What You Lookin At?

Another thing I love to do is make stuff out of pom poms. Giant ones, little ones, I think I taught the second graders how to make pom poms one year. I thought we'd start with a project that adults might enjoy. I made this chick with an attitude last year. Let's make more!

There are lots of appropriate yellow yarns out there. Regular, fuzzy or crinkly, doesn't matter. This stuff I have is really nice but kinda hard to cut.

First thing you'll want to do is cut yourself about 12" of yarn. If you're not sure that your yarn will hold up to being pulled tight you should use dental floss for this. Put this piece in between your fingers and push it out of the way. This piece holds everything together. Our first ball will be bigger so I'm using 3 fingers.

Start wrapping the yarn around those fingers until you have a good ball amount.

I notice I don't have a good picture here showing how I used that 12" piece. Let me try to explain. You can see the one end in the front of my hand and the other end is behind. Pull the end from behind, around the front, through your fingers and across the ball to meet the other. I hold these together and slip the whole thing off my hand. Make sure this piece is centered on the ball and tie firmly. If you have trouble with that let me know!

Now you have looped yarn, tied in the middle, forming a circle. Without cutting the piece holding it all together and using sharp scissors you want to cut all the loops straight out from the circle. It's hard to take a picture and use both hands crafting! The middle picture shows our rough ball. The last shows our body piece, oval shaped, with a point at the end.

Now we need a smaller round head. Just use 2 fingers for this.

One full pipe cleaner for the legs. At one end, starting with the back toe make one foot with 4 toes. Last side toe, come back to the middle. Wrap it around the middle once for stability and bring it straight up.

Bend it at the height you'd like your chick, go over about 1/2" and straight down to make the second foot. Bend at the height of your first foot and start a side toe. Next front, side and end in the back. Cut or bend off any extra.

Turn your body shape upside down. In the middle going across make an opening in the ball. Set your legs in there, pointy end is the back. Close the yarn over and turn it over. How does it look? If it's lookin good turn him back over and glue your legs in. Make sure to push the yarn over the 1/2" leg strip so you can't see it. Let him dry. It's winter, let him dry in front of the heater.

For his beak I made a 3/4" long triangle shape for the top that was connected to a 1/2" triangle shape for the bottom. That makes the pipe cleaner about 2 1/2" long. I pushed the triangle closed and opened it some. In the middle of the head, open the yarn and insert the beak with glue.

Black, round headed pins, cut short with pliers are perfect for the eyes. Again, open the yarn where you'd like the eyes. If you're anything like me you'll be poking around for a while. When you have them where you'd like them, a little glue in the hole will do the job. Now you can glue the head to the body.

I tell the second graders, when you glue paper be sparing with the glue, when you glue felt and pom poms don't be!

I'm sorry, that was a lot. It really is easy and fun though. I'll tell ya about what he's standing on later, I think I've talked enough.