I realised I hadn’t written a blog post on here for a long long time, sorry! It’s usually a sign that things are busy but no excuse really as it may look as though I’m not here any more. And I definitely am!
Lampshade orders are still busy and I have also run a few workshops already this year so all good. I’m also getting more and more into my art and on my second booking of a printmaking course at South Hill Park every Monday which I absolutely love. I’ve found my thing (aside from lampshades of course!) I’m working on a website for that at the moment so I’ll share it once it’s up and running.
I also work part time in Toast in Marlow which has been amazing for the social side and also for inspiration for my art. It means my lead time for lampshades is 3 weeks (but often quicker). I’m just trying to keep time in my diary for art every week rather than rushing through orders and running out of time for it. It’s all about balance isn’t it?!
So here you go, a few of the lampshades I have made recently. You can find lots more on my instagram feed here.
Get in touch if you’d like a lampshade made or recovered, I’d love to hear from you.
And if you’d like to follow my printmaking journey too, you’ll find me at Julie Gardner Art here. Thank you!
I thought it was a good time to do a round up of last year, we are over half way through January after all! I always find it helpful to look through and realise how much I’ve achieved.
gilhoolie 2021 highlights went a bit like this (see images below from left to right):
My workshop was built in our garden in the spring of 2021. Oh my goodness, it’s amazing! So nice to have a dedicated space to be creative, as well as somewhere to greet lampshade customers (and store all those ring sets!)
I attended a brilliant lino cutting workshop near Oxford which reignited my passion for the craft. It’s on my list to do more of this year. Read about my day here.
I made lots more bespoke machine embroidered lampshades – this is one of my favourites, I love the yellow French knots. I have just finished a commission but will be starting some more of my own designs very soon, watch this space! See more in my shop.
As 3 above – this is the finished lampshade – colourful flowers embroidered onto a natural linen fabric, with a navy braid on the top and bottom rings.
Gold lined lampshades were very popular with clients – this one was made using a striking wallpaper, with mirrored gold lining and a dusky pink trim.
I reached 1000 followers on Instagram – quite an achievement for me, and I enjoyed embroidering this foxglove to commemorate it!
I made lots of little candle clip lampshades and particularly liked this fabric from Charlotte Gaisford, they worked out beautifully.
gilhoolie house illustrations – these are still going on in the background and I’m always over the moon when I’m commissioned to draw one. Drawn in black ink, with a printed gilhoolie patterned sky, a message at the bottom and the option to add a pet (I’ll do my best to capture a likeness!) This was of a family holiday home, a bit different from the usual requests but great fun to draw.
Last but not least, we had to say goodbye to our much loved miniature schnauzer Arthur just before Christmas. I’m still heartbroken but feeling a lot better (most of the time…)
I think I’ll write a separate blog post on my plans for 2022, I’m still going through ideas in my head, in amongst working on lots of lampshade orders!
My workshop
Lino printing in OxfordFrench knots embroiderygilhoolie embroidered lampshadeGold lined wallpaper lampshade1000 followers on Insta!Candle clip lampshadesgilhoolie house drawingLovely little Arthur
Whenever I look at art I’m always drawn to prints – mostly screen prints and lino prints, it’s something about the clean lines I think. So I still dream of one day being a proper artist who spends all day printing beautiful prints to sell. I kind of think I will one day, when life is a bit quieter and I have more time. Right now (and it’s partly my own fault) I seem to always be rushing from one thing to another. From lampshades to drawing to sewing and back again, plus I also do some admin and social media work for small companies on the side. It’s all good though as I’m someone who really struggles when I don’t have enough to do. I’m already a little nervous about the winter coming up as without the work in the garden to fill my time I’ll need to fill it with something else. I’m seriously thinking about making a quilt, never done it before and it might be a rewarding thing to do and will keep my hands busy.
Anyway, I was dreaming about being a lino print artist a while ago and decided to find myself a course to go on. I’ve done it before but sometimes a course is just what you need to feel inspired and to build your confidence. I soon came across a course in Oxford, run by Claire Florey-Hitchcox. Have a look here.
I found a few courses but immediately loved Claire’s own work and it was only 30 minutes from home so it kind of felt just right. The course I attended was for printing onto fabric so that one day I might be able to print my own designs to make into lampshades. Another dream of mine! I also thought I might be able to add some machine embroidery but that’s just me running before I can walk as usual…
The day was amazing, I loved it. Claire started by showing us all the different tools and linos available and we had a go at cutting different lines and patterns. I’d never thought of getting tools from the shed and hitting them with a hammer to make marks in the lino!
