in this video we're going to talk about making a tassel in this case I'm making a two color tassel which is why I've got two piles of yarn here I currently have just ten inch lengths and I've got 20 pieces of each your tassel that you make may be longer or shorter and may use more or less colors but that's the size that I want to make mine additionally I've got a single strand that's 20 inches long and this is what's going to tie the tassel together and then lastly I've got a piece of smooth waist here and that's going to help us put this tassel together before we actually attach it to our shawl and last but not least I've got my embroidery needle so that I can weave in all the ends the first thing I want to do because this is a two color tassel is combine these two piles together and the way I do that is actually by it's a little tedious but I take two strands of one color and lay them out and then two strands of the next color and lay them out and just pile them on top of each other by doing that we don't end up with one big tassel that has half of it yellow and half of it blue so go ahead and lay your strands together and we'll come back and look at how to start piecing all of these pieces together so now that I'm satisfied with my pile of combination colors put together what I want to do is use this smooth waste yarn I'm just going to move this out of the way and lay it down over what looks to be about the halfway mark of this pile of ten inch lengths I'm gonna fold these in half and use this smooth waste yarn to just tie a loose knot at the top of the half way this is something that you're going to want to take out when we attach the tassel to the skein area to the shawl so don't tie it too tight something that you can easily pull out so now we've got the tassel in half with our smooth waste yarn attached to the top so now that I lay that aside I'm gonna pick up my 20 inch length that I showed you earlier and we're gonna use this fold it in half around the skein / why do I keep saying skein around the tassel but here we so I like to just collect my pieces loop it over the top just so that I know it's at the halfway point and tie it around the tassel depending on what you like I usually do about three-quarters of an inch to half an inch below where I've tied the tassels together and I'm just gonna tie a really simple knot on the back side of my tassel you might get some bunching with some of your pieces that are folded in half you can just tug them down so that it looks the way you like it this doesn't have to be super super tight we're gonna stitch this up using our embroidery needle in just a minute but what I like to do is holding this side tight I'm then going to use this other half and start wrapping it around the tassel until I've got maybe two or three inches left and that's what I'm gonna thread it on to my needle I may go around one more time but here's the trick that works best for me is taking that needle I feed it down into the center of the tassel and it's actually going to poke out right between all of the ends here and I'm just gonna pull it straight down and tug it nice and tight and what that's going to do is secure that piece of end right inside your tassel so you don't see it now we're gonna do the same with the other side wrapping the other way we're gonna use this bit here wrap it around a few times so it's nice and tight thread it on to the needle and then just like before we're gonna stick the needle into the middle of the tassel and straight down so that it pokes out between all of your tassel pieces and pull it down nice and snug so now we've got our tassel made as I say you can pull down some of these pieces so you get a nice smooth tassel head that's all right tassel head and when we come back I'm going to show you how to use this waste yarn to attach the shawl or the tassel to your shawl so here I have the end of my shawl with the tail left on from binding off I didn't cut this but I have blocked my shawl and this is something that I always recommend to people is when you are finishing a shawl weave in your ends block it but don't cut the loose threads until you're done blocking that way it just secures all your ends anyway that's a whole other lesson but now I've got my tassel here still with this smooth waste yarn attached and the end of my shawl and what I'm gonna do is using that smooth waste yarn as a guide you can see it still divides the top I'm going to take my needle and stick it in between that loop where we folded the tassels in half and pull it out the other side then I'm gonna simply Snug my tassel right up to my shawl and what I like to do we can get a good close up here is actually pick up a stitch or two let's just see turn this over the stitch or two on the inside of the shawl just to help secure that tassel because it is gonna be fairly heavy so I just go under a few loops of the garter stitch back down picking up a couple stitches along the way and then back through the tassel one more time to secure it right along where we folded in half where the smooth waste yarn is but we're gonna pull this needle back through one more time and then I just go right through the top of the tassel with my needle and just like we did when we were wrapping the tie of the tassel I'm gonna go straight down until my needle pokes out through the end of the tassel and pull the needle through and then this end is all the way through and secured and now your tassel is nicely secured to the end of your shawl and the reason we didn't want to tie a big knot in our smooth waste yarn is now we can simply pull it out and pull it out oh if you didn't if you didn't attach it there we go there we go that got a little tight in there anyway so now we've pulled it out we have our tassel attached to the end of our shawl and our smooth waste yarn and needle are done so once your tassel is all secured to your shawl I like to trim up the ends because well we're imperfect people and we can't get everything lined up exactly right so what I like to do is just get it as secured as I can in between my hands so all the ends are about exactly this about there as close together as they're gonna get I should say and just snip right across as flat as I can and close trim off all those ends and then you've got a nice clean tassel end and a great finish for yourself that's it hope you had fun good luck and if you've got any questions let me know happy knitting