The Inferno

It seems like I just blink and it has been nearly two weeks since my last post! We've been really busy with birthday parties, meeting up with friends, and starting to pick things out for the baby. Also, the Santa Ana winds and resulting fires in the area have been very upsetting and distracting. I hardly slept last night with the trees banging against the window all night and today the air smells so strongly of smoke it has permeated eveything, including my windowless office. Let's hope the winds go away and we get some rain ASAP!

Back to knitting content, there were many questions regarding how exactly the pom-pom tree works, so below I have a demonstration. Before I made mine I looked it up online just to make sure I did it right, but I can't find the link anymore.

First, you wind the yarn around the two pegs, the way I've done below. After making a couple pathetic pompoms, I have determined that about 50 wraps is best.
Next, you cut the yarn and then tie a separate piece of yarn tightly around the middle. You then just slide the whole thing off both the pegs, cut both ends (top and bottom in the photo), and fluff. (No yarn was harmed in the creation of this demo.)

The cool thing is that you can easily adjust the size of the pompom by moving the pegs closer together or farther apart. The pompom tree has lots of holes, so you can choose from a variety of options such as the one below, which would make a ginormous pompom just for the record.