Knitting

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Get Kids Started with Finger Knitting

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finger knitting craftfoxesI’ve been writing a lot this week over on About about arm knitting, but another great way to knit without needles is finger knitting.

Finger knitting is a good way to get kids started because they don’t have to fumble with needles so it can feel a little easier and still gets them the concepts of making loops and slipping stitches around to make a knit fabric.

Craft Foxes has a good illustrated tutorial on finger knitting, which it calls a boy craft, but it’s a good gateway into regular knitting for all kinds of kids. I may try this on my daughter soon, since she says the knitting needles are too slippery.

Have you done finger knitting with kids or yourself? I’d love to hear about it!

[Photo via Craft Foxes.]

Comments

  1. I love finger knitting! So glad to see this post! When I was about 7 I made garland by finger knitting for my grandpas Christmas tree and it has been on the tree every year since and I’m 33 now! I was proud and it felt great to see it every Christmas.

  2. Wow! I used to make these as a kid and never knew what to call it and eventually forgot all about it… thanks for the flasback! Now if only my daughter were not fourteen 🙁

  3. We love finger knitting in our house! I taught my son and daughter when they were 5 and 4. They have made many necklaces, scarves, and headbands! We moved onto knitting with needles this oast year, but they always go back to finger knitting because they can do it in the car or anywhere really with no help from me.

Have you read?

Learn a Flower Bobble Technique to Knit a Fun Shawl

Generally I like knitting patterns where I feel like you can use whatever yarn you have (because my stash is big enough and I want to use it, thanks) and make a successful project. This is one of those times when a special yarn makes the process that much easier. 

The Floral Bouquet Shawl from Xandy Peters uses a specific extended color pooling yarn from Feisty Fibers, which allows you to place the bobble flowers with increasing frequency as you knit the project. 

It starts with a solid color yarn, then the two color yarn is added in, and you make a bobble whenever you encounter the color pops. This would be hard to replicate with other yarn that doesn’t have the extended color pooling built in.

The background of the shawl is ribbed, making the project reversible. 

The shawl uses fingering/sock yarn and comes out to be an asymmetrical triangle that’s 54 inches/137 cm long and 36 inches/ 90 cm deep and 60 inches/150 cm across the top edge. 

Xandy says the pattern is for intermediate to advanced knitters. Knowing how to work traditional bobbles would probably help, but there’s a great video tutorial for how to work the floral bobbles so you can practice on other yarn or even incorporate the bobbles into other projects. 

The bobbles are five-petaled flowers but they also kind of look like starfish to me, which could be fun on a child’s cardigan or other pattern. They’d also be fun on the leg of a sock or around the brim of a hat for extra whimsy. 

The pattern includes photo and video tutorials, and written and charted instructions. It also includes tips on what to look for if you choose to use different yarn for the project, and instructions on how to dye your own yarn to use in the project. 

If you want to give it a try, you can find the pattern on Ravelry. 

[Photo: Xandy Peters]