Leaves Assembled

Voila! The poinsettia! It only took a few minutes to assemble the red leaves.

I made the yellow part using Bernat Satin Sport Warm Yellow and 15 yellow pony beads. The instructions were to string the beads onto the yarn first and then knit them in. At first I thought this was going to create a tangled, loose mess, but I knit it taut and cinched the bottom closed. As I gathered the top it clustered into the neat ball that you see here. I didn't have the Knifty Knitter spool loom, so I improvised using the pink loom, removing one of the pegs, and using a loom clip, as below:

This was easy to do. Here is what the back of the poinsettia looks like:

So far I have completed 3 of the green leaves, which I will post shortly.

Loom Clips

I forgot to mention that I used loom clips as I was knitting the practice sock. Using the clips was easy... SNAP! and they are in place. But unsnapping them must be done carefully. I was concerned that I might break them as I twisted them off, but I didn't.

I am almost finished with the second leaf for my poinsettia. I'm still struggling with the yarn being wrapped too tightly on the loom, so I have to find that "perfect" balance to knit with. The two main problems with the yarn being too tight are: 1. sometimes the peg pops out of the loom while you're trying to pull the yarn over the top of it, and 2. sometimes the yarn you are trying to knit over comes off as you are trying to knit off. So both strands of yarn are left dangling while you try to figure out which one belongs on top. ARGH!