Hi there. I'm Rachel Burke. And I'm the artist behind the project APOMAWISH. So, APOMAWISH is about creating a pompom and sharing a wish for the future with it.

So, to get started, you just need some simple materials. You, of course, need some wool. You need some paper - two sheets, overlay. You need some scissors, you'll need a toothpick and some plain card to share your wish, and a little bit of glue to affix it with, or sticky tape, depending on what you fancy. So let's get started. 

To make the pompom, what you will need to do is get your two pieces of card and overlay them. I'm going to cut out a kind of horseshoe shape with my cardboard. And then I'm going to cut a little doorway into that arch. So, I've got my two templates cut out at this point, and now I'm ready to start winding on my wool. So, I have a nifty little trick for pompom making to make it go a little bit faster. And what I do is I find the beginning of my yarn, and then I like to do something called "splitting the wool", and that involves pulling the wool apart, and finding an extra strand in which to wind with. This just means that my pompom making will be a bit speedier than it usually would be if I was using one strand. So once I've done that, I've split my wool, I'm ready to start winding. 

So, I've got my template, I'm going to place my yarn on and I'm just going to begin by winding. You don't have to tie or do any knots or anything like that. You just begin the winding process. So, I know my pompom is ready to trim when my template is full of yarn, and looking what I like to call like a yarn croissant. When it's nice and full and packed with wool, this means that you're going to get a really nice dense pompom. And when you trim it, you can save some of those trims to actually make a secondary pompom, which is very fun. 

So, what I'm going to do at this stage is I'm just going to trim this length of wool off. And then I'm going to cut all the way along this outer edge. Once I've trimmed that outer edge, the inside template should be exposed, and you can see that this is where the doubled-over template is going to come in handy because that is where you are going to thread your string through. So right now it looks a bit like a pompom sandwich, and it's perfectly ready to begin taking it to the next stage. So, I'm going to get a long length of yarn, and I'm going to double it over so it's a little bit stronger when I thread it through. And I'm just going to thread it through the middle of that template. 

Now, you can tie it up at this stage here, but I like to go around one more time, just to make it extra strong. And at this stage, this is when I'm going to remove the template from the pompom. I'm going to make sure that the knot tied is really tight, and then all my yarn bits are going to stay in place. So, at this stage, you've got a really shaggy pompom on your hands, which is glorious. You may like to keep your pompom in this form, and if you wish to do that, how glorious - you're ready to do your APOMAWISH. But I quite prefer a nice trimmed-back pompom. And don't worry, you can use the excess shavings to create an extra pompom. So, I'm going to begin my trimming process. 

And if you're wanting to get a nice plush pompom, then you need to be bold and trim quite a lot off. And if you do it all in one motion, this means creating a secondary pompom is going to be that much easier. Let's get trimming! So, one thing I'm leaving on in my pompom trimming is this length of yarn, and this is so the pompom can be added to the installation. 

Now, at this stage you can see there is still a little bit of spiky bits to my pompom, a few little stray yarn bits. And this is actually my favourite part of trimming the pompom, when I really relax, I think about my APOMAWISH, and I just start to really finesse the trimming of my pompom, and I make it perfectly plush. And voila! My pompom is ready. 

I can now attach my wish to this pompom, and create my APOMAWISH. So to do that, I'm going to write down my wish onto a piece of paper. I'm going to cut it out. And I'm going to affix it to my toothpick or pipe cleaner. Then adding a little bit of glue to the base of my stick, it is ready to add to my pompom. And there we have it - a fresh APOMAWISH ready to add to the installation. 

Now, if you would like to create a second pompom using your trimmings, this is how you go about it. 

Thanks so much for creating APOMAWISHES with me today. This has been a lot of fun.