Christmas Make & Bake part 2: Woollen wonders

Posted by samossie on December 12, 2011 · 4 Comments 

I can’t knit, or crochet, but I love the soft warm texture that wool has and think it makes the perfect material for Christmas decorations so over the years I’ve perfected a few stupidly simple items that I make year after year in various colours.

You’ll need:

Wool in colours to match your decorations this year (I have a different colour every year)

Cardboard (cereal boxes are perfect)

Sticks (lollypop sticks are ideal but can be any, even ones from your garden)

Plastic rings (smooth curtain rings are great, you can use wooden ones as well)

Paint (this is optional)

Sticky tape

Get Making:

1. Pom Poms

You probably made these at school, but don’t let that put you off, these are beauties. Lots of white ones on the tree look like snowballs and in bright modern colours they made a real statement. Also they are unbreakable which is always good!

Cut two rings out of your cereal box. I’ve kept mine nice and small, this makes quick pom poms, but do bigger ones for a more impressive look! Then take your wool, cut a long length and double it up twice so you have a yarn than is 4 strands thick. You can use a single colour, mix your colours together (here I’m using 2 different reds) or change colours part way through – it’s worth experimenting and seeing what you get, it’s half the fun!

Start wrapping your wool around your cardboard rings, kept it tight and make sure you wrap evenly – keep going till you have covered the cardboard and have a lot of wool on the rings – usually about 4 or 5 layers depending on the thickness of your wool. If you are making a big pom pom this bit can take forever so I’d get comfy on the sofa and pop on a Christmas movie

You should end up with something like this – the smaller the gap in the middle the puffier your pom pom will be!

Now grab your sharpest pair of scissors and trim around the edge.

Tie the pom pom together between the cardboard rings, you can use more wool to do this, thick ribbon or twine, whatever matches your scheme best! Once it’s all tied nice and tightly remove the cardboard, you might be lucky enough to get it off by pulling but I’ve never been able to so cut the disk and tape back together for the next one! Then give the pom pom a little haircut to make sure he’s nice and even.

2. Ojo de Dios

These super simple decorations are a magical symbol that originated in Mexico thought to have the power of seeing and knowing and the four points represent the four elements. I just think they are pretty.

Grab your sticks (you might want to paint them, I like the bare wood so am leaving them) and tie together with the coloured wool you’d like to be in the centre of your design.

By weaving your wool across the front of two sticks and then back behind one your create a diamond shaped pattern.

Once you’ve got to the end of one colour just tie on the next one and keep weaving (you can see the pattern of weaving  better in this shot)

You can change colours as often as you like, but stop weaving a little way from the end so it doesn’t all start sliding off. Tie a hanging loop with more wool or ribbon. Lovely!

3. Dorset buttons

These are based on a old craft from, unsurprisingly, Dorset where animal bone rings were covered in thread and the centres were weaved into intricate patterns to create buttons. These larger versions make lovely decorations and you can weave them tightly or keep them loose to create different textures. The plastic rings are easy to get hold of from craft shops, but I got a huge bag from ebay for next to nothing!

Cover your plastic ring in wool using a blanket stitch – create a loop in the middle and bring the wool up through the middle. I’ve doubled up the wool here as I’m going for a chunky look with my thick wool but you can use a single strand to create a more refined decoration.

Keep going until you’ve totally covered the ring, keeping the stitches tight and pack them back up round the ring to squeeze as many as you can on. Put a couple more stitches over the loose end to keep it tight.

This is the tricky bit. First turn the stitches covering the ring inwards so the seam is hidden, leaving a smooth outer. Then taking the loose end of your thread create spokes across the middle of the circle, it might take a few goes and you’ll need to pull the thread back through the gaps to pull them tight, keep fiddling and pushing them into place and you should get there in the end. Now you can start weaving, in front of two spokes and back behind one. (two steps forward, one step back!)

You will start to create this kind of pattern on one side and a more filled in look on the reverse. You can weave as tightly or loosely as you like and you don’t need to fill the whole middle.

This is the look from the reverse – it’s worth keeping an eye on this side as it has quite a different look. Once you are happy tie off your ends and attach a loop of wool or ribbon.

So thats all three of the woollen wonders – you can see how thinner wool makes a more delicate Dorset button decoration in this image.

There’ll be more pictures on Sunday and don’t forget to check back tomorrow for Christmas Make & Bake 3 and if you haven’t already take a look at Christmas Make & Bake 1: Peppermint Bark

Merry Christmas!

Sam

x

Filed under Christmas, Craft