During our California Blog Meet Up (read all about it HERE), we had a delightful pin exchange in which we prepared crafty pins ahead of time for each other! As soon as fellow amigurumi artist Jo suggested that we do a pin exchange, I knew exactly what type of pin I wanted to make!
I love perusing Craftgawker, and there was a particular project that had caught my eye from December of last year. Francesca of “Fall for DIY” had made some beautiful “DIY Monkey Fist Knot Earrings”, and I absolutely loved how they looked like little yarn balls! For our pins, I thought it would be so cute to make a little yarn ball with a crochet hook similar to the one pictured in my blog logo! In Francesca’s blog post on how to make her earrings HERE, she includes step-by-step instructions, and she also filmed an extremely helpful video entitled “How to Tie a Monkey Knot" HERE (I’ll embed the video at the end of this blog post too!). Rather than reiterate her instructions, we recommend that you visit her blog post and watch the video to see how it’s made!
We searched for the perfect pink yarn, and we ended up going with Lion Brand Yarn’s ”Martha Stewart Extra Soft Wool Blend in Gerbera Daisy“. Ryan is actually the one who mastered the monkey fist knot, and to keep the yarn balls consistent and similar-sized, he made them all! It was such a whirlwind leading up to our California trip since we were making our costumes for Anime Expo as well, and I am so thankful that I have such a supportive husband who helped me make these pins! Here are some step-by-step photos showing how Ryan made our little yarn balls and crochet hooks 🙂
We bought some brass jewelry pins from Michaels (came in a set of 10) and hot glued the little crochet balls onto the pins after tying the ends of yarn into a knot. To make the crochet hooks, we used these ornament hooks that we purchased from Walmart a couple years ago (we have a large stash of these since we use them to hang the baubles from our white Christmas tree every year)!
Ryan used pliers to shape the ends of the ornament hooks to resemble crochet hooks! You may recall that we made a similar crochet hook for Mochi our Fluff Bear to hold (read about the making of our amigurumi Fluff Bears HERE)!
Ryan placed the crochet hook through the yarn ball so that the yarn ball was at the bottom of the hook. He then added some hot glue to the middle of the crochet hook and then slid the yarn ball upwards into the glue in order to secure the hook in place. After each pin was complete, we mounted them on cardboard and were so excited to give these out at the meet up!
To see the making of a monkey knot in action, please see this wonderful video below filmed by Francesca of ”Fall For DIY“! We paused this video many times as we followed along to learn how to make this special knot!
Here are some notes about making your own yarn ball:
– Instead of wrapping the yarn around the hand three times, we did it four times to make a bigger yarn ball (depends on thickness of yarn).
– Towards the end, try and pull each strand of yarn evenly and with consistent tension to make a uniform yarn ball.
– Don’t pull the strands of yarn too tight or else the yarn ball will be squished.
– Ryan made many "failed” monkey knots/yarn balls before getting the hang of it and achieving the right look, so just keep trying and practicing and don’t be discouraged!
These little yarn balls are so cute, and once you’ve mastered how to tie this special knot, they are inexpensive and relatively quick to make! Wouldn’t yarn ball earrings or a yarn ball necklace pendant be the perfect gift for us yarn lovers? The addition of the little crochet hook helps us proudly display the love of our craft too! I hope you enjoyed reading about the making of our “Yarn Ball & Crochet Hook Pin” and I want to extend a big thank you to Francesca for inspiring this idea! We are giving away one of these pins on my Instagram page (@AllAboutAmi) since we reached 5000 followers recently- if you would like to win one, just follow me on Instagram and leave a comment on the picture of the pin to enter! Happy monkey knot and yarn ball making 🙂
