This is how I make small pom poms. I think it’s a quick method and it’s certainly easy. You won’t need to cut out any cardboard circles or buy strange plastic contraptions to wrap yarn around- all you need it a fork, some yarn, a large eye needle and some small sharp scissors.
Having said that I’ve made many large pom poms using the traditional cardboard circle method. Then my daughter bought me a set of the strange plastic contraptions which I found work very well. However, for small pom poms I like this method best.
I use a standard table fork, any fork will do as long as it has an even number of tines(prongs), this should not be a problem as a quick google search on the correct spelling of the word tine taught me that most table forks have 4 tines . Apparently, it’s the optimum number of prongs to gather and move food to your mouth!
I digress….
To start your pom pom, wrap your chosen yarn around the fork tines 30 times. DK (double knit) or light worsted yarn works best. If you are using a thinner yarn wrap more often, likewise if you are using a slightly thicker yarn wrap a few times less.
I find it helps to leave a tail when I start winding the yarn, then I tie it to the cut yarn tail when I’ve finished winding. This stops the yarn from unravelling as I thread my needle or reach for my scissors!
The next step is to thread about 50cm of matching yarn onto a needle. I Pass the needle and binding yarn between the tines, leaving half of the yarn on either side of the fork. This is why, an even number of tines is essential. If there were an odd number, it would be very difficult to get the binding yarn in the middle!
Next, I tie the binding yarn tightly around the wound yarn, I find I can get a tighter knot if I slip the wound yarn up the fork tines a little as I tighten the knot.
I Slip the wrapped yarn off the fork and snip away the knotted ends of the wound yarn. DO NOT CUT the long ends of the binding yarn! You will need these to attach your pom pom later.
Do I really need to explain why I make a point about not cutting the binding yarn??? In case you have not guessed I have been known to get a bit snip happy and trim off all the ends!
It’s best not to rush this next part- snipping through all the wound yarn is much easier using sharp small scissors. The pom pom starts to fluff up nicely as I do this. Although it does look a bit straggly.
I’ll need to cut away quite a bit of yarn from the pom pom to get a nice fluffy ball shape. I guess the final pom pom is about one third smaller than when I started trimming. I think this is the most important tip I can share with you- don’t be afraid of trimming the pom pom quite hard to get a nice result. Another tip is to trim the pom pom over a waste bin to keep the fluff from covering your whole work area.
I can make a pom pom in less than five minutes, which is very satisfying as it’s usually the last thing I add to a finish a knitting project.
Most recently I've been using these little pom poms to decorate the bobble hats for my Gingerbread men, after all, it’s the little details which make all the difference!
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