Then we started our own designs, tracing them onto the lino and cutting out, all under Claire’s guidance and with little extra tips shared along the way. Lunch was spent in the gorgeous garden, surrounded by wildlife and the odd chicken walking past. It was so nice to be away from home and chatting with other creative people in the countryside, I must do something like this again very soon.
Here is my lino cut design of a protea flower:
Great tip – using the side of a spoon to make the tracing lines go through!My design ready for cuttingReally enjoyed this bit! Cutting away the outside too.Scary bit – printing on fabric, keeping it straight!
This was five weeks ago and I have to admit I haven’t done any lino printing since. But I will! I just need to order some more equipment and fabric. It’ll be something else to do in the winter to keep busy. Watch this space, there may be printed gilhoolie lampshades coming soon!
Most of the time I’m working on orders that come in from interior designers who I work with regularly, and clients that find me on Google, from all over the UK. But when I get some free time I always go back to doing something creative, like drawing or working on my machine embroidered lampshades. I even bought a new shelf for my workshop to display them on (which I’m hoping my lovely husband will put up above my desk for me this weekend). Don’t get me wrong, as I don’t work full time I also get to do most of the errands and driving around, and housework, washing, ironing, gardening, cooking etc etc (but I’m not complaining!) I’m very lucky that running a creative business lets me do a bit of everything, including volunteering once a week which I love and find really rewarding (and lots of dog walks with friends, with the odd coffee thrown in). Can you tell I like to be busy?!
My next task for gilhoolie is getting kind of urgent now and it is to set up some kind of shop page on here so that you can buy these embroidered lampshades, or maybe I’ll just put them on Etsy, I’m not sure yet. They take a long time to make and the process itself is all very organic, that’s what I love about them. No two will be the same and they all feature my illustrations of flowers, taken from gardens I visit as well as the botanical books I seem to be collecting. I feel very lucky that I have the time to do this and now that I have my workshop to work in there are simply no excuses! The new space is working out brilliantly for making lampshades and being creative too, especially as I’m in the heart of the garden which is looking lush right now by the way.
Here is my latest lampshade creation in front of our new veg patch (lots of scrummy courgettes, tomatoes, beetroot, rhubarb, peas, French beans and broad beans in our cooking right now!)
And below are a few close ups going around the lampshade. The first is an allium as it’s opening up. The second is supposed to be a hellebore but it changed a bit as I started working. And I’m not sure what the third yellow one is but it’s out of an amazing book I found in Waterstones when we were in Bath recently. Spot the buzzy bee too, about to land on the hellebore!
This time next week I’ll be on a lino printing course in Oxfordshire as I’d really like to have a go at printing my own fabric again. I’m thinking about combining the machine embroidery with printing but not sure if I’m being a bit too optimistic, we shall see, watch this space! Thank you for reading…
Please visit my new shop to buy this embroidered lampshade and other one off gilhoolie designs.
I thought it was about time I shared some pics on here of my new lampshade workshop. It was built in our garden over a couple of months earlier this year. You know when you think, ah it’ll only take 2 weeks and then it turns into 2 or 3 months?! Well, that was partly our fault as we added some landscaping to the garden too, with a new garden path, a new flowerbed and two new raised beds for growing veggies.
Before I show you, I thought I’d mention why this is a good thing for my clients too, not just a nice space for me to work in. From now on when you come to collect a lampshade order, or come to enquire about lampshades, you can come round the back of our house to my workshop. There you’ll find lots of lampshade ring sizes to choose from, lampshade PVC lining samples as well as my plain fabric selection (a cotton from Villa Nova Seville). You can even bring your lamp with you if you like so that we can see what shapes and sizes will look best. I don’t have lots of samples of lampshades I’m afraid (being bespoke, everything I make goes out the workshop pretty much straight away). But I can also draw out your lamp base to size to help you visualise things.
This is my daily commute from the back door, across the patio and up the garden path:
I have been working out here now for a few months and I absolutely love it. The first week felt a bit strange being away from the house but now I’m so glad we did it. My lampshade ‘stuff’ (ring sets, PVC, cutting mats, equipment, art bits and bobs, lots of fabric remnants) had started to take over the house. And as I was using the dining room table I had to tidy everything away at the end of each day. Not great but on the other hand I also loved the space in the house and it worked well enough for nearly ten years…
My new workshop isn’t far from the house and it looks out onto our new veg patches, with peas, broad beans, rhubarb, raspberries, lettuce, beetroot and tomatoes. There is a new crunchy pebble path that leads from the patio to the workshop which feels a bit like walking on a beach but is also great as I can hear people coming up it towards me! I tend to get very absorbed in what I’m doing and am easily spooked otherwise!
We planned out what would go inside early on and I’m really happy with our finds, including:
A great workbench from Arbor Garden Solutions – it’s on wheels and is at the perfect height for standing and cutting PVC. No more back ache! There is also lots of storage underneath for PVC and ring sets.
