Another Crappy Crafting Post (sorry Joe but this one's for Holly)

Well, I WAS going to blog about day 4 of my Cornwall holiday when SD took me to Hells Mouth (think I may have called it Devils Mouth for some reason at the end of my last Cornwall post ...).

I will write about it in the next couple of day but before that I'm going to show you how to make really simple pom poms!

This one's for Holly.  Holly writes at Full of Beans (And Sausages)  and she moved from the UK to Canada to be with the love of her life, Luke.

I've followed Holly's blog almost from the very beginning and I love it - she has a touch of Julie Powell about her (from the film Julie and Julia) and her blog is an eclectic mix of travel stories, her childhood home in Cornwall (I ALWAYS think of Holly when I write about Cornwall), knitting (something I'm always impressed by as the most I can manage is a straight line of knitting without being ale to cast off so if you just want a never ending scarf well, I'm your girl!) and cooking.  At the moment Holly is following The Great British Bake Off and cooking something from each week.

ANYWAY - Holly is also going to have a baby in a few months and she's had a pretty tough time of it with pregnancy although hopefully that's now in the past.

My niece is also pregnant and I'm hugely excited about it - this will be the first baby in our family for 15 years.  At the moment my niece is in Spain as she has been for the entire Summer, a combination of working and soaking up the sun and she is absolutely blooming now:

Love this girl SOOOO much!!!

She is back in England next month for a short stay before flying out to NZ (where she has lived on and off since she was young and her husband is from) to have the baby before returning for hopefully a much longer stay some time next year.

I'm gutted that I won't get to hold that little bundle when it's first born but she (because we know it's a girl just like Holly's baby) will be surrounded by people who love her).

Anyway!

I can't be there but I DO plan on sending her back with a little present.

It can't be anything too big because it has to fit in a suitcase with all their other stuff so I asked SD's Mum if she would mind knitting the baby a blanket for me.

SD's Mum is a prolific knitter and spend much of her evening watching TV as she knits the most beautiful blankets, tiny jackets and booties that she then donates to either Charity Shops or the local hospital.

But I wanted my gift to have some kind of input from me too (other than just asking someone to make it and providing the wool) so I thought I could perhaps embellish the blanket in some way.

I was taught how to make pom poms the old fashioned way by my Grandmother when I was a child.  It involved cutting out 2 donut shaped pieces of card, winding the wool round and round them and then carefully snipping the wool between the card.  It was a long process and really worked best with larger pom poms.

Well, I want tiny ones and I also wanted something a little quicker and easier as I need to make lots so I turned to the Internet and found several different methods.

One involved winding the wool around the tines of a fork - I tried it and it worked!

Another was just using your fingers and winding the wool around them - that also worked!

After a bit of experimenting:

With some wool left over from something else

I worked out the best way to make the pom poms the size I wanted.

I bought some pretty pink wool with a little sparkle in it and started making my pom poms:

First of all you wind your chosen wool around 3 of your fingers:

I found 35 times gave me the size pom pom I wanted

Then carefully take one finger out of the loop of wool:

And cut a length of wool about 3 or 4 inches long

Then, in the gap you have created between your fingers tie the wool around the whole thing:

Fairly tightly (but you can tighten it more in a minute)

I used a small pair of nail scissors for the next step:

Carefully cut the wool up the side of your fingers on each side

Which will leave you with this:

Doesn't look much like a pom pom yet does it?

Then get trimming, and trimming,and trimming!

Getting there

I want my pom poms to be quite dense as I don't want any loose fibres around the baby but you can leave them longer and have a fluffier pom pom.

Eventually you will end up with this:

I've left the tails on for now for attaching them to the blanket

I'm debating now if I should attach them.  I don't want to spoil the blanket if I mess it up and will my niece worry about the fibres coming out?  I'm not sure ...

I will have a think about it while I make some more but if I decide it's not a good idea then I will make her a pom pom garland with them which she can hang anywhere so she will still have a little present made especially for her from her Aunty Sarah.