Putting a little light on the subject

At last, it is finished! The first of my long-term projects which I showed in close-up earlier on this month. And here it is all done:

This is not its final resting place, as it will be going out in my shed/studio when that is decorated, but I put it on my bedside table just for now so you can admire it.

There's a lot of work gone into it. Firstly I wrapped the wire frame in pale blue silk. Then I crocheted squares in the right sizes to fill the gaps, attaching them as I went along. This was perhaps a little easier than you might think, as crochet is very stretchy so I didn't have to faff about with the pattern to make it fit the shape, just stretched it into place! For the second row down, I just used a slightly larger hook and slightly thicker yarn (I've used a mixture of silk and cotton, all hand-dyed by a lovely artist friend of mine).

The third row down was the trickiest as I had to increase the square towards the bottom - however after a bit of trial and error I found it easy enough to do.

However it really looks its best when you switch it on ...

Pretty, huh?