Pom Pom Baby Sheet

This is my first instructable project and my first ever crafting experience using wool. The idea behind this project is to make a simple and comfortable woolen sheet for babies. This can be easily done not only by craft experts but also by amateurs like myself. I designed this in my mind as a present during this winter season for my nephew, who is just 22 days old at the time of publishing this project.

I have chosen the colors for the wool arbitrarily, but careful enough to make a nice look and feel. The colors chosen are light yellow, sky blue, green, pink and red. The pattern is made of simple spherical pom balls made with these colors. There are 8 layers of concentric circular loops with light yellow, sky blue, green and pink colored balls. The main advantage is that different colors can be mixed and matched to create patterns that will aid in a cool aesthetic appeal. The main challenge which I faced in this project was the proper selection of patten shape and wool colors. I had to change the color and pattern often as I improvised whenever I felt that they are not matching with the overall aesthetics. So keep in mind to have a clear selection of patterns such as circle, heart, etc and the colors beforehand. Changing either the pattern or the colors in between may become tiresome and will lead to more production time. For babies, light colors are favorable than dark shades. In this instructable project, I will explain the steps for easily making this woolen cloth, so that anybody could refer here and reproduce this with less effort.

Base fabric (Cotton) - 55cm x 55cm

Wool yarn (colors used: Cream, Sky blue, Pink, Green, Red)

Needle

Scissors

In this step, we have to decide in advance on the final outcome that is expected from our project. The color combination of the yarn, pattern required to fill the fabric, shape, and dimensions of the finished product, etc must be planned here. This is very crucial because once we start and advance, it might become difficult to change these parameters.

I selected the following parameters.

Pattern: Concentric circular pattern

Shape: Circle

Dimension: 50cm diameter

Colors: Cream, Sky blue, Pink, Green, Red

These parameters were selected in mind to complement the project item as a gift to my nephew who is just 22 days old.

The base fabric is made of cotton material.

As the pom balls are stitched on top of the base fabric, the color of the fabric is not of vital importance.

Using a pair of scissors, the fabric was first cut into a square shape of 55cm X 55cm.

With the centroid of this fabric as the pivot, concentric circles were drawn as reference for ease of stitching.

The extra fabric will be removed in the final step.

Take a sufficient length of yarn.

Hold your four fingers of the left-hand straight together and wove the yarn around them 30 times.

Once the yarn is wound, form a tight knot in the middle to hold the threads together.

Take the threads out from the hand and cut the top and bottom curls using scissors.

If the length is more, cut it short from both top and bottom equally.

Now we will get straight threads tied together in the middle.

Spread the threads to all the sides to form a simple pom-pom ball-like structure.

Repeat this for making all the remaining balls.

Once the pom-pom balls are done, start stitching from the centroid of the fabric.

Place a pom-pom ball and stitch it at the center.

Once the center ball is stiched, the next layer of stitching will be done around the previous layer with the concentric circles drawn earlier as a reference.

Continue the stitching layer by layer, taking into account the pattern, shape, and colors (in this case, circular concentric pattern).

The pattern would look very catchy when the right colors are chosen for each layer.

First of all, the extra fabric needs to be cut off, matching the actual expected dimensions.

The threads if uneven has to be trimmed to become a uniform structure and layout.

Extra threads if any must be removed to preserve the aesthetic appeal of the sheet.

1. Dimension was overlooked beforehand. As a result, the sheet is a bit smaller than expected. I will add 2 more additional layers before presenting it officially to my nephew ;)
2. I had to change the color in between due to mismatch.

To overcome these challenges, step 1 is very crucial.

1. The extra threads that were cut during pom pom ball preparation can be used to make a nice hand warmer or pillow. Take a piece of fabric, fold it and stitch the edges together (except one) to make a pouch with an opening. Fill the pouch with the waste threads. After sufficient filling, stitch the open part together to complete the hand warmer/pillow.
2. Always check the color combination beforehand while selecting light and dark colors.

This project was very fruitful and was able to achieve the goals. The experience which I earned by doing this project would help me a lot in the upcoming ones. I would like to thank Instructables for hosting this contest. This is my first ever online contest which I am participating in. I hope all the viewers would like this work of mine and would try to improve on them with your own novel approaches. Kindly let me know in the comments if there is something that you think which I could implement to produce a better version of this work.