Somewhere in between talking about quilts and showing off our latest projects the subject of pom-poms came up. How do you make pom-poms?
Ellen says she cuts out a circle and winds the yarn in and out of the centre 'donut'. Always a successful method but can be quite tedious if you are needing to make alot of those fuzzy little balls.
Louise or maybe it was Doris said she justs winds the yarn around a piece of cardboard, with a string held between the wound around yarn and the cardboard then pulls the string and ties it off. One of the problems with this method is that the pom-pom doesn't always seem quite as full and puffy as one would like.
I generally use the straight piece of cardboard.
Then I was thinking, is there a way to use something that is sturdy and won't scrunch up (as cardboard often does) and yet has a slit in it so that the tie up string can be easily held in place...
I'm sure this has been thought of before, because well, we all know there is nothing new under the sun, just a slight variation of an older idea...
So.
My slight variation is, A FORK!
Now, this does make a small - in fact rather tiny pom-pom.
Just insert a length of yarn or string, that will be your tie-up string.
go ahead and wind the yarn -- I happened to have some worsted weight yarn scrap so used that and I wound it around the fork about 40 times, being careful not to get too close to the end of the tines so that the yarn does not slip off.
I tied up the extra string bit, slid the whole thing off of the fork tines and proceeded to cut on each side of the tied bit.
(edited in - actually you get a tighter tie if you slip it off the fork before tying)
Once cut it did need a bit of trimming of ends but it came out nice and full and puffy!
I should have put something beside the pom-pom so you could see the finished size but then again all you have to do is look at the width of your forks in your kitchen drawer and that will tell you about how wide your pom-pom would be.
Now you could try this same process with with a Large Serving Fork and you will get a much larger pom-pom and you can still use the fork to carve your Sunday Roast (or maybe you are having an Easter Turkey Dinner). I would think it would work best with a fork where the outside tines go straight out rather than sort of narrow towards the end.
So next time you are thinking you need some pom-poms think of your dinner fork!
Hope everyone is having a nice LONG weekend.
PS. Notice a slight difference in the photos above? There are new options on Picasa which is the program I use to edit my photos... rounded corners, borders, different colour choices for borders. I am just experimenting so things may be a bit of a circus with the pictures on the blog until I settle on something I like and that is worth the fussing over...
