Making Ruffled Lampshades

My little chandelier lampshades were just a bit on the "blah" side. I would look at them and think, "they need a bit of something". You have often heard bloggers talk about shopping their house. That is just what I did...I remembered that I had bought trim for the curtains in the breakfast room, but didn't purchase enough and ended up buying a tassel trim. So I dug that out, then I thought to myself...I have a lot of fabric left over from the curtains, I wonder what a little ruffle would look like added to it also!

I sort of remembered how to make a ruffle. I had made Lindsey a couple of summer outfits awhile ago and they had ruffled trim. I cut a 4 inch strip from 60 inch material, folded it in half and pressed it. You really only need to double the length around the base of your shade, that will give you plenty of gathers. Too much gathered material is too bulky.

Using a wide stitch and the tension very loose, I stitched 3/4" away from the raw edges. Then I did a second row of stitching about 1/8" from the first one. I learned the hard way that gathering threads break VERY easily and the gathers look prettier when pulled by two threads. This is the part that took the longest...even being careful, I broke a lot of my gathering threads!

Using Eileen's Tacky Glue, I glued the ruffle along the edge of the bottom of the lampshade.
Then glued my trim on top to cover the rough edge. Of course, needing to frou frou just a bit more, I added more trim to the top!


It only took me a couple of hours to complete them,
and I think they turned out pretty cute!

Viola!
So if you are looking for a fun, fast project
make some ruffled lampshades!
~Jill~