Moving is a pain but decorating a new place presents a whole world of exciting styling opportunities—especially when one arrives in a new city with hardly any furniture beyond a bed and a bar cart. Luckily I’m working with a pretty good blank canvas. My apartment was built in the ’20s as a monastery for the church across the street, and one can still find crosses carved into the wooden bannisters. It has hardwood floors, black-and-white checkerboard tiles in the kitchen and nice, high ceilings. Sure, it’s small, but it’s charming and it’s within walking distance to work.
An IKEA trip was necessary (see previous remark regarding dire lack of furniture), but I bought the bare minimum. I promised myself that I would take it slow, skipping big box wares whenever possible in favor of collecting quality items I truly love over time. And I’ve done a pretty good job so far. After a few months of intense online perusal, I finally picked out the couch of my dreams: an oatmeal-hued chesterfield with subtle texture and dramatic tufting. But as much as I love my new couch, I knew she couldn’t sit unadorned in my living room. She needed accessories.
First up: a cozy blanket to keep me warm on dreary Seattle days. After a lot more internet searching (I have a bit of a habit), I fell in love with this striped pompom blanket on Emily Henderson’s blog and knew I could easily approximate it with a pretty knit blanket and a couple balls of yarn. The inspiration throw, like most of its kind, was in the $200 range; the one I put together cost a mere $45. Which is perfect, because I have my heart set on a mid-century tropical chandelier for my room so I’m saving saving all the pennies I can. Check out the super-simple tutorial below to put together your own pompom blanket in an afternoon.
For this project, you’ll need the following:
• a blanket (I used this one and I love it)
• two skeins of yarn
• a 4 1/2″ x 6″ piece of cardboard
• nice, sharp scissors (I love this pair)
• a big-eyed needle
1. Find yourself a scrap of cardboard and cut it to be 4 1/2″ tall and about 6″ wide.
2. Wind the yarn around the piece of cardboard as many times as you want until the tassel is as big as you want. I wrapped my tassels 150 times, but if you’re using a chunkier yarn, you could get away with less.
3. Once you’re happy with the thickness of your tassel. Cut a 12″ piece of yarn and thread it through the loops at the top (while the tassel is still on the cardboard). Knot the piece of yarn tightly several times until the top is nice and secure. Leave the tails of the knotted piece long as this is what we will use to attach the tassels to the blanket in the end.
4. Slide the tassel off the cardboard and cut yourself another 12″ piece of yarn. Tie it around the tassel about 1″ to 1 1/2″ below the top. Make sure to knot it nice and tight as this is what will hold the tassel together.
5. Using sharp scissors, cut the loops at the bottom of the tassel then trim them until they are nice and even, remembering to leave the top piece of yarn long.
6. Thread one end of the top piece of yarn into your big-eyed needle and attach it to the hem of your blanket. Tie the tassel onto the blanket and then thread the tails of the top piece of yarn back through the tassel. Trim off any excess.
7. Repeat with as many tassels as your heart desires. I used 10 total, five on each side of the blanket.
8. Wrap your dog/cat/child in your new, beautiful throw and bribe them with treats so they’ll sit still while you take the most adorable pictures know to mankind. Then curl up and take a nap.