A gorgeous quirky desk chair from Anthropologie (very me!) and a cute little bamboo desk from Ikea which is perfect for my laptop but also for my sewing machine.
A green metal trolley from Ikea – so handy for all my lampshade tools – no more hunting around in my tool box, everything is really accessible now.
The cupboard and shelving unit came from our house and were soon filled with fabric off cuts, my growing collection of botanical books and my embroidered lampshades.
Of course, Arthur has a bed out here too and usually comes and joins me while I’m working. Otherwise he’ll be wandering around in the garden next to me.
The walls and ceiling are painted in Little Greene Boxington and the woodwork is Olive Green. I decided to be bold, this space will be great for experimenting in interiors as well as art and lampshades! My next project in between lampshade orders and machine embroidery is to paint a mural on one of the walls of lots of flowers and leaves from my sketchbook. It’ll take a while but there’s no rush, I want to just add to it a bit at a time rather than planning it out. I’ll post more photos on here and Instagram once I have done some more (just a few flowers at the moment, it feels very strange drawing on a newly painted wall!)
I’m looking forward to welcoming lots more lampshade clients to my workshop. I’ve already had a handful collect their lampshades from here and it feels so much nicer and more professional than coming to the front door of our house. I just need to sort out a sign for deliveries as my husband is getting fed up having to take them all the time! I’ll add it to my list of things to do…
Last week I finished working on a rather special embroidered lampshade commission for a lady in Wimbledon. The brief was to make two large drums for her daughter’s bedrooms using ticking fabric that matched the roman blinds. They could be slightly different but with the same theme – Cracker the much adored family pet – a cheeky black working cocker spaniel. The design was to be a story along the bottom of the lampshade, with Cracker walking through flowers on one side and more flowers, a watering can, bone, ball and toppled over (I wonder who by!) plant pot opposite.
The design developed as we emailed backwards and forwards and spoke over the phone – I worked on sketches from photos of Cracker and we decided on the story we wanted the lampshades to tell. All part of the creative process which I love. Even down to the colour of her collar (orange) and her little name tag with a letter C on it.
Most of the stitching is in a dark grey but I also added some black to draw Cracker’s fur, and some white on the darker flowers to make them stand out. I added a mustard yellow French knot on each of the daisy flowers.
They were finished off with a beautiful simple plain straight braid from JA Milton in a gorgeous green on the top and bottom rings. We thought it looked a bit like Cracker was walking on grass and it contrasts really well with the other colours in the stitching and appliqued fabric.
See for yourself on the many photos below, from the initial design drawing to the finished pieces of art in situ. I hope the little girls love and treasure them as much as I enjoyed making them! One of the girls is apparently angling for anther puppy, spot the sign behind one of the lampshades 🙂
If you would like to commission your very own piece of art on a lampshade do get in touch, I’d love to hear from you!
My initial drawingDrying on the line with Arthur!Close up of machine embroideryNotice the plant pot has toppled over!French knot hand embroidery on the daisyThe finished lampshades in my new workshop!One of the lampshades in situOlivia wants (another) puppy!
It’s not every day I’m asked to make a lampshade for an RAF fighter pilot. It’s more likely to be interior designers or curtain makers! I didn’t realise Clive was an ex fighter pilot until he sent me this lovely review after receiving his new lampshade in the post:
The lampshade arrived this morning, safe and sound and completely undamaged. We love it. It is even better than we’d hoped. It was a bit of a guess as to the dimensions and shape on our behalf, but it is perfect and makes our standard lamp look much more modern and contemporary as well as fitting in with the new décor. The way you decided to run the pattern on the fabric is right too. This standard lamp is actually rather special. The stainless steel stem was once the pitot tube sticking out the front of a supersonic Lightning jet fighter, a type of aircraft that I flew for 7 years during my 36-year career as an RAF fighter pilot. It will have flown supersonic on many occasions, so this a sort of supersonic standard lamp! When the Lightning was retired from RAF service I acquired this pitot tube and made it into a standard lamp myself. Thanks for making this for us and for the service you have provided throughout.
Clive from Horncastle
What an amazing story! I don’t think I have made a lampshade for an RAF fighter pilot before and I love the fact that Clive made the standard lamp himself too. It all sounds a bit like the Repair Shop doesn’t it?!
The lampshade itself was super big, and covered in a lovely simple geometric print linen fabric from Ada & Ina. Usually I would advise clients to steer clear of geometric prints for empire lampshades (smaller at the top than at the bottom) as the pattern tends to twist as you go round the lampshade, but in this case it all worked out really well.
For more ideas on fabrics for your lampshades have a look at some of our favourites here. And get in touch if you have a treasured lamp stand that needs a new lampshade!
Here it is in situ on the stand (always great when clients send their own photos to me too!)
A lot of my lampshade orders come from clients who find me on Google searches but I also have a few local Interior Designers and curtain makers that have been ordering from me since I started gilhoolie. It works really well and I love having a relationship with them (must try and grow this in 2021!) – I can advise them on fabrics as well as shapes and sizes of lampshades (see my guidelines if you need help with this). It’s also a great way for them to use up spare fabric that would otherwise go to waste or sit gathering dust in their workshops.
2020 has been a strange year but I have felt blessed that many people have taken this time to update their homes by ordering bespoke lampshades. The gilhoolie Design Assistance service that was going so well up until Covid has suffered a lot as designers have cut back but I hope that will pick up again sometime next year.
Anyway, I thought I’d share with you some of the orders from Interior Designers this year and give them a little mention at the same time. The main orders have been from Niki Schafer, Samantha Johnson and The Silk Road, thank you to all of them! And thank you to Sarah Wooldridge who lives along my road and is very kind helping with ordering fabric and samples for my clients, I really appreciate it!
If you are an interior designer who would like to discuss ordering bespoke lampshades with gilhoolie do get in touch, I’d love to hear from you…
Who doesn’t love a wedding? (I can’t personally remember the last one I went to and I’m sure they have been a lot different this year)… But I’m a bit of a romantic and they make me very happy and emotional, all is good in the world and everyone is kind (sorry, very sickly). So when Nicola emailed me to ask if I could make lampshades from her wedding table runners I felt a warm feeling inside (sorry again). What a great thing to do! And of course I said yes straight away. Who wouldn’t?!
The runners featured palm leaves in a gorgeous green and Nicola decided to go for gold pvc for the inside of the lampshades to add contrast. What a great combination. I have to say, it was a bit nerve wracking cutting them up and making the lampshades (not that I make mistakes too often, thank goodness :-))
Here they are – 2 really big 50cm diameter drum lampshades and a smaller 40cm one. I was so pleased with the finished result, very stylish indeed. More importantly, Nicola really liked them when she came to collect and is looking forward to putting them up when they move back into their house which is being renovated. I can’t wait to see photos of them in situ.
If you have some treasured fabric you’d like making into lampshades do get in touch! And read Nicola’s testimonial (along with lots of others!) here.
I made a note a few months ago to write a blog post once I had finished a really big lampshade order. But things have been so busy since then, I’m only just getting round to it, sorry! Some of lock down (especially the beginning when I was doing Joe Wick’s workout every morning and taking Arthur for a long walk to fill my time) was very quiet but the summer was pretty busy. I guess people were spending more time at home and wanting to make small changes to their interior that were easy to do from home. Great for lampshade makers like me 🙂
It all worked really well at gilhoolie in terms of social distancing – my workshop is at the back of the house so clients just came through the side gate and we discussed things on the patio, at a distance. I’m glad I could still see clients when they dropped off lampshades to discuss fabrics and linings, and especially when they came to collect their shiny new lampshades later on. I’m not sure how it’s going to work over the winter but as long as it isn’t raining I can continue like this without any problems. One of my jobs this half term is to start collecting quotes for building a proper workshop in the garden. I’ve been planning it out to make sure I have enough space for working, sewing, drawing and storage too, lots to think about!
Anyway, back to my biggest lampshade order yet! The order was for an interior designer in Surrey and involved lots and lots of different sized lampshades which needed recovering. Some of them were really big, I remember laying the PVC out on the lawn to try and work out how much I would need for them all. The client wanted them to have black fittings and gold embossed PVC linings. Standard lampshade fittings usually come in white but it isn’t difficult to spray them a new colour and it adds interest to the inside of a lampshade.
I ordered some graffiti primer, paint and varnish from VIP in London and when it arrived I set to spraying them on an old decorating sheet in the garden on a nice summer’s day. They looked great all shiny and black! I also remember sitting in our front room finishing off the lampshades with a fan directed at me as it was too hot to work in my workshop. As I write this it’s all cold and wet and gloomy outside…
I have been going through my phone photos taken over the last few months to find ones for this blog post and there are an awful lot of lampshades to share with you. Maybe I’ll do another post showing you all of them next. I often forget just how much I have done.
Here are a few of the black and gold lampshades at various stages of making, don’t they look smart?! I love the before shot with several lampshades that are dented and bashed, with Arthur lying in front.
If you have a lampshade that has seen better days, just get in touch for a quote to have it recovered with lovely new fabric and shiny new linings and fittings. Check out our lampshade guidelines and frequently asked questions for advice.
