Add Some Festive Flair to an Old Throw Blanket With Homemade Tassels
Looking to add a little pizzazz to an old throw blanket? This tassel tutorial is just what you’ve been looking for! I’ll show you how to create tons of tassels that you can use to decorate just about anything! I happened to have an old throw blanket that needed some TLC, so I decided to decorate it with rainbow tassels. Follow my step-by-step tutorial below to get started making your own today!
Tools and Materials:
- Tape measure
- Pencil
- Blanket
- Yarn
- 7-7 ½” long book (you can use any sturdy piece of plastic or cardboard for this part, but I like to use a book because I can easily tuck the end of my yarn into it.)
- Scissors
- Needle
- Cardstock
Before I got started I needed to determine how many tassels I needed to make and what sides of the blanket I would be attaching them to. I lay out my blanket and determined that I wanted them to be about 4 inches apart, so I would need 15 for each side that I was decorating. I also wanted to do a rainbow theme, so I figured out how many I would need of each color before I got started. This part isn’t absolutely necessary, but it will make your life easier later one when you have a simple list to refer back to.
I tucked my yarn into the top of the book and started wrapping. If you’re working with a thin yarn you’ll need to wrap it about twenty times, fifteen times if it’s a thicker yarn. I’m using a thinner yarn so I wrapped it twenty times. Once I was done I cut the yarn.
I cut an 8” piece of yarn and lay it on my table.
Then I slipped the yarn off of the book and placed it on top of the 8” piece I had just cut.
I tied the 8” piece of yarn around the looped yarn twice.
I put my scissors through the hole on either side of the yarn and cut. Then I folded it over on itself.
Next I cut a 24” piece of yarn and looped it on one end. I lay the loop over the top end of the tassel and started wrapping the yarn around it. You should see one end of the longer piece of yarn sticking out towards the top of the tassel.
After I wrapped it twice I gave it a good tug to make sure that it was tight, and then continued wrapping. I wrapped mine about seven times.
Then I thread the rest of the yarn through the loop, pulled the top piece that was hanging out, and snipped off the excess.
Finally I trimmed the bottom of the tassel to make sure that all of it was nice and even. I repeated this process to make all of the tassels that I needed for my banket.
Here’s a neat little hack for you! In order to not have to mark up my blanket, I cut a piece of cardstock equal to the distance I wanted between my tassels, and used that as a guide when attaching them to the blanket.
I thread one of the pieces coming out of the top of the tassel through a needle and put it through the edge of the blanket. Make sure not to put it right at the edge as it may end up accidentally getting pulled through.
Then I tied a loose knot with the other string coming out the top of the tassel. You don’t want it to be too snug to the edge of the blanket and you want it to hang a bit, so tie accordingly. Make sure that you tie two tight knots and cut off the excess yarn.
Next I placed the card on the blanket with one edge up against the purple tassel, and repeated the process right where the other edge of the card was.
I repeated this with the rest of my tassels.
It’s as easy as that! This is a great, easy way to breathe some new life into an old blanket. What color scheme would you use? Let me know in the comments below!
Frequently asked questions
Have a question about this project?
How do you keep the tassels from getting all snarled together and ratty looking after laundering the blanket?