A gathered lampshade with a frilly bottom - Creating your own trim

Creating Your Own Trim

Another technique I'd love to share with you is making a bespoke trim from a fabric of your choice. It's a really easy way to give your lampshade even more of a special handmade touch.

What You Will Need

• Fabric
• Heavy duty clip
• Measuring tape or ruler
• Scissors
• Bias binding fusible tape
• Iron

Creating Your Own Trim

It's best if trim has a slight stretch to it, as this enables it to be positioned neatly around curved edges. When creating your own trim, you will need to cut the fabric 'on the bias', as this is the stretchiest part of the fabric. The bias is the diagonal line through a fabric, approximately at a 45 degree angle from the edge.

Step 1

Lay your fabric out flat and mark out the measurement of the circumference of the bottom ring of your lampshade plus 4 cm seam allowance.

Step 2

Mark 3 cm all the way along to create the width of your trim.

Step 3

Use scissors to cut out this strip of fabric.

Step 4

Repeat for the top ring of your lampshade, using the circumference measurement of the top ring plus 4 cm seam allowance for the length, and 3 cm again for the width.

Step 5

Lay your first length of fabric out flat and plug your iron in nearby so it is heating up and close to hand. Starting at one end, fold both sides of a small section of the fabric inwards to meet in the middle.

Step 6

Hold in place with one hand, and take your iron in the other and press the folds to secure them. Be extremely careful not to burn yourself, and keep your fingers out of the way when pressing.

Step 7

Clip this folded and pressed end of the fabric to your surface. Now work in sections to continue the same fold down the length of the fabric, pressing with the iron to secure as you go.

Step 8

When you have folded and ironed the entire length of the fabric, unclamp it from your surface. Take your bias binding fusible tape, and place it neatly on top of the fabric so that it sits within the edges. Use the iron to adhere the tape to the fabric.

Step 9

Once the tape is attached to the fabric, reclamp to the table. Pull the fabric taut, and carefully work along the length, positing the tape in place and ironing to adhere it as you go.

Step 10

As you reach the end, trim the tape to the same length as the fabric. You now have a trim that is ready to work with.

Step 11

Repeat this process for the second strip of fabric to create the trim for your top ring.