Ginny hosted the Crafty Crew's latest venture: how to make pom poms in bulk. Gill demonstrated using the wiggly metal pom pom maker she bought last year and provided everyone with simpler frames to practice on after raiding her office desk. 80 winds of wool are needed around the frame she's holding to make pom poms around an inch or two in diameter. Further threads are then tied at even intervals along the length of wool as tightly as possible and the wound threads cut through the middle between two of the tied threads (or off the frame at each end), Each pom pom is then fluffed up (rolling between hands helps) and trimmed to make an even shape. We soon learned:
Wool with mixed fibres such as metallic threads are a no-no as these scatter little micro threads everywhere when cut
It's difficult to tie the threads round the wound wool tightly, so the pom poms tend to be looser than those made individually
Quite a lot of trimming may be needed and this can cut down on the amount of time saved as well as producing more waste
80 or more pom poms of various sizes are needed to make a wreath (never mind the rug Diane fancies making!). Some of us questioned whether we'd have the patience!
It's quite easy to cut the wool so each 'half' of the pom pom is a different length. This could be useful for other makes such as the cute octopus Diane found on the internet
A posh pom pom maker like Gill's isn't needed. Yarn could be wound over e.g. two legs of an upended stool, or between two nails hammered into some wood. This video gives you an idea of the technique we used, with a couple of metal rods used as the 'frame'. The next meeting is at Diane's house on Monday 18th February at 7.30pm, where the Crew will tackle macrame with guidance from the book in Michelle's kit she bought from Aldi!