Pom-Poms

Fancy Pom-Poms

Have you ever seen fancy or decorative pom-poms?  The little balls of fluffy yarn that mysteriously have pictures or designs wrapped right in them... How do they do that?!?

With the help from a little online digging and lots of experimentation, I figured it out!

First of all, I made a quick trip to my craft store to pick up some pom pom makers - after doing some research on what looked best to buy.  I've had ones that are full complete circles and some that are partial circles - I didn't like either of them.  I made some that were heavy cardboard that worked pretty well, but I couldn't easily cut out small enough ones to use for making lots of poms without wasting too much yarn - yes I have tons of yarn, but you know, it's the principle of the thing.  Anyway, I picked up a pack of each of these:
   2 large pom pom makers   2 small pom pom makers

They work great and are very easy to use and to cut and tie when you are finished wrapping the pom pom.

Anyway, enough with the promotions of cool products (btw, I am an Amazon affiliate and I get a small donation to the blog if you make a purchase through a link posted here.)

Let's do an easy one and create a bulls-eye pom pom.  Start first by taking your pom pom maker and on just one half, only in the middle, wrap several wraps with your center color.  Wrap tightly to fit as many wraps as you can in only a small space.

Cover the center wraps with the 2nd color, then with the first color again.

Finishing with a layer of the 2nd color to finish off and fill the rest of that side of the loom.

Repeat with the other side of the loom, or wrap the other side in one solid color to keep the design on one half of the pom pom.

Now, get out some very sharp scissors and cut down the groove on each half of the ball.

Don't forget to tie it tightly through the center!  The groove is fairly easy to slip some yarn through - but remember to pull tight!

Once it's all tied up, the pom pom can be removed from the pom pom maker

You are left with an oddly shaped poofy pom pom - not to worry - there's one more step.  TRIMMING!!

Trim that pom pom until it's nice and round and even.  (see photo below) Ta Da!

Now go forth and make some fancy pom poms.  As I get some more fancy ones made I'll post some more pictures.