How to Control Tension with Arm Knitting

Last week I taught a fiber arts class at my daughter’s school, and one of the students was really taken with arm knitting. She made five or six little scarves (which was great for me, because part of my reason for wanting to do the classes was to use up yarn), but it got me thinking, as arm knitting always does, about how to make it a little more like normal knitting.

Usually arm knitting comes out looking slightly better than a tangle, what one of my friends calls “yarn vomit.”

But the thing is, I really want to like arm knitting. The technique is fun, but I don’t love the loose look. There has to be a way to adjust the tension, right?

What I came up with was to deliberately tighten the stitches as I worked, which did help. There’s some good advice at Flax & Twine that will help tighten up arm knitting, from using more strands of yarn to making sure the stitches stay on the bottom part of your arm. Check it out, then let me know if you have any other great arm knitting advice.

[Photo via Flax & Twine.]

Fall will be here before we know it, and that means there are holidays coming right behind where we might be entertaining at home. It’s always fun to have a hand knit touch in your home for other people to see, and if you’re going to be in the kitchen all day you might as well have some nice knit dish cloths to use.

I love this little plaid hand towel from Darling Jadore. Use a little bit of leftover cotton yarn from another project for the plaid portion. It looks like the horizontal stripes are worked as you knit and the vertical stripes are done with duplicate stitch, making this a quick and easy project even newer knitters can make.

Combine garter stitch and an easy eyelet pattern worked sideways to make the Annette Dish Towel from Cluck Cluck Boots, which is meant to be reminiscent of flour sack towels. It calls for DK weight yarn and you can work it in one color or two (or even three!).

Add a little more texture with this set of kitchen towels from Whileberry Creative. They’re mostly worked in garter stitch with borders in easy knit/purl patterns, and you can work them in sport or worsted weight yarn.

Two of Wands Shop has another cute allover knit and purl pattern they call the Seersucker Textured Tea Towel. It’s an easy repeating pattern worked in worsted weight yarn, and there’s a chart in the pattern you can use, but don’t have to, if you want to practice knitting from a chart.

The Classic Cloth dish towel from Handmade Home by Connie is another one that can use a little leftover yarn in a contrasting color, or you could color block it our use stripes throughout the pattern. This one uses worsted weight yarn and another easy repeating knit purl stitch pattern.

If you like to hang your towel on the oven handle or elsewhere but it’s always falling off, try the Stay Put kitchen towel from Fancy Step Knits. This project is worked in garter stitch and includes a hole partway through so you can pull the towel through itself over a rod or handle. Stripes are optional but a nice addition.

Have you read?