I know you can buy fancy little pompom tools. I even know that you can make similar ones pretty easily with a pair of scissors and a piece of cardboard. But, to be honest, I'm way too lazy for either of those methods. I can make a perfectly fine pompoms with just my fingers and yarn, so why bother with all the other stuff? Ya, I can't think of a good reason either.
Oh Christmas Tree has one of those perfectly fine pompoms of which I speak right on it's top, and so, for those not versed in the method, let me show you how I make a tools free pompom:
1. First, cut a piece of yarn about a foot long.
2. Lay that yarn between your middle and ring finger. Keep it there for later.
3. With the yarn you are using for your pompom, start wrapping it around your fingers. I wanted the pompom for Oh Christmas Tree to be nice and full, so I opened my hand a bit, and wrapped generously. I also wanted to use both the colors I used in the hat, so I held them together and wrapped away! If you need a much smaller pompom, use less fingers. Just make sure that the yarn you put between your fingers in the last step is between the fingers you are using to wrap your pompom.
4. Wrap, wrap, wrap until you have a whole lot of yarn. Try to spread it out evenly from the tip of you fingers to the base. You will notice I am only using the pink at the end here. That's because I wanted more pink than white in the pompom, so I stopped wrapping pink after 40 times around my hand, then wrapped pink only for another 40 rounds.
5. Now, using that length of yarn resting between your fingers from step 2, pull it tight around the center of your pompom and tie it tight!
6. I usually let my littles sacrifice their tiny fingers to the cause of really tight knots. And, I wrap the yarn around a time or two to make sure it's really secure.
There it is, tied all tight.
7. Then, take a pair of sharp scissors and cut the loops all the way around.
8. Then you will have a somewhat messy little ball of yarn that may or may not resemble the giant pompom you would want to put on top of a hat. Now's the time to take those scissors and trim it. Go all the way around it, straightening the pieces of yarn, and cutting them all so that they are a uniform length. This is when having wrapped the yarn evenly around your fingers pays off, as the pieces will all be fairly even.
9. And just like that you'll be done, and you can sew that baby onto the top of your hat. I usually use the tail from knitting the hat (before I weave in the end). I thread it through the center of the pompom and back down the top of the hat. Then I weave in the ends, and that pompom is secure as it can be.
