Hmong-inspired Pom Pom Pillows

We're a big fan of pom poms, and at the Hmong New Year, you'll see that a lot of pom poms are used in our hats. And we don't shy away from the neon and very bright pom poms either! You'll see neon pink, neon blue, bright whites and bright yellows, the whole gamut.  

 

Follow along as we create a Hmong-inspired pom pom pillow that is bright and will pop out. The inspiration for the colors are from our nab vam dish! This is an easy and fun project that can be done as a family or with friends for a quiet, craft night. We followed this easy way to make pom-poms from this video here.

 

Tools Needed:

Two toilet-paper cardboard tubes here 

Two cardboard rounds (traced using large-mouth Mason jars) 

Scissors here

Super bright and neon yarns (our culture doesn't shy away from the bright and bold!) here

Fabric adhesive here

Gather all your equipment. For the cardboard rounds, we simply took two durable cardboard and traced the mouth of a large-mouth Mason jar, cut out the shape, and then poke a hole in the middle large enough for the yarn to go through.

Start by getting the two beginnings of the yarn together. If you wanted to keep your pillow one color, just use two of the same yarn color. Since we wanted to replicate the nab vam colors, we chose this very neon pink and green.

Make a knot.

Slide the knot so it's on the other side of the cardboard tubes.

Start wrapping the yarn over the whole of the two tube, 60 times.

Leave enough room on the yarn, and snip away the remainder.

Take another two strands of the yarn and tie it in between the cardboard tube. Make sure the strands are long enough to distinguish between the regular strands and these two strands.

Tie it tight enough so it doesn't fall out, but not too tight that you can't get it out of the cardboard tubes.

Gently get your yarn off of the cardboard tubes.

Tie those two strands that were in between the tubes.

Now hold onto one side of your pom pom, and cut through the yarn.

Congratulations! Half of your pom pom is done!

Now go to the other side, and do the same thing.

Grab one of your cardboard rounds, and slide one of the longer tied strands through. Remember that the longer strands were the ones in between the cardboard tube. If you take the wrong strands like I did at the beginning, your yarn will just pull right through! 

Hold your pom pom taut.

You'll see that your pom pom is uneven.

Snip around the edge, and even follow the round, or leave a little more round like we did here to have a bigger pom pom. 

Once the edges look good to you, smooth out the pom pom and any excess loose yarn pieces. Then take the pom pom off the cardboard round and fluff your pom pom carefully. Then flatten it on the other side and put it against one of the cardboard round, and press the second cardboard round and start snipping again!

Fluff it out!

Now repeat that! For our pillow, we made 35 pom poms. You can make more or less to make your pillow fuller. You can also create other patterns using less pom pom. We wanted a pom-pom filled pillow so we made a bunch. It's up to you!

Squeeze a good size amount of adhesive onto one side of the pom pom. Stick it to the pillow. You may have to prop up the pillow so the pom poms don't fall off as they dry.

Arrange the pom poms as 

Ta-da! End result! The adhesive is amazing, and the pom-poms stay put. 

The Story Cloth Team