step 2

Take your two cardboard rings. Put them together.

Slip a teeny bit of your wool between the two pieces and start winding.

Around and around and around...

Keep going until you can't get any more wool through.

Make it all one colour
- or big blocks of colour
- or stripes
- or a mix

(but please do stick to the colour palette)

Tutorial - getting started

one step at a time I'll start with the basics. It's wonderfully simple..

Any questions, please don't hesitate to ask.. and to answer some of the questions already emailed to me;

We need this project to have a specific colour palette so that it looks cohesive and works as a whole - an amazing continuous piece which you will see hung in Bournemouth Gardens (UK) in the Autumn.

OK - so I personally like to start with a hot cuppa and a big old bowl of wool/yarn.

Then I move onto my cardboard circles. You will need 2 per pom-pom.

These are the size I've used for my smallest pom-poms. If you want them bigger, just photocopy them larger. I recycle cereal packets and any cardboard packaging that's lying around. For very big pom-pom's, thicker packaging card or 3 or more circles is stronger.

The outside measurement here is 5 inches (@ 13cms)

The inside circle here is just over 1.5 inches (@4.5cms)

The bigger your hole, the more dense and meaty your pom-pom. The small circle will give you a loose shaggy one.

And now you're ready to go.

see the flickr group over here for some finished pom-poms...

invitation & instructions

Thanks for coming to look at the pom-pom project.

My aim is to bring together the international craft community and show what we can do by creating blossom in the winter, bringing colour and beauty from a simple gesture of kindness/community.

If you are interested, I would love you to;

- Make me a large , luscious woolly pom-pom (at least 6 inches plus!) in the colours of the sea and the sky.

- Add a nice long ribbon from recycled fabric or whatever you can get your hands on (at least 16 inches either side/drop length).

- Photograph your pom-pom in an interesting way and add it to this group, letting everyone know where you are from.

- Post your POM-POM to me at:

The Pom-Pom Project
Arts Development
Bournemouth Library
22 The Triangle
Bournemouth
BH2 5RQ
UK

Repeat as many times as you like - make & post as many as you wish.

Enjoy making the pom-poms in the sunshine, then when the leaves drop from the trees and the nights start getting longer, I will show you how your pom-pom has been used. Hopefully we will have all worked together to make something spectacular and beautiful.

I don't want to bore you on here, so please flickr mail me for any further info or questions.

Thank you so much for participating.