It must be the decluttering time of year - either that or I'm finally fed up with the amount of useless tat I hoard in far flung places around the home. Last weekend it was the turn of our sideboard in the hall to be sorted, and amongst the debris I found a half-wound pom-pom hiding in one of the drawers. It was started by our youngest when he was in pre-primary (a fair few years ago; to think we were at a high school open day for him yesterday ...) I'm not completely sure if I was looking for a distraction from tidying (surely not) but I had the sudden urge to finish it off. Making pom-poms was a craze for a while when I was a little girl, whether just in our house or at school is irrelevant, I had memories of it being very therapeutic and lots of fun. So, off I hurried to find some fat, fluffy, soft yarn, that was lovely to the touch but more importantly would make a speedy finish for the job. It turned out really well, and it's obvious where the old and the new, as it were, meet on the finished article.
By the time I'd finished it and proudly shown it to the original creator I was in the mood for making more, but seeing as together we had ruined the pom-pom circles I rummaged in my knitting stash for an as yet unused pom-pom maker I'd been wanting to trial. I shouldn't have bothered! Just look at the sorry excuse for a pom-pom - it's weedy and not at all 'succulent' and plumpfy as a real pom-pom ought to be!
The main problem was that it was very difficult to actually keep the yarn on the darn thing without it all falling off. And the diagram for starting and finishing was so unclear, that although I followed them 'correctly' the whole thing unravelled before I could tie the knot! My advice is to bin them as I did - the one here was only kept for the purpose of the photo then joined his companions medium and large in the wheelie bin.
Old-fashioned cardboard circles are far superior and work every time :)
