Finger Knitting

This is one of those skills that once you’ve got it, you’ve got it! It gives the best brain-body workout as your fingers are mindfully working, you brain is building muscle memory and your body is in a gentle flow state. I realised this needed to be on the Homestead Series after successfully teaching 2 sets of camp kids and a grown up how to finger knit this autumn. Lots of balls of yarn and lots of busy fingers later, they’d learnt a skill for life.

Materials Needed:

• 2 fingers (dry, muddy or grubby fingers work best)

• Chunky yarn

Begin by trapping the tail end of the yarn between your thumb and hand.

Next take the yarn behind your pointy finger and in front of your middle finger.

Then take it around the back of your middle finger and in front of your pointy finger.

It should look like a figure 8.

Then make the same figure 8 again.

It should look like this; the tail trapped between thumb and hand and 2 rows of figure-8s stacked on your fingers.

The working yarn end will stay behind your hand.

You’ll see there are now 2 rows of yarn on your fingers.

Take one of the bottom rows of yarn, loop it over the top row and off your finger. Then do the same on the other finger.

Give the tail a little tug to tighten it up.

*Please note, it’ll take 2-3 rounds for the weaving pattern to emerge.

If the yarn looks loose, give the tail and the working end of the yarn a little tug to tighten it up.

(Please excuse the change of hand model, the tiddler-toddler went off to splash in puddles!)

Once you’ve looped over both of the bottom rows, it’ll look like this.

Repeat your figure 8 shape, just one this time.

Once you have your 2 rows again, bring the bottom loop up and over just like before.

When you turn over your hand, your creation should be looking great!

Continue with the same rhythm to grow your weaving…

…yarn goes behind, in front, behind, in front,

loop up and over, loop up and over.

Once you’ve grown your weaving to a length you’re happy with, cut the working end and gently take the weaving off your fingers.

Thread the new end through the two loops your fingers were just in, give it a little pull to close and tie a knot.

It was so much fun throughout October teaching all the children to finger knit. Its a great skill which is so versatile. Once you know how to do 2 fingers, you can progress to 3 then 4 fingers! And once you know how to knit on 4 fingers then you can progress to different types of knitting.

Here are some snaps of the children during the half term camps this October with their finger knitting skills in action.