Friday, December 28, 2018

From a mystery gift to a little caper

I'm still receiving material from the artist's studio and home. Yesterday was a bunch of art materials, and a box of knitting needles, some of which will be shared with friends. But among the needles were two mysterious items, which neither the donor nor I could identify.



So I took to Twitter with an appeal to experts. In no time at all Franklin Habit, brilliant teacher, designer and cartoonist responded, along with Kay from Mason-Dixon Knitting, gosh two stars of the fiber arts world advising!  The mystery items  are Clover pompom makers! To one who has been making pompoms using a cardboard circle since age about five, a step up to high tech.

So to YouTube to learn how, and all came clear. And now I know why there were two sizes.
It became clear that sharp scissors were required, and most of mine aren't really.




So I sort of backed into another experiment. I had read that you can sharpen scissors by cutting tinfoil. So here's the caper on the way to the caper. It seems to work at least a bit.

My immediate use for pompoms is to tag  my scissors, which vanish into the depths of workbags. And this is only a select few of them. Meaning the ones I can find.

So finally I got to make my maiden Clover pompom. As seen here. With scissors awaiting their accessory.



I think the birthday daily celebration includes learning a new skill. 

4 comments:

  1. As to dull scissors: tinfoil sounds good, but it never works. I found a gadget in WalMart in the fabric section, made by Fiskars, that really does work, https://www.amazon.com/Fiskars-Universal-Scissors-Sharpener it's only $9.98, which is the price of cheap scissors these days anyway.

    Love the pompom maker, btw. Like you, mine was a bit of cardboard.

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    1. I read quite a few reviews and found that it won't work on small scissors, which is nearly all of mine. It's designed for full size scissors. So the search continues. Good idea though.

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  3. I certainly would never have guessed what those things were either - rather fun that two of the big names responded to your query! High tech for pom poms - who knew.

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