I teach sewing classes at Made on Marion in Wellington, but for the last couple of years Maryanne has been teaching lampshade making classes, and I have been soooo envious.

Not because I want to teach lampshade making (for one thing, I didn’t know how to make a lampshade), but because all the lampshades that came out of the class were sooo gorgeous, and I desperately wanted to take the class and make my own!

Unfortunately, out old flat was really, really small, and there was simply no-where to put a lamp, plus, I didn’t want to make one that might not go with a house if we managed to buy one!

But, yay, back in Feb we bought our house, and as soon as we did I was on the hunt for lamps and lampstands!

In June, I had a lampstand (and some lamps) and a free weekend, so major excitement: class time!

Not only did I get to take the class, but I got to take it with Madame O: sooo fun!

Madame O picked a fabulous toile de jouy style fabric featuring telephone boxes and angel statues covering their eyes (don’t blink), and at the last minute I found a striking  black and white fabric with foxes and houses and mushrooms and snails and turnips and artichoke trees and other awesomeness.

Following the clear and entertaining instructions from Maryanne we were off, cutting and measuring and glueing and taping and rolling, helping each other along and admiring the fabrics that other students  brought in.

Maryanne is an excellent teacher, and it was so much fun to be a student for once!

Lampshade making turned out to be really easy, but in the ‘if you are taught to do it and someone worked  out all the tricky bits it’s a breeze’ sense of easy, not the ‘anyone could figure this out’ type of easy, so I was really glad I didn’t try to struggle through the frustration of just having a go!

After lots of giggles, and lots of information, and lots of “Ah-hah!  That’s how they do it!” moments, I had a lampshade:

Sooooo exciting!

Check out how gorgeous our lampshades are!

As much as I love my fabric, Madame O’s  toile is sooo covetable!  Unfortunately, the only place in our house it would work is as bedside lamps, and that might be just a little too scary.  Don’t blink!

Having taken the class, I was addicted!  I immediately bought two more kits for standing lamps (best part about the kits?  Most of the materials are made in New Zealand!), and made them up:

The grey and sulpher yellow on linen is a reproduction print from Winterthur, and goes in our lounge.  You may have seen it in situ in my post about our house.

And the chintz is a fabric I found at an op-shop ages ago, and hoarded it in wait of a house.  It goes in the guest bedroom, which is eventually going to be chinoiserie themed.

I love the creepy little birds on the chintz!

If you are in Wellington, or can come up for a weekend, I highly recommend the lampshade making class.  So fun, and so satisfying (and I’m not just saying that because Maryanne is a friend and I’m associated with Made on Marion – I have to really love something to write a rave blog post, otherwise I grumble all the way through it, as you well know 😉 ) !

Maryanne also offers lampshade making  in Martinborough  every few months, and if you are further afield you can order kits (complete with instructions!) off of etsy.

And that’s my first post about making something for the house!  Happiness!