Make a Candy Cane Wall Hanging from Yarn

An article rescued using the Wayback Machine. Mom wrote it for eHow back in 2010.

Making pom-poms from yarn is easy. Connect them together to make a giant candy cane. This makes a marvelous Christmas decoration. Here’s how to make one for your wall.

Things You’ll Need:

red yarn & white yarn
wire clothes hanger
small square of cardboard (3 inches by 2 inches)

One of Gail and Clyde’s giant candy canes made from pom poms.

1 Take a wire coat hanger. Untwist it and straighten it to the full length. Bend the top part into the shape of a shepherd’s crook. Fold each end back on itself (to keep the pom-poms from sliding off).
2 Make the pom-poms: Wrap the yarn twenty times around the three inch length of the cardboard. Slide the cardboard out. Using a separate piece of yarn, tie the loops of yarn in the middle. Leave enough extra of the tie to tie the pom-pom onto the wire.
3 Make as many red and white pompoms as needed to fill the wire cane. We double wrapped, then tied with a square knot. Cram the pom-poms together to make a fuller candy cane.
4 We found some yarn that had glitter entwined and that made even prettier canes. I also sprayed clear shellac and quickly sprinkled glitter on plain yarn to get the same effect.
5 We added plastic decoration up near the curve by tying it with yarn. Big red, velvety bows look great on them too.

Added decoration on the pom-pom candy cane.

6 A wire loop was added to the back side for hanging. We double wrapped some yarn, then tied it with a square knot to the wire for extra strength.

This looks great hanging on a door during the holiday season. We made both big candy canes and small ones. Store the candy cane carefully so the yarn isn’t crushed.

Pie Crust Scraps

This is a guest post by my sister, Karen Kolavalli:

“Tonight I’m remembering the cinnamon and sugar pie crust scraps Mom used to make for us. I don’t know if this is just something my mom did or if it was a common practice back in the day. The scraps, of course, are what’s left over after a pie crust is rolled out and fitted into the pie pan. The excess is trimmed off with a knife.

The pie crust scraps are placed on a cookie sheet and sprinkled with cinnamon and sugar and then baked for about 10 minutes. As soon as they’re out of the oven, they’re divvied up among the kids and eaten hot and fresh.

The pie dough scraps ready to go into the oven. (photo by Karen Kolavalli)

The ones I made tonight (in the picture) are bigger and not as “scrappy” as my Mom’s because I had a small ball of dough left over after making a small fruit cobbler. I rolled out the ball and cut it into strips. They were lovely. 🙂

Those sweet pie crust scraps are a special childhood memory.”

Karen’s photo of the ready-to-eat pie dough scraps. Just like Mom used to make. My mouth is watering already.

Gail and Clyde’s First Home Together

Mom wrote this in 1999, “When we were first married 54 years ago, Clyde was batching on the Vi Long farm. It was a quarter east and quarter south of the Martin farm in Greenwood County, Kansas. 120 acres with 1/3 of the production going to Longs.

He had the basics to set up housekeeping and with my last paycheck from Boeing, I bought 6 oak chairs to go with the round oak Martin family table.

The kitchen was on the east and we used a gasoline stove and kerosene lamps. We had a wood stove in the dining room. The front room and other bedroom were shut off during the winter months. We got our water from a cistern.

Shortly after the first of January, we moved to the Martin house. Wendall Lockhart took over the Vi Long farm and moved in.”

Gail Martin’s memory sketch of the Greenwood County farmhouse where she lived when first married.