This week’s giveaway was from an amazing artist: Heather Saulsbury of the Creatively Happy blog and podcast (please check out both!) I figured it was only fitting for my donation this week to an art project, so of course I was reminded of my promise to Christen Mattix. She is knitting a blue yarn line to the sea from a park bench on the street. It’s part performance art, part yarnbombing, all amazing. Anyway, on one of her posts about what should happen when the line finally hits the water, I commented:
Friend, I am many things, but I am not a liar. Scratch that, I totally lie all the time. No, not all the time. Like, what would you say is an acceptable percentage? All right already, let’s just say I made the pom-poms and get on with it, eh?
My mom taught me before to make pom-poms with two cardboard discs, but I totally forgot how (even though I blogged about it). This video by Bernat Yarn is amazing, except that it mentions a template that I don’t have – I just used a duct tape roll for the outer circle and a scotch tape roll for the inner circle. If you watch the video for 1 minute and then say I got it, ya don’t. Watch the whole thing or you’ll totally miss the ingenious tips about cutting (not that I did that).
Is there anything better than cutting into a pom-pom and watching all the tiny strings break away?
Man, I really used that template up.
For the smaller pom-poms, I used the fork-method and some really aggressive trimming. You can google the technique, or check out the book Pom-Poms, which is where I learned it. The boys helped me with this a little bit, but they don’t quite have the hand-eye coordination for tiny, perfect movements yet and their forks looked like they had been attacked by rebellious blue spaghetti.
So, if you didn’t make a blood oath to Christen, you’re probably wondering how else to use a pom-pom for good?
- I attended a class with author Leanne Prain, and she said pom-poms are the perfect way to get a kid started on yarnbombing. I trust her because she did, like, write the book on it.
- Have a friend who is stretched a little too thin? What about making her a pom-pom wreath or garland and leaving it on her porch? Or maybe the two of you could make the same thing for a local senior center/classroom/new local business…whatever!
- Knit the Bridge (which just won a Mayor’s Award – congratulations!) is starting on a new project called Pop des Fleurs that will require a LOT of handmade flowers for the testing and installation phases. Check out their “puff flower” tutorial here.
- Pom-pom hats are totally in right now, and that might come in handy next week…
And after you’re done with all that making, you deserve a little reward! So our randomly selected winner for today is:
Congratulations to Carina, who just happens to be the awesome crocheter and knitter behind the blog Häkelmonster! I hope you enjoy Heather’s prize-pack of awesomeness!
Bye,
Jenny Brown
Hi, Jenny! I’ve missed you! ♡ Your posts always cheer me up and make me giggle & pompoms always make me happy. I still make them old school . . . on my fingers. I think my favoritest pompom was the one at the end of my winter stocking cap. I used to love flipping & swinging that pompom around like a yarn tetherball! p.s. Yes, I was tetherball champ of my grade school, in case you were wondering. : )
Hi, Nancy! Yeah, me too! Long time, no talk. I have a lot of pom-pom memories, too (thank goodness for crafty mothers). Ha ha – congrats on your tetherball championship!