Twisted Lycra Lamp

Since the dawn of time wire hangers and stretchy fabric have gone together like Romeo and Juliet, like peanut butter and chocolate, like Crayons and coloring books. You get my point. I think this lamp looks a lot like what Martha Graham would have in her home. I love it with all of it’s twists and turns. One word of caution, yours will be totally different from mine because there is no way two of these can be the same!

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Twisted Lyrca Lamp

Materials:

1 yard of super stretchy Lycra or Spandex fabric
Sewing machine
3 wire hangers
6’ Socket and cord set
Needle and thread
Pliers
Straight pins

Instructions:

Unwind the 3 wire hangers so that they are just long pieces of wire.
Cut your Lycra/Spandex 20” by 36”.
Fold it in half, right sides together, and sew a 36” long tube out of your Lycra/Spandex. Turn it right side out.
Bend each wire hanger into an 18” diameter circle with the excess spiraling off.
Smoosh one wire circle and spiral inside the middle of the tube and the other two at each end with the circle part of the wire toward the mouth of each end of the tube.
Position the end wires so that there is 1” excess fabric. *This will be used to flip over and finish the edges later. Use your straight pins to keep all the wires in place.
With your needle and thread, stitch around the circle part of each wire only to keep in place so it doesn’t move inside of the tube.
Flip the 1” excess inside each mouth of your lamp and tack it down with the needle and thread. This hides the wire and gives it a nice finished feel.
Bend one of the end spiraling wires toward the top of the lamp so that it can wrap around the socket part of your socket and cord set and so that it keeps it in the center of your lamp and so the light bulb is not near the fabric at all.