Mary, Mary Quite Contrary

Today we are celebrating flowers. Not just any flowers, mind you, but flowers that don't wilt, don't cause allergies, don't cost money, and don't go out of season. Yes, today we are celebrating pom pom flowers.  I love pom pom flowers for a myriad of reasons, among them the fact that you can choose any color under the rainbow that you want and you can dress up little corners of your house and then just forget about them.

I've had many comments about the flowers seen in this post and many more emails asking how the flowers were made. Well, hold on tight because you are about to embark on a journey of discovery and learning, my friends.

The first thing you must do and the second most fun part of this craft is picking out the color you want (don't worry, I'll get to the number one most fun in a bit).  I chose yellow and white for a simple yet summery feel.

Once you've chosen the perfect shade of color, you have to decide how large you'd like your flowers. I tend to make mine a variety of sizes by altering what I'm wrapping the yarn around. I've been known to use a fork for smaller flower all the way to to my entire hand for a larger flower. Typically I alternate between two, three, and four fingers.

After deciding on the size of your flower, just start wrapping. If you are choosing to wrap around your fingers, you may want to keep them apart a little so that your circulation doesn't get cut off from wrapping the yarn too tightly.  Have fun wrapping and keep in mind that the larger the flower you want, the more wrapping you must do. I tend to like full flowers so I wrap a lot - 100-115 wraps for a small flower, 110-125 wraps for a medium flower, and 130-150 wraps for a larger flower.

When you've finishing wrapping the yarn around and around and around some more, carefully take the yarn off your fingers (or fork or whatever else you found to use) making sure to keep a finger in the hole of yarn.

You will then take the bit of string you cut previously (oh, you didn't? Don't worry, I always forget, too) and carefully push it through the hole and tie it as tightly as possible in a double knot.

Then take a pair of scissors, place one blade in the hole and cut opposite of the knotted piece of yarn.  Don't worry if it looks like a floppy mop, you are now at the funnest part of the craft: trimming the yarn.

The trick to getting a perfect pom pom flower that isn't floppy and yarn-y is to trim, trim, trim. Never have I trimmed too much, but many times I haven't trimmed enough.

Even this guy needs more trimming! Just keep trimming, just keep trimming.

When you've finally got the little ball of fur perfect, with a dab of hot glue in the middle of the yarn ball firmly place the small twig into the flower.  I like to try and get the twig inside the center of the flower careful not to come out the other side.

There you have it - a beautiful pom pom flower.