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I have this thing about 'integrity of making' (which is as meaningless as it sounds, or at least I don't know exactly what I mean when I say it, but kind of have a feeling about what it's SUPPOSED to mean), and I have made many, many pompoms over the last few years using the traditional method of 2 circles of card with a hole int he middle.  I've gone through the faff of making mini-balls of yarn that will fit through the central hole, I've experimented making the hole big enough for a ball of wool (nope, didn't work), I've used chair backs to make MASSIVE pompoms which was a Herculean effort. 

Now, I saw Her Royal Highness Kirsty Allsop using a pompom maker on a tv show ages ago, and I sneered.  I turned my disgusted nose up and wittered on about 'plastic contraptions' and 'what's wrong with a bit of cardboard?' and diligently spent many more months resentfully fudging half unwound balls of wool through cardboard hoops, but feeling like a craft puritan.

Last week I entered my first Hobbycraft (don't ask, that's another post) and Mr.Steel&Stitch said "have you seen this?", plonking a couple of pompom makers in my hand before running off to catch a child before he took down the store.  I stared at them for a LONG time before putting them in my basket, but come home with us they did.

OH MY G.O.S.H!  They are AWESOME (a whole world of Lego Movie references right there).  Big beast and I literally spent 3 hours making pompoms in our pajamas on sunday morning- quite honestly the single best morning of my entire life.  I later collected twin and her beasts and then they spent 3 hours making pompoms.  It's so easy!  It's so quick!  You can do 6 strands at once!  Any mix of colours, 4 different sizes, a design so simple a 6 year old can do it!  We are going to have a very pompom themed Christams this year...

All craft puritans, give yourself a break and purchase some IMMEDIATELY.





We've all seen arm knitting - it's brought supersize wool wear into the craft spot light.  I even accosted a poor girl in the street yesterday to accuse her of arm knitting her scarf using Cygnet Seriuosly Chunky (guilty on both counts), and it clicked as to how easy it would be with crochet too.

It's easy - but you only use the hand to hold your stitches on as you work, not the full arm.  I need to set up some sort of filming thing so I can post a proper tutorial, but for now, here's the outcome, I feel another infinity scarf coming on...



Finally, Halloween arrived!  This was our first Halloween in our new house and it was amazing.  There were swathes of little monsters, witches and ghosties roaming from door to door, our little beasts got the idea VERY quickly and ended the evening with, literally, buckets of sweets.

The big beast got up at 5am in his excitement, and we'd watched 'Nightmare Before Christmas' by 6.30am.  We spent the day carving pumpkins, collecting leaves and autumnal things from the park and dressing the house.  It all got a bit Martha Stewart, but looked amazing.  



The candy skull crochet wig worked out amazingly, and the floral headdress is still one of my favourite makes ever.  Seeing how much effort all the people near us made, getting dressed up was the least we could do!


Inkeeping with the candy skull theme, I worked my socks off to get a candy skull rug ready in time, getting up at 4am but when you get a picture in your head if what you want to make it's hard to let go until it's done.  This is 1/2km of yarn and 10 hours work, my back and knees were ruined from crawling round the floor, but it's so freaking cool it was worth every second.