Dangers of Craft Lamps – I nearly had a fire!

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Here’s the mini bunting I made from the scraps I was given last week!!

It hangs below my Angel in the front room – seems appropriate given what happened last week because – Oh my goodness –  I nearly had a fire!

The morning sun fills my craft room and makes it a very nice place to work. Last Thursday however it nearly caused a tragedy! Bright sunlight was streaming into the room and onto my lovely magnifier lamp which I use for close work and threading my overlocker.   Unfortunately the magnifier top  was burning my calendar!

I had woken earlier than usual and strangely for me had jumped straight up.   My husband was just leaving for work and as he left mentioned he thought there was a strange burning smell.  I had been doing pyrography  the night before and just thought it was a lingering smell from that.   However, as he left  I went into the craft room and noticed how strong the burning smell now was!     I couldn’t believe it when I saw that my calendar had a hole in it with the edges brown and the first whisps of smoke starting!   What a shock!  My eyes travelled from the smouldering calendar to the large magnifier lamp and the sunlight puring onto it!!   I quickly moved the lamp away from the window and covered the hole in my calendar with a metal tin, fortunately the smouldering died out!

It’s not very often these days that I am up before DH goes out and often it is an hour later when I arise.  In that time the fire could have taken hold and I could have lost all my fabric at the very least,  at worst the whole house could have gone up while we slept!!   I can’t help but think my Guardian Angel woke me up that morning and helped me get straight out of bed! (Thanks Dadxxx)

So if you have one of these lamps make sure it is not near a window or that you cover the glass magnifer top at all times – you never know when the sun will come out.  Hope none of the lovely crafters at the Handmade Monday linky party have had anything so scary happen?  but if you too have any danger warnings please let us all know!!

18 thoughts on “Dangers of Craft Lamps – I nearly had a fire!

  1. That does sound scary – glad nothing major happened.
    Luckily (or unluckily!) I’m in no danger of that with my workroom being below ground level and getting no sun 🙁

  2. That was lucky! It’s amazing that something so seemingly innocuose could cause so much potential damage.
    I like your pretty bunting.

  3. Oh wow, that was a lucky escape!! I’m glad that story had a happy ending and that your guardian angel had your back 🙂

    Something similar happened to me a few weeks ago – we popped to the pub for a quick drink, we were only gone half an hour but in that time the glove we use for our woodburner had fallen against it and started smouldering alongside a whole pile of dry kindling and logs….. the whole house was filled with smoke when we got back… i’m glad we didn’t stay for another drink!!! :/

    • Gosh, that was a shock for you too – at least when these things happen it forwarns us for the future. A friend has just commented on facebook that glass paper weights can do the same thing!!

  4. That was fortunate, I think God / Guardian Angels do have a definite role in keeping us safe. Have heard of cross stitchers who have had near misses with magnifiers and sunlight too. Glad you’re all ok xx

  5. So glad everything worked out okay. It reminded me of an occasion about 25 years ago when I woke in the night because I though I could smell something and our fairly new tumble dryer had overheated and set on fire. I smelt it before there was smoke to set off the smoke alarm. It made me so nervous and I’ve never left electrical appliances running while we’ve slept since. It’s meant to be a good week for you 🙂

  6. Eek! We once had a similar problem when I was little, a mirror hanging over the mantlepiece that set fire to a cushion… burning feathers is a smell you never forget!

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