Make Yarn Balloons

Make Yarn Balloons
January 27, 2014

I'm a serious knitter.  My gran taught me when I was too young to remember learning.  Through my teenage years I didn't knit all that often, but picked it up again in my mid 20's.  I knit everyday.  I need it in my life.  There's just no going without it.

In the past year or so I've been branching out to other crafts and kept seeing yarn balloons on Pinterest and other websites.  They're beautiful and seemed easy enough to make.

This list was made before we bought a new home.  We're building the home, so haven't moved in yet and making yarn balloons doesn't seem like a smart thing to do before undergoing a move.  What if they get completely ruined in the process?

Well... hopefully that doesn't happen.  We don't move till after my birthday, so I couldn't put this off any longer.

I bought some punch balloons because they're rounder than normal balloons.  Luckily I already had some glue, so I was all set.

I hung the balloon on a hanger on the shower curtain and used some tinfoil, shaped into a small bowl, to mix the glue with a little bit of water and started running yarn through the mixture.  It was really gloopy, but spread well over the yarn.  Of course, I couldn't put all of the intended yarn into the glue all at once, so it became a balancing act trying to wrap the yarn around the balloon, while soaking it in glue/water while it was still on the rest of the skein.

My intention was to make 3 balloons.  First was the blue one.  By the second one, I realized that 3 just wasn't going to happen.  I started with a full bottle of Elmers and ran out of glue.  That's a lot of glue on two balloons!






The pink went a lot more smoothly for yarn placement, but suddenly it felt like all of the loose hairs on my head were stuck to my gluey hands or yarn.  Needing to get them off, they ended up all over my tub, glued down.  That was an interesting mess to clean up afterwards!

Making both balloons took a little less than an hour and I can't say I enjoyed it.  The whole time I just wanted to finish them...

I left them hanging to dry in the bathroom for a little over 24 hours and then popped the balloons.  As the balloons deflated, they pulled the yarn in on itself.  It seemed like they were ruined, but I had left them to dry for so long I figured they had to have been finished.  Luckily, I was right and they went back into the correct shape very quickly.  It was a neat process, but I probably would have liked it a lot more if I knew that they were going to be fine.

Now they're hanging in the guest room closet, waiting for the move.  Hopefully nothing happens to them, because they look great.  They'll look even better hanging from the roof in my new knitting room!