Yes, I’m all about pompoms at the moment and I’ve been busy winding and tying, snipping and sewing and now have a huge supply of these gorgeously fluffy cheap and cheerful homemade baubles to finish off this years Christmas decorating.

It all started with just one bowl, made on a winter’s evening with a view to filling a few gaps in the Christmas decorations. I have a lot of red and gold ornaments as well as lots of white snowflakes and clear glass icicles but was craving a little bit more colour this year.

The  pompom idea seemed like the perfect way to jazz everything up a bit without necessitating either as trip to town or spending fortune.

I sewed some short lengths of fishing line through the first batch to make them into hanging decorations…

…and hung them on my twiggy tree over the mantelpiece along with my Halloween pompom garland I made earlier in the year (minus the scary characters of course). Those pops of colour look really cheery by day…

…and just as lovely by night.

Suitably inspired by my efforts, I couldn’t help but get busy making a whole load more. With my little pompom makers by Clover , a bit of patience and a few cosy nights in I have to confess I got a little carried away.

As of right now I’ve made over 350 of them in a week of evenings and a couple of car journeys. These are just a few of them as I used each day’s quota to decorate the lounge as I went along.

A little trim with some sharp scissors quickly gets rid of all those unruly ends.

I used sparkly yarn for some, and plain yarn for others in all my current favorite colours.

I’d love to make a cushion cover from pom poms next.

I have a fancy to string them up tightly and then sew them to a piece of fabric so they are really dense and luxurious.

How huggable and snuggable would that be? Just perfect for cuddling up to.

All of these ended up as garlands or baubles but I’m definitely making a note of the pompom cushion idea for the New Year, I just need to work out the constructional details. Oh yeah, and make a couple of hundred more pompoms too. No time for that right now with Christmas day really just hours away but I’m sure I’ll be able to squeeze some more pompom making in over Christmas week.

So back to my current batch of pompoms…

I strung them up on a few lengths of baker’s twine.

I made a string of fifty and two strings of forty with all of the colours randomly arranged.

Then I hung them in the window, above our big tree…

…with some of the leftover pompoms plugging the gaps between my other baubles.

All together I think the tree is now finished… maybe. I never really know when to stop. I don’t really do ‘understated’ very well!

Still, if you can’t go a bit over the top at Christmas then when can you?

 

Mojo likes the tree a lot. In fact all the cats do. They especially like hiding behind it in the windowsill, keeping an eye on all the owls and other assorted birds nestling in the branches while still having a good view down the street to watch the comings and goings of the neighbouring cats.

There does appear to be a few spots of foliage around this side that are crying out for a few more pompoms. Looks like I missed this bit. Although I can’t really see this part from the sofa it’s only fair to furnish the cat’s favourite side as lavishly as I’ve furnished mine! I have a few left over so that can be easily rectified.

I also made a bunch of pompoms in white – a perfect project for the Christmas visit car journeys. What with all the presents and extra passengers we were carrying there really wasn’t all that much room in the car for multiple balls of wool so I just picked up a 100g ball of white yarn and got busy.

Even if it’s raining outside we can still have snowballs in the car.

And here are the fruits of my labours.

Now they’re finished I shall try to find the time to string them up to finish off the bay window. I want to hang these vertically so they look more like snow falling, but as time is rapidly whizzing away, maybe I’ll save that project for next year and let the snowpeople enjoy a snowball fight with them for now.

I want to use the holiday week to complete a few of this year’s unfinished projects. After boxing day is over things get a tad quieter around her until New Year at least. The poncho that I began in October really needs it’s last details adding so I can actually wear it and I have tassells to attach to a shawl that was started around the same time. There’s also a whole bunch of tiny stars to sew together to add the finishing touches to a new pattern that’s in it’s final stages.

But I’ll leave all that for another post. I think I’ve waffled on enough already!

Wishing you all a wonderful time over the next few days. Happy Christmas everyone!