Super Simple Finger Knitting

What are your hands doing right now? If the answer was 'not making a scarf' then you're not using your time and energy as productively as you could be!

Finger knitting is a quick and easy way to make beautiful objects without any other tools. It's a great introduction to the world of wool as well as a classic to be revisited again and again.

It's great for quick and satisfying results, as you can make a necklace or bracelet in under five minutes and a scarf in an hour, or you can settle in for the long-haul and get started on some bunting.

All you need to get started is some wool and your own two hands.

Different thicknesses of wool will give different effects, but generally thicker is better. If you're not using a set length of wool, but instead taking it straight from the ball, a good tip is to search around inside the ball to find the hidden end and use this instead. As you pull on the wool, the ball won't roll around like crazy, it will easily pull out from the centre.

Pinch the end of the wool between your thumb and the side of your palm in your non-dominant hand (left for right handed-people) with the wool trailing over your palm. Take the trailing wool and wind it between your fingers, going in front of your index finger, behind your middle finger, in front of your ring finger and behind your little finger. Wind it back down the fingers on the opposite sides (ie in front of your little finger, behind your ring finger) until you come back to the start.

Repeat.

