The designers Ellen Seegers and Arno Tummers of Dutch studio Beelden Bouwers are reusing surplus wool to create lamp shades. Cleverly named, Woollight brings warmth and color to northern nights by wrapping light in wool. The best thing about Woollight-besides its name-is that the wool is not next to your skin! (Can you tell I detest the feel of wool, no matter what the temperature?) By wrapping shades in wool, the lights take on a Nordic feel, as cozy and warm as casks of mead.

Woollight. Designed by Ellen Seegers and Arno Tummers of Beelden Bouwers.

Woollight is like draping sunshine in a sweater. Unlike the typical Fair Isle patterns, however, Woollight uses a minimalist palette and takes full advantage of the wool's texture. Yes, the thick wool looks particularly interesting as a shade, and this emphasis on texture is further intensified by Woollight's stitching technique, a crude thick stitch that joins the wool pieces together like patchwork.

I have gone on and on in past posts about the ingenuity of the Dutch-and the roots underlying this ingenuity (it's not the obvious answer). The Dutch seem to have inherited an intense sense of the whimsical and fantastic (think of Bosch and Appel) coupled with a rigorous, no-frills approach to design (Mondrian) and a focus on light (Vermeer)-design philosophies which combine seamlessly in the composition of Woollight. That Beelden Bouwers' lampshade also uses repurposed wool is another delight-the Woollight is as green as it is red or blue or any other hue. Hang one of these in your den to brighten up winter reading or hang a constellation in a bar to darken the mood-it turns out wool can be sexy once its been stretched, stitched, and switched on.