Christmas Pom Pom Garland

Any great adventure around the holidays typically involves an attempt at crafting, baking, or drinking. This year I decided to work on spicing up the decor on our tiny fireplace mantle. You know...it was just lacking that certain touch. After browsing Pinterest (because that place is dangerous for anyone with a crafting itch), I thought a strang of pom pom garland would add the spice I was looking for this year.

How to make it? Well gather your supplies. I opted a three-color motif and selected the yarn colors of bright white, vintage off-white, and burgundy red. I already had some bright white yarn on hand but found some excellent pre-Black Friday pricing on the off-white and red colors. All three yarn varieties are a medium weight (5mm) yarn. You can choose whatever colors you want but you will need at least 1,000 yards of yarn or about three 7-oz skeins of Red Heart super saver yarn.

In addition to yarn, you will also need scissors, a 3.5" pom pom maker, and a yarn needle. In totaly, this project cost less than $10 to make and I worked on it off and on for about 4 days. I'm not even sure how long it took but turning on the TV was a good distraction.

Supplies:

Scissors

3.5" pom pom maker

Yarn Needle

Yarn - 5mm, 7oz skeins (est. 1,000 yds)

How to construct? Well you have to start by making your pom poms. I made 15 poms poms in each color for a total of 45 poms. While there are plenty of videos online about making these things, I opted to bulk my poms up to a thickness equal to wraping yarn three times around the pom pom maker arms. A bulk of your time in this project will be dedicated to making pom poms. Make sure as you are making your poms to cut the center tie piece (you know that strand of yarn that keeps it all together) long enough on at least 4-5 poms for the assembly stage. I opted to have long tie-offs on all of my poms but you could get away with fewer if desired.

Once all 45 pom poms are ready, measure and cut a single 12-foot strand of yarn. You can choose whatever color you want. I went with white. I then sorted my poms into appropriate color piles and rotated assembly as white, red, off-white -- repeat --- repeat --- and repeat until done. For the first pom on the strand, I started with white and tied the pom pom tie-offs to secure the pom directly onto the 12-yard base strand. The pom pom should be securely tied to the base strand and should not move at all. You will also need to leave an additional 8-10 inches on the base strand for looping at the end of the project (see picture to right). You will have three strands of yarn at the end.

Once you have secured your first pom pom, you will then use the yarn needle to thread the next 43 pom poms onto the strand. When you have a singular remaining pom pom left, you will need to decide how close together you want your pom poms to be. The threading technique allows the all but 2 poms to freely float along the strand. As you can see in some of the pictures of my garland, I liked my to be closer together but not smushed. When you are happy with the degree of spacing, you will need to secure your 45th and final pom pom to the end leading enough base yarn available for looping (like you should have done with your first secured pom pom).

Now it is time for the clean up and making hanging loops.

Clean Up: I had a bunch of pom pom tie-off strands on my poms. So, I stretched out my garland and went to snipping those long strands. This effectively cleaned my garland from looking like that hot mess to the left to the cleaned-rounded poms below.

Hanging Loops: I opted to add hanging loops to my garland to prevent ugly gaps while hanging. I added two sets of hanging loops - one at the ends of the strand and one around the 5th pom pom from the ends.

To Make End Loops - I gathered the base strand and tie-offs to form a hanging loop for the end of the strand. The picture to the right shows three strands before being tied off.

To Make 5th Pom Loops - Cut three 10" strands of yarn. On the inside of the five pom pom from the ends, secure the three strands to the base strand create a hanging loop. The picture to the right shows the ones I added to my strand.

Now you're all set. I placed my garland on some temporary command strip hooks and then hung my stocking overtop (those aren't pictured). I'm going to rock this mantlepiece look until the end of the month and then it will be on until the next adventure.