I’m starting on the 4th in a series of lamp commissions that I have been working on— and blogging about— for over a year (the first time I blogged about them was March 16, 2018). This time, my clients purchased a lovely Robert Abbey lamp, which included the metal shade shown on the left of this photo. The hardware is beautiful and functional and the idea is to swap out the metal shade with a custom stained glass shade that compliments the other 3 lamps that I had made for them previously. Since the size of the accompanying shade feels right, I used those dimensions to begin creating the stained glass shade. I decided to create cardboard models in different shapes with the same top and bottom opening and length of the original shade. Using circles the same size as each end of the metal cone, I started drawing on paper and then cutting the sides out of cardboard. I created the four-sided shape first but it seemed too boxy and clunky. As soon as I drew the eight sided shape, I knew the sides would be too tight around the light bulb and it looked too fussy. It was the Goldilocks problem: one was too big and the other was too small. The logical choice was a six sided shape, a hexagon, but this tested my geometry skills as I reached way back into my brain to divide the circles into six equal parts; true story, I finally gave up and watched more YouTube videos. You might notice in the photo above, the paper divided into 6 pieces is not here. That’s because it was measured and remeasured, cut apart and put back together until it was unrecognizable but, ultimately, it gave me the measurements I needed to build the cardboard model. And that’s where it stands today—the size, shape and dimensions feel right to me. I will be sharing this with my clients and, if they approve it, it’s on to creating the pattern. More to come…