Change - upcycling a lampshade with embroidery!

This month, the Endeavourer's challenge is Change or Transformation.  I've had that kicking around in the back of my head these past weeks so, when mum was throwing out some old lampshades,  I thought hang on, I'll have a go at upcycling them. 

I snipped the threads holding the pleats together and did my best to iron them flat - quite tricky ironing a curved surface!

I spent quite a bit of time doodling flowers, somehow my doodles are always with quilting in mind so as many continuous lines as possible and a 2D flat surface is always the result.  I eventually settled on a big bloom with some leaves and a fancy centre.

I used a blue water erasable marker to trace around the outside and redraw my design on the lampshade.

I was torn between colour families and settled on the warmer grouping though I think the bright pink I would change if I was making again.  The stitches are herringbone for the leaves, chain stitch for the lines and french knots for the dots.

There was a problem with bleeding of the blue marker even though I thoroughly wet the lampshade 3 times.  One of my work colleagues advised me to try green fairy liquid - swears by it for its stain removing qualities (the shade was a bit grubby in places too so I thought why not?)

It worked a treat! 

I let it to dry in the windowsill and and now I know the blue marks are gone and this can actually be used I'm going to add a little bit of vine stem to it too to lessen all that white.

So this was the inspiration for the make I eventually did for the challenge - a quilted cushion.

To read more about the cushion or the Endeavourer's challenge please visit the blog page here.  My project was a small one this time around as I got quite distracted drawing flowers, making paper flower, framing cut paperwork and adding wallpaper to our hall underneath the dogs hall of fame!  Procrafternation at its best!