Holiday party season is almost upon us, and we could not be more ready for it! Sparkly dresses, fancy work parties, time spent with family and friends celebrating the end of the year? Count us in. Topping the charts of our favorite things about holiday parties are the creative backdrops we’ve been seeing popping up in our social feeds. That’s why we’ve teamed up with NBC’s Making It, a new reality DIY competition series, to bring you a holiday party photo backdrop tutorial that is sure to make jaws drop. Get ready to learn how to hand knit a super fabulous and classy backdrop decked out with colorful pom-poms and tassels!
Let’s get crafty!
Materials and Tools:
- yarn
- pom-pom maker
- roving
- cable ties
- large needle
- scissors
- retail grid (not pictured)
- 2×1-foot wood board (not pictured)
Instructions:
- Hand knit roving.
- Make pom-poms and tassels.
- Create garlands.
- Add roving to grid.
- Add pom-poms and tassels.
For our backdrop, we used a 4×7-foot retail grid, which you can find at most office supply stores.
HAND KNIT ROVING
Begin by wrapping the tail of the roving over your right hand with the working yarn tucked underneath your hand, creating a loop.
Holding the tail in your left hand, pull the working yarn through the loop with your right hand, creating a simple slipknot.
This creates the base stitch of your woven braid that you will continue to pull the working yarn through to create the rest of your stitches. Thread the working yarn through your stitch just enough to create a new loop and pull it tight with the tail.
This may seem daunting at first, but once you get the hang of it, it’s actually super fun and a task that we all fight over at the office!
Keep feeding your working yarn through and creating new loops until you have enough to cover your grid. We kept the grid handy as we worked to see how much we needed to make. You got this!
When you’ve reached a good length, cut the working yarn.
Feed the now cut working yarn through your last loop and pull it tight, creating a secure knot. Ta-da! Now on to your next yarn creation.
POM-POMS
If you haven’t used a pom-pom maker before, oh buddy, you are in for a treat! They make making pom-poms SO easy. To begin, make sure that both pieces of the maker are together. Pull out a pair of the arms on one side and wrap yarn around both arms until you’ve filled in the half moon shape, like above. Once it’s filled, snip the yarn and close the arms.
Repeat on the other set of arms, trim the end of the yarn and close the arms of the maker.
With all the arms closed, cut down the center of each side of the arms of the maker. You’re almost done!
Cut a separate piece of yarn and make a tight double knot through the center of the maker.
To free your new fringy friend, pull open both pairs of the arms and pull apart each side of the maker. Give your pom a little haircut to turn him into the perfect fuzzball or leave him shaggy for some extra texture. After you make a few more poms, you’ll be ready to make a garland.
Using your large needle, thread a long piece of yarn through the center of the pom-pom.
Thread the needle through your other pom-poms. Make a fun assortment of garlands in varying colors and lengths for your backdrop. Next up on the yarn decor front, tassels!
TASSELS
We are going to show you how to make three different types of tassels. The best thing about tassels is that once you have the basics, there are millions of ways you can jazz them up. Make ‘em chunky, make ‘em long, or make them teeny, tiny — they will all look cool in your backdrop.
First tassel, or you may call it a faux-tassel. Take an entire skein of yarn and wrap a separate piece of yarn tightly around it, about three inches from the top of the skein. Trim around the bottom of the tassel, creating a fringe-tastic look, while keeping the inside of the skein intact.
To make your next type of tassel, you’ll need to grab something flat, at least two feet long. You can really use anything — a plastic lid of a storage container, a wood block, or a piece of cardboard.
Pull the yarn off of the wood, keeping it in a large oval. Double knot a piece of yarn around the top of all the pieces of yarn. Pinch together the top of the yarn and wrap it with a separate piece to create the “neck” of the tassel. Trim the bottom and you are all set. You can make so many variations of this tassel, and that’s exactly what we did for our backdrop.
You can braid or twist the bottoms of the tassels. Try ‘em all out!
INSTALLATION
Start by weaving the knitted roving in and out of the grid. This does not need to be perfect by any means; just go with the flow!
We left some big loops and empty spaces to fill in in with roving that hasn’t been knit, pom-poms, and tassels.
To attach the tassels, thread the cable tie through the center of the top and secure it to the grid.
Look at the fun texture start to come together by weaving knit and un-knit roving through the grid.
Keep on adding pops of color until you cover your entire backdrop. Now you are all set to gear up for your party!
CHEERS to your super awesome new backdrop!
If you haven’t heard yet, make sure you stop by our annual Holiday House! While you’re there, head to Santa’s Workshop, sponsored by NBC’s Making It, where you can DIY and snap pics in front of this backdrop!
Show us your holiday party photo backdrops by tagging us on Instagram using the hashtag #iamcreative and #MakingIt.
This post was paid for by NBC.
