Our 2010 Noel Home holiday series featured a festive garland made from jewel-tone pom poms. As we set up to shoot all our Gypsy Romance projects, we said, "Hey! Where's that bouncy, bright yarn garland? It would look so awesome with this fabric!" We agreed with ourselves (as we often do), and so thought we would revisit the project as the perfect finishing accent to the splash and vibrancy of Pillow & Maxfield's wonderful Gypsy Bandana fabric. Poms away!

This project is done completely by hand; no need to turn on the sewing machine. In fact, it's a great activity to do in front of the TV or while waiting for the kids to finish practice.

Our garland is nearly 10' long with 8' of poms and about one foot on either end for hanging.

We made thirty-five 2½" poms. Seven poms in each of five rich, jewel tones: garnet, gold, sapphire, topaz and peridot. Two regular skeins in each color were enough to complete our garland.

Follow our easy step-by-step tutorial for using the Clover Pom-Pom Maker until you have a big, beautiful pile of poms. The hanger tails on your poms should be about 4" long.

For the braided garland strip on which all the poms hang, we started with one long strand of each color of yarn. For our 10' garland, each strand started at about 12'. We braided all five strands together, knotting each end to hold the strands in place.

NOTE: Yes, it took awhile (see: watching TV above). It helps to tie one end to a door knob or drawer handle. Stop every so often to detangle the to-be-braided strands. I'd err on the side of more-often-than-not otherwise you're likely to end up with a big knotted clump at the end.

Repeat the five-strand braid two more times to yield a total of three braided strands.

Braid those three strands together to complete the final garland strip. This might seem like a lot of yarn, but you need a fair amount of heft in the garland strip to support all those poms with sagging.

Decide how far you'd like your poms to dangle. We wanted ours to hang about 2½".

NOTE: For a 2½" drop, the 4" hanger tails mentioned above work great. If you want your poms to hang farther from the garland strip, increase the length of the hanger tails.

Using a yarn needle with a large eye, thread one tail of a pom through the braided garland strip. Adjust as needed to get your hanging length correct, then loop back through the braid two to three times and knot to secure the tail. Trim off the excess yarn from the tail. Poke any stray ends of the knot down into the braid.

Repeat to secure the second tail of the pom, being careful to keep the two tails the same length so the pom hangs even.

We used a wide "V" pattern to hang each pom, similar to want a mini strip of pom-pom trim looks like. This also gave us a good reference point for starting the next pom in the sequence.

The spacing is somewhat determined by the size poms you make, but really... it's totally up to you. Wider, closer, more colors, all one hue... it's right no matter what you do.

Put it up for a special occasion or leave it up year round for 365 days of color-popping fun. I mean, really ... can you look at all those pom-poms without smiling?!

Contributors

Project Concept: Liz Johnson & Alicia Thommas

Sample Creation: Nancy Vincent