Pomander Tutorial

I've got a little treat for you today...a tutorial for making a felted wool pomander! (Remember these little rosettes? I've been staring at them trying to envision them in a project. I was thinking how cute they would look all bunched up close together.) I've used felted wool sweater scraps, but I think it would also look nice with wool craft felt and other fabrics. Great for ornaments and holiday decor! Cute. Plus easy. Nice combo.

Coupla' things to mention here. I'm trying out the tutorial in a slide show format to help eliminate a looong post with excessive scrolling. I had to add the text to the actual images, so I hope you can read it all ok. Let me know what you think of this format!
(edit: I just discovered that you can't actually SEE the tutorial if you are subscribing to the feed, so please visit me over at my blog...its cool!)







A note about my process: I tutorialize on the fly...that is, I photograph new projects as I make them for the very first time...just in case they turn out! The problem is that sometimes I come up with different solutions from what you see photographed. Um, yeah. Sorry.


For example, take the styrofoam ball. I had a few laying around, so that's what I used for the center of the pomander. But Oh. Em. Gee. Have you priced Styrofoam balls lately? Way too pricey for what they are. So I came up with a few options for the center. Wrapping up fabric scraps and yarn into a ball works really well, especially if the fabric is a stretchy knit. Another option would be to wet felt or needle felt some scrap roving into a ball (see brown fuzzball above). Since the center is completely covered, no one will see what's inside. It'll be our little secret. *wink*

Oh yeah, and one more tip to add to the tutorial. After you glue the rosettes to the ball, remove the holding pins s-l-o-w-l-y after the glue is dry, twisting them with your fingers if they are reluctant. Alternately, you could just use your decorative pins to secure the rosettes, but I didn't think of that since I was making the whole thing up as I went along...you know.

Whaddya think, are you going to try it? Should I make up a few for my etsy shop too? No promises...just thinkin'. I didn't even know what a pomander was until I was trying to figure out what to call this. Thank goodness for google...

This work by Betz White is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.