How PomPoms Saved My Grandma during COVID

Like everyone else in the world 2020 was a difficult year especially for a grandmother stuck inside in Missouri and a granddaughter and lock down in Denver Colorado.

There are only so many puzzles and movies that can be mailed so we had to start getting creative.

My grandmother has tried to teach me to knit and sew and crochet my entire life and I’ve never been able to get past that first awkward half-done, full-of-holes, practice scarf.

But my grandma needed some thing to entertain her by the time Thanksgiving and Christmas came around it was getting harder and harder to be locked inside and not have contact with her children and grandchildren.

I didn’t feel like I could travel to see her safely due to the virus so I had to come up with some thing else.

Unlike me my grandmother is a phenomenal creator and the lockdown turned out to be a time when she could get back into knitting.There were challenges, crocheting was difficult due to her arthritis and yarn was difficult to find in Missouri due to supply chain shortages.

But let’s be honest we were both very bored, so we decided to net a blanket together.

How do you net a blanket together while being separated or separated by thousands of miles, you may ask?

This is how we did it.

I found the perfect yarn for my Afghan at a store in Denver then had both the pattern and the yarn shipped to my grandmothers house in Missouri. I even got us matching Fiskars scissors because during lockdown - new scissors were very exciting.

Next I got the matching yarn and pattern to keep in Colorado from my part.

We decided on a black and white Afghan that Grandma would knit.

The first couple of days were hard but surprisingly the more she knitted the better the arthritis in her fingers did.

Every day we were able to FaceTime and share pictures of our progress

I learned to make pom-poms from YouTube videos and found all of the brightest colors of yarn I could find in Colorado and discovered a whole new hobby that was fun and engaging and kept me entertained and was way better than looking at my phone.

Though initially intimidating I found making pom-poms to be a fun and easy craft that I could actually do. It didn’t feel complicated and overwhelming the way that knitting or crocheting felt - especially for someone with the attention span of a goldfish.

Making Poms is easy too - it wasn’t expensive or time intensive to learn, all you need is a ball of yarn and a pair of Fiskars Scissors. They even have fun colors now! Look at my pink ones :) My entire startup cost was $20 - and trust me you need new scissors. The 10 year old kitchen scissors that you use to open packages were not “cutting it”. (See what I did there? ;) )

It’s June now and grandma‘s blanket is almost fully completed which is good because it’s starting to get very hot in Missouri and far less appealing to knit a giant blanket on your lap.

And in Colorado the poms and tassels ready to go on the ends of the blanket are ready to join the master project.

In July we finally get to be reunited as we will both have been fully vaccinated and we can’t wait to show you the full final project

This project was powered by lots of FaceTime‘s and Fisk are‘s scissors which are even pink PomPoms kept a grandma and grandmother together while they were separated by a global lockdown I love them so much.

Have fun with your grandparents!

#Create Your Happiness