Lovable Lampshade

I recently happened across this list of things to make out of yarn without the need to sew and as I currently have more yarn than I know what to do with naturally.  It was concluded that our bedroom could use a little splash of color and feeling emboldened by my previous attempt to update a lampshade I went for it. 

I followed the steps for this tutorial although I did end up making a couple of changes that suited my method and made sense to me.  Here we go!

The only light in our very dark bedroom comes from lamps so I opted to use lighter colors  in the hopes that a lot of light would still shine through.  While I chose to use three you could certainly use as many or as few as you wanted to create all sorts of different designs.  I may already be planning my next lampshade makeover in my head. :)

Ahh, the trusty plain IKEA lampshade...so versatile!

Place hot glue along the seam about 1" from the bottom of the shade.  Once the start of the yarn is glued in place go ahead and put the rest of the skein inside the lampshade.  As you work around you can pull from the middle which will make the project go faster, smoother, and with less tangled messes involved. 

Because my shade was slightly conical shaped I ended up placing 6-8 small bits of hot glue on the bottom strand to keep it from riding up the shade.  There was no need to continue this all the way up as I made sure to push the yarn down as I went which kept it from continuing to ride up.  If you're having a lot of issues you may be wrapping it too tightly.

When you're ready to begin the second color simply apply a small dot of glue where it will start and wrap the two colors around together a couple of times.  Don't cut anything just yet!

When you are done with a color simply put a dot of glue where you want it to end and pull it taught towards the top.  You will then wrap the second color over top of the first thus ensuring there are no ends to stick out. Once you've completed this all the way to to top cut your yarn and ensure it won't unravel with small bits of glue.  

This is what the back looks like.  You can see the slight bumps where the yarn colors were changed.  To cover the bottom simply take the first color, attach it where you started, and wrap down instead of up.  Feel free to use as much or as little glue as needed to keep the yarn from popping off of the top and bottom ends.  I found using small dots instead of long lines helped create a clean look.  

This is the front.  Don't worry about the odd bump you may find here or there as you can easily smooth them out with your fingers and a little pressure.

The finished product!   

It's interesting to me how much it looked and felt like the yarn was pushed closely together but as soon as light appears you see all of the cracks.

There you have it.  A completely redone lampshade in about an hour's time.  Not too shabby if I do say so myself.  

Tips & Tricks:

• Really, really, really be sure that you're keeping the strands of yarn close to each other.  It's easy to get caught up in how quickly you can go and forget to take this time.  Yes, you can do some of it at the end but it turns out much smoother if you work as you go.
• If you don't want to see very many gaps between strands of yarn try not to place any glue down at all (with the exception of the first strand of course) until you have seen what it will look like with light and pushed everything as close together as you'd like it to be.  
• Don't be afraid to use more glue if you need to.  The original tutorial called for hardly any glue at all but I found I needed more.  Even when I look closely I can't tell where I put dots of glue so don't be afraid that they'll show through.
• Keep your skeins of yarn inside the lampshade as you work.  I found it to be much easier to pull as I needed yarn even at the places where colors are changing out as opposed to the original tutorial where it is suggested you loosely wrap a couple of rows and then work with them.

Thanks for reading and happy crafting!