How to Create Jumbo Tassels

If you’ve ever tried to create jumbo tassels, you probably realized you couldn’t get the the top part to be nice and round and bulbous, right? I tried and tried to make it work with just using yarn, but, they just weren’t working out like I wanted.

I took a little drive over to our local Meijer store (a step up from Wal-Mart) looking for small play balls. There were a few I could have tried, but these fairly inexpensive foam-like golf practice balls seemed to do the trick.

Materials:

• 1 skein of yarn (you won’t use all of it)
• 1 piece of cardboard folded in two – I used the back of a sketch pad. It measured 8 1/2″ x 16″, so when it was folded it measured 8 1/2″ by 8″.
• Scissors
• Foam-like balls

I also grabbed one of my big needles to help navigate the yarn ties.

I didn’t really know how much yarn to wind around the cardboard, I just knew I wanted a big, thick tassel. I used about 2/3 of the yarn skein.

I cut three strands of yarn measuring approximately 20″ long, threaded them through my embroidery needle and then slid them in behind the wound yarn as close to the folded top as I could get it. It was really difficult to get it right up on the fold.

Here’s where I need to be honest with you. It’ not easy getting that knot as tight as you might like. You may want to cinch it with a slipknot, then come back to tie it off. It took lots of quick tying.

You can see that the yarn tie wouldn’t slide all the way up to the top, but I knew the tassel length would be plenty long enough so the tie wasn’t a problem.

Slide the scissors through the open bottom side of the cardboard to cut the yarn.

Now it’s safe to open up your tied yarn strands and spread them out.

Here’s where you place the foam ball right in the center.

Cut three more strands of yarn that will be tied around the tassel. This is a big hefty handful, so you need to really get a good grip around the tassel.

After getting the triple strand tied really tight around the bottom of the tassel ‘bell’, then you may want to pull the yarn pieces to tighten them up a bit, kind of like tightening up a pony tail.

I grabbed a longer tufting needle to ‘regulate’ the yarn and even things up.

Don’t be shocked at how uneven the bottom is. Lots of strands shift around during the tying process. Start trimming off the bottom of your tassel, as you want it to look. I was going for a flat-ish bottom, but nice and thick all around, not long and thin.

After I trimmed it the first time, then I flipped it upside down and trimmed around the bottom, which will ultimately be the top of the tassel.

See how nice and bit it is. Very substantial. Use your imagination to create tassel embellished pillows, throws, cushions, footstools or chairs.