Happy Yellow Pendant Lamp
Tuesday, February 2, 2010 at 11:43AM 
I love this lamp. Don't you love this lamp? I think it would be perfect for our new house...maybe over the dining room table. Of course, this lamp is waaaaaay out of my budget, but I think maybe (just maybe!) I could DIY something close to this with a basic IKEA pendant lamp and some thick, bright yellow wool blend felt. Off the top of my head, I think I could do it for at least half, maybe 3/4 less than the price of the Anthro lamp. Maybe even less.
Anthro sourced their felt from filzfelt, but this particular yellow felt runs for $49.50 per half yard (OMG!). 100% wool felt would be my first choice if I coud afford it, but it is expensive. I think that this 70% wool/30% rayon craft felt might work instead though it's about half the thickness.
Close?
Way too orange, right?
They offer free color swatches (thank goodness!) so I can check the color and thickness.
Another option would be to buy squares rather than yardage of the 100% wool 3mm felt since the pendant shade is made out of smaller pieces of felt sewed together. I'd have to figure out how many and what size squares I'd need. Also, colors choices:
Canary
Yellow
I bought a yard of thickish (though not 3mm thick) green synthetic felt for C's Halloween costume this year (he wanted to be Jr. Asparagus from Veggie Tales) from a store in the fabric district downtown so I'll probably go looking over there for options before I buy anything online. I am a little worried about flammability so close to a lightbulb. I wish I knew more about felt! And lamps! Suggestions? Anybody?
(Panic!)
But if I learned anything from sewing my first Halloween costume (you try making an asparagus head!), it's that felt is really, really forgiving and therefore easy to work with. Notice how the Anthro lamp has its seams on the outside and yet still has a really clean look? I don't think I'd even dream of attempting my own pendant lamp shade out of regular fabric, but felt seems infinitely more approachable.
Am I crazy to think I could do this?
Reader Comments (2)
Haha, I immediately thought, "OMG, you were an asparagus head for Halloween? I NEED PICTURES!" and then I remembered ... oh yeahhhhh, you have kids. I still need pictures! Cute lamp!
LOL. To tell the truth, the asparagus head ended up being WAY too hot for C to wear all night. So after about 2 weeks of sewing, he wore the thing for about 15 minutes (plus pictures because damnit if I wasn't going to have a record of it!). So I ended up wearing the hat for most of the hour we went trick or treating. I was cold. It was warm. Whatevs. (I do have a picture of myself in it...)