Pom pom pom pom pom!

Guess what I’ve been making this week…

Pompoms © Becky Skuse

These adorable little pompoms are for a project for Simply Crochet magazine, and I love the combination of colours they’ve given me. The pompoms have been multiplying like little tribbles in our lounge! (If you’re not a big fan of Star Trek, you can see what I mean about tribbles here.)

I think making pompoms can be an addiction for crafters. I hadn’t made a pompom since the early 1990s (that’s a long time to be pompom-free), but in the space of a week, I’ve made ten. And I can’t seem to stop trimming them. Or touching them. Mmmm, furry.

The last time I made them, I think I pompommed myself out. Like I said, it was the early 90s and I was in my early teens. My parents had finally relented to my moaning and bought me a new set of bedroom furniture: it was all new, it was all white and it was all mine!

After about a week, I missed my battered old furniture, which over the years I’d covered in a variety of stickers from Lookin’, Smash Hits and Big magazines. I asked my mum if I could ‘customise’ my new furniture with some new stickers from the latest issues and, hardly surprisingly, I wasn’t allowed. Mum said it would ruin the new furniture I’d been so desperate for. I think that might be the first time she taught me the phrase: ‘Be careful what you wish for.’ (It wasn’t the last.)

So, after some thinking, I had an idea (it took a while because getting any inspiration was hard to do in a totally white room): pompoms! I could use them to add colour to the furniture’s many handles, without ruining the furniture, and they would be removable if needed.

Mum agreed to the plan (perhaps dubious that I’d actually do it), so I set about using scraps of colourful yarn that my granny had given me, to make loads of teeny tiny pompoms. They had to be small enough not to interfere with the drawer openings, so they really were tiny: perhaps 2cm in diameter, dangling on a 4cm length of yarn.

I don’t remember how many I made (it must have been at least 40) or how long it took me – I just remember the magical feeling that came from turning simple lengths of yarn into furry little pompoms. That’s why they’re addictive.

My folks still have most of that white bedroom furniture in my old room (which they now use as a dressing room), complete with all those colourful pompoms. I think they’ll last forever.