In my little sweat shop

My older son will be the houseguest of our dear friends in Philly. As I type this, they have two granddaughters. Tomorrow, their third grandchild will be born.

I decided to make winter hats for their granddaughters as our house gift. 

I had made the hats using a giant version of the little knitting knobbies I had used as a kid.

A knitting knobby

The knitting looms are exactly as mindlessly satisfying to use as the knitting knobbies. The only difference being is that it is easier to produce something useful using the knitting looms than it is to make something with a long snake of knitted yarn. When I was a kid I produced countless yards of skinny knitted snakes. My sister once attempted to make a miniature rug out of some of her knitting knobby production. I was never as resourceful. I usually tossed my yards of knitted rope after admiring my handy work for a while. 

I bought the knitting looms earlier in December and  I have already made a couple of adult sized hats and a cowl using the knitting looms. 

I made the three hats, one baby sized and two kid sized ones over three evenings this week. I am a big believer in kid's hats being amusing for adults to look at. The hats were fine but I thought they needed big silly pom poms on top.

My usual method of making pom poms was taught to me by my sister when I was 7 or 8. You roll a whole bunch of yard around a bit of cardboard and then tie another piece of yarn tightly around the middle . Then you snip all of the yarn loops to a uniform size.

I have been noticing that several craft sites have been selling pom pom makers like the one pictured here. I wasn't going to go out and buy a pom pom maker. I had briefly thought about making one out of cardboard, but then I had a brainstorm. Old CD's seemed just right for the job.

You cut lengths of yard and wrap the discs.

When you are done wrapping you pull another length of yard under all of the wrapped yarn.

Here you see the pink yarn being pulled under all of the wrapped yarns. Then you tie that length of yarn in a tight knot around the center.

The pink yarn is now tied in a knot around all of the other yarns.You then cut the pom pom around the outer edge of the CD's.

having two CD's makes the cutting easier. You slide the scissors between the two CD's to cut the yarns.

After all of the yarns are cut you can carefully slide the CD off the yarn bundle.

Here is the pink yarn that holds the bundle of yarn together.

Ta da!!! a pom pom! You can give it a haircut.

Yeah, they are fun to make. 

I'm loving these hats.