Okay, I think I’ve created 3 montsters – knitting monsters . . . YAY. My three kiddos (ages 5, 7, and 8) woke me up this morning at 6:30am so I could help “start them” on their finger knitting. I’ve tried to teach full needle knitting before, but I have discovered they haven’t much perseverance for it. I should have remembered – start SIMPLE (didn’t I just post about that?) So, I was actually thrilled at the early morning wake-up. Here they are knitting in pjs, not far from bed . . .
Here’s how it happened . . . It was the strangest thing, I was going along the other day minding my own business (okay, I was doing the mountains of laundry that I can’t seem to get through – why is always my business?) and I had a blast out of nowhere. I think. you can knit. on your hand. simply. . . . a vague thought – ack – how do you do it? I couldn’t picture it at all. I can’t even say that I remember doing it as a kiddo myself. Still, I picked up a skein of yarn with vague notion in my head. Before I even thought about it, I proceeded to whip out a long chain. I think I must have done it a lot as a kiddo, lots of muscle memory there. I did YouTube it so if you want to learn how, go here.
First, I taught my middle guy, who loves to just hang out together. We sat side by side in his bed, I knitting a gorgeous cowl from Quince & Co on my needles; he a scarf on his fingers.
“Mom,” he asked, “Can we have a knitting night every Sunday?”
Oh, any night, my boy, any night!
Then, the other one wanted to learn, and then, the third. They picked it up in a breeze and haven’t stopped since. Baillie, below, finger knit three long strands and braided them together. “Mom! This is going to blow the girls away!” I love it! My daughter did a sweet little scarf and embellished it with a bow. What a sweet and organic surprise this turned out to be. Happy times.
Thanks for reading.
Anne Weil
Megan Woodard Johnson says
Hi Anne- fellow fishie here…just had a minute to peruse your blog, and I just love it! I love how happy it made me to read it…you have a great, wonderful, infectiously positive feeling that you put out there- Thanks!
Megan
Rebekah Leigh says
Hey Anne! such a sweet post, I’ve just started finger knitting this week with a pupil in my class who has LD, she finds it really calming! I really love to see your photographs too, they are beautiful 🙂
The Mother Huddle says
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The Mother Huddle says
How refreshing to see that in a world of Nintendo DS there are still kids creating! Love this, and your photos are beautiful 🙂
stacie says
Anne, my daughter loves to finger knit too. I have lots of beautiful scarves that she made for me 🙂
April says
My daughter and her friends were doing this I would LOVE to know how to turn it into a rug…
anne says
Rug directions are coming soon! I just have to get the post together!
Heidi says
my daughter is finger knitting as a stumbled across this! She wants to turn it into a baby blanket for her teacher that taught her, any suggestions?
anne says
I am about to post a tutorial on how to make a rug with the finger knitting (I know I said that above) but I have finished the rug now, and it should be posted in the next week or so. Regarding a blanket, you could sew the lines of the finger knitting together by bending it back and forth in a rectangle, whip-stitching it together along the way, although I’ve never tried it. The rug I made is a circular one, but I bet you could “make” a loom out of a sheet of cardboard and loosely weave the finger knitting into a blanket. Ahh, dear, just add it to my list! good luck and let me know if you come up with a good solution!
xo Anne
Allgaul says
you could use PVC pipe to create your rectangular loom and still use the tee shirt loops for your weft. Then weave the finger knitting back and forth. I bet it would make a sweet blanket!
anne says
Thanks for the idea. I was thinking about using a large cardboard loom, like a large version of the ones I used to make when I was younger. If that doesn’t work I’ll try the pvc!
Anonymous says
It seems no one else has problems with this, but what do you do if you mess up on a “stitch”? My son gets frustrated when he does a big long piece and then when you pull some seems to slip out. I think he missed a stitch somewhere or maybe when we took a break to put it on pencils we did it wrong? Do you just ignore it if you mess up and not pull on it too hard? Thanks!
anne says
It’s not true that no one else has problems with it!! The best thing to do is to see where there might be some of those irregularities before you pull it taut. I use a scrap piece of the yarn you are using to do the finger knitting to “tie” the lose loop or section back into the strand of finger knitting. Try to reform the shape of the strand. This will keep it from pulling apart. Try to tie it so the ends of the tie can be hidden in the middle of the strand. I hope this helps!
Cassie says
Hi! I’m so delighted I came across your blog. I’m about to attempt the Finger Knitting Rug tutorial with my daughter, but I’m not sure how to connect the long strands of finger knitting to create the big ball. ??
flaxandtwine says
Hi cassie. It may be better to keep them separate lengths. It’s easier to work on the loom that way. When you want to attach the strands, you simply knot them together as close as possible so they “feel” like one strand.