How to make a yarn pom pom
Up until recently, I had never made a pom-pom in my life. I consider myself a super crafty person, and since these little guys are sort of like craft 101, I figured it was high time I get on it. I'm happy to say, they're really easy, fun and quick to make. Now that I feel like I've mastered this little craft, I wanted to share this tutorial with you, which comes just in time for the release of our latest pattern the Atlas Tuque.
The Atlas Tuque is a winter hat pattern that features a fur pom-pom on top, which uses a very different technique in comparison to a yarn pom-pom. I though you may want the option of adding a yarn pom-pom to your hat, so I hope that this tutorial will help to guide your way.
First, let's gather everything we need to make a yarn pom-pom.
Supplies:
- Yarn. I decided to use two colors, but you can use one, or as many as you like.
- Sharp scissors
- Paper scissors
- Heavy card stock
- Pen or pencil
- A circular object for tracing a large circle (I used a bottle) - The pom pom will end up being the size of this circle.
- A second smaller circular object for tracing (I used a small coin).
Lastly:
If you are attaching the pom pom to an object (we'll be attaching it to the Atlas Tuque in this tutorial), you'll need a hand sewing needle with a large eye. I use a tapestry needle, which allows me to fit the yarns through the eye.
Making the Pom pom:
- Place the large circular object onto the card stock and trace two circles.
- Centre the small circular shape inside the larger circle and trace.
- Draw two lines, about 1/4" apart, from the centre circle to the larger circle.
- Cut out the circles and cut along the two lines connecting the large and small circle shapes.
- Stack the two circles one on top the other.
- Holding the pom pom disks, begin to wrap the yarn around one side of the disk opening.
- If you are using two or more yards like I am, hold them together as you wrap the yard around, as though they are one yarn.
- Continue to wrap the yarn around the disk.
- Once the yarn reached the other side of the disk opening, continue to wrap several layers back and forth. The more layers of yarn, the more full the pom pom will be. I wrapped the yards in five layers using two strands of yarn.
- Avoid getting too close to the disk opening, making sure that the yarn doesn't fall off the edge.
- Now that the yarn is nice and full around the disk, the wrapping is complete.
- Separate the two disks.
- Using a sharp pair of scissors, slip it in between the two disks and cut the yarn along the edge of the disks.
- Handle the pom-pom with care at this point, as it is easy for the yarns to slip away.
- Cut a length of yarn about 12" long.
- Slip the yarn in between the two disks and tie a knot.
- Tighten the knot to secure the pom-pom yarns. For extra security, repeat the step and tie a second knot.
- Cut the pom pom loose from the yarn skeins.
- If you are attaching your pom-pom to an object (the tuque), do not cut the long yarn tails from the knot that is tying the pom-pom together. We'll need those threads in a later step.
- If you do not plan on connecting the pom-pom o another object, you can cut these threads.
- Remove the disks from in between the pom-pom.
- The pom-pom is nearly complete. You'll notice that the shape could use a little rounding out. Let's take care of that next.
- Sandwich the pom-pom ball in between the two disks.
- Tuck the yarn tails in safely so that they do not get cut off as we trim the pom-pom.
- Use sharp scissors to trim off the ends of yarn that extend past the disks.
- You will now have tidy uniform yarns.
- Repeat this step again for the other side of the pom-pom, sandwiching it in between the disks, and tucking the thread tails away.
- You will now have a beautiful round pom-pom! Not it's time to attach it to the tuque!
- Insert the yarn into the eye of your needle. Since the eye of my needle is very large, I'm able to insert two yarn tails at a time, but if your needle is smaller, just insert on yarn tail at a time.
- Insert the needle into the top of the hat, working from the right side feeding the yarn tails to the wrong side.
- Pull the thread all the way through on the wrong side of the hat.
- Repeat this step for the remaining thread(s).
- Once all of the threads are on the wrong side of the hat, tie a knot to secure the pom-pom. For extra securing, tie a second knot.
- Trim the yarn tails.
- And voila! You're pom pom is now perfectly attached to your tuque! I hope you enjoyed making these pom-poms :)
If you enjoyed this tutorial and you'd like to it to your crafty Pinterest board, here's a Pinterest badge so that you can easily find this tutorial again another time. Thanks for following along!
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