description of the lamp base that the shade would eventually rest upon, this seemed like a good fit.

Here, you can see the process of the lining being sewn onto the shade.

Pairing of Vintage Fabrics

My friend's parents owned and operated a clothing store in the garment district of New York city for many, many decades. As you can imagine, her mother had some pretty fancy clothes. The material pictured above is from the deconstructed dress she gave me to use. While poorly represented in a photograph, the fabric has metallic threads crisscrossing the black vertical stitching. I think we pegged this dress as originating in the 1970's.

This fabric had such special meaning to her. She looked wistful when she said, "I can still remember what she looked like in this dress". I realized that my job was to make the best shade I could to help her preserve her treasured memories, and that is exactly what I set out to do.

It gets more interesting. In addition to providing me with her mother's dress, she also gave me her wedding dress. Long divorced and having only a son, she had no need for it anymore and she thought I could make good use of the raw silk fabric on a shade someday. Surprisingly, the wedding dress was an exact match in "off white" coloring as her mother's dress. So I secretly added some of her wedding dress onto the side panels.

Very Unique Bead-work

I regret not taking more pictures of the "making" process for this lampshade, but I'm glad to have snapped a closeup of the bead-work.

All hand-strung, this bead-work has some interesting features. In addition to the colored beads being an exact match to the colors in the fabric, I found some vintage long black twisted glass tube beads in the dark recesses of the bead store. Perfect. My photography skills fail me, but you might be able to work out the detail of the very bottom of the strands, which are handmade loops using four whites, one gold, a clear bottom crystal and back again to the black bead. They took forever to make!

For a little bit better look at the fabric on the shade here, I "pumped" the color on the photo in hope that you can see the metallic threads running throughout. Not something you see everyday.

Here you can also get a glimpse of the raw silk from her wedding dress on the narrow side panels.

I used a cotton/rayon black gimp trim on this shade in effort to compliment the black vertical stitching of the fabric. Usually, I never use striped fabric on lampshades because it is very difficult to keep the lines straight on curved surfaces. But in this case, it all seemed to work out well. Yay!

In this picture, the bead strands have been sewn on, and the bottom row of gimp trim is pinned in place.

Notice how the black beads fade into obscurity, giving the illusion of a "floating" lower ring of beads? Crazy fun.

Again, ignore that iron lamp base--I just needed stand to use while I worked on and photographed the shade.

The Finished Shade

Ta da! The shade is complete.

Finishing the story, I took the lamp to work and give it to her. She seemed pretty impressed with it. She did not mind that I added a touch of her dress to the shade, and we mused over how the shade represented two generations of her family. What she said next made me laugh out loud.."Well, I could eventually give it to my son. He could toss a sock onto it and it would cover three generation of our family!"

Thanks for viewing and happy #NeedleworkMonday!

Peace to you.

Needlework Monday! - A Handmade Heirloom Lampshade

Finding the Right Frame

Pairing of Vintage Fabrics

Very Unique Bead-work

The Finished Shade