Handmade Happiness: Yarn Crafts
Easy Instructions for 30 Bright and Beautiful DIY Projects Including Wreaths, Tassels, Rainbows, Pom-Pom Garlands, and More
Sarah Freeman’s colorful, boisterous crafting guide Handmade Happiness: Yarn Crafts includes thirty projects that use a variety of yarns and techniques.
The book details basic supplies needed, as well as foundational techniques like making tassels and pom-poms, before delving into its projects. Pom-pom crafts abound, including some fashioned into pineapples, cherries, and watermelons; made on a large scale with a do-it-yourself pom-pom maker; and turned into spiders. Family projects arise, too, including bowls made with yarn and glue, weaving on straws, and designing pom-pom wands.
The book is creative, cozy, encouraging, and empowering to people who love the look and feel of yarn, but who don’t know how to knit or crochet. Its cheerful projects are a great entry point and use for leftover material. Detailed step-by-step instructions with photographs are included for each of the projects, their guidance easy to follow regardless of one’s skill level. For example, the instructions for a chandelier made with an embroidery hoop, paper straws, pom-poms, and embellishments show how to prepare materials; make strands on yarn with pieces of straw, beads, tissue paper circles, and pom-poms; attach the strands to the hoop; and finish with a tassel.
Other delightful projects include a stitched rainbow worked on plastic canvas, a basic weaving project using a picture frame, a garland made from bows of yarn, a sweatshirt with faux embroidery text, and yarn flowers made on a peg loom to embellish a tote bag. Most of the projects involve easy-to-obtain supplies, with notes indicating which items might be easier to find online or at a home improvement store, as with a plastic peg board for a large-scale cross stitch project and a stitched wire grid made with chicken wire.
Handmade Happiness: Yarn Crafts is a bright, cheerful craft guide to constructing easy home décor and holiday-themed projects with yarn.
Reviewed by
Sarah White
Disclosure: This article is not an endorsement, but a review. The publisher of this book provided free copies of the book to have their book reviewed by a professional reviewer. No fee was paid by the publisher for this review. Foreword Reviews only recommends books that we love. Foreword Magazine, Inc. is disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255.
