Time, I am sorry to inform you, reduces the original glory of all things. This is especially true of lampshades. I mean, who ever gives more than a passing thought to lampshades? You switch on the light, you pick up your needlework. You don’t even look at the lampshade.

Then one day, it happens. Well, it happened to me, anyway. I became intensely aware that the shade on the small, white ginger jar lamp had faded to a truly obnoxious shade of pink. Worse, the white flower motif on the shade now looked more like smashed slugs than flower blossoms.

The lamp and its shade had been a fixture in my house, I calculated, for more than 15 years. It was definitely time for a change. I’d buy a new lampshade – how simple. Silly me. Little did I know what a thrash that would be. My lampshade turned out to be an odd size, small, but not that small, and not nearly as large as the lampshades offered for sale at several stores I visited.

I tried calling a few stores, but they didn’t have what I wanted or they didn’t sell lampshades. I asked around, but no one seemed to know where a broad selection of lampshades in the Bangor area might be found.

My choices were clear: buy a new lamp equipped with a shade, put up with the old lampshade and go on not noticing it, or make a lampshade. The idea of making one intrigued me, of course, but I wasn’t really all that keen about it. I thought it would be more trouble than it was worth. I decided to take the path of least aggravation and forget about it for six months. But, like I said, time tatters all things – even one’s reluctance to make a lampshade.

So one Sunday afternoon when tendrils of spring fever twined around me and I was chirping around the house convinced nothing was impossible, I took the offending lampshade apart. I traced its shape onto sturdy, off-white paper embellished with petals and bits of grass, and cut it out with scissors. That was easy enough. I felt my confidence ramp up a bit. The next step was to wrap the arc of the new shade around the bottom metal ring and the smaller top one. Armed with a bottle of white glue and a bottle of carpenter’s yellow glue, I grappled with the problem, but succeeded only in sticking my fingers to the table where the glue had dripped off the metal rings.

Obviously, what little I knew about making a lampshade wasn’t helpful. I needed written instructions, but no books on my shelf yielded the information I sought.

When in doubt, I reach for clothespins. I used them to clamp the rings to the paper arc and, without too much fuss, I glued together the spot where the edges of the arc overlapped.

But how was I going to attach those rings to the paper? It was time to think outside the glue bottle. I found a spool of pale blue satin cord intended for crocheting or knitting, fetched a large, sharp needle and using an overhand stitch, I sewed the rings to the paper lampshade.

And there I had it: a brand-new lampshade that looked terrific on my little white lamp.

But now I wish I’d pierced it. An the article about making lampshades that I finally found in an old magazine at the bottom of my notorious trunk said I should have done the piercing before I attached the lampshade to the rings. Oh, well. I decided to forget the piercing and enjoy the lampshade for what it is – a first attempt at something new.

Snippets

. More than 450 people attended the Orono Bicentennial Quilt Show April 28-29 in Orono. The Viewers’ Choice awards went to Jean Campbell, of Bangor Bear Paws Quilters, first and third places; and to Nancy Jordon of the Orono Quilters, second and fourth places.

Call Ardeana Hamlin at 990-8153, or e-mail ahamlin@bangordailynews.net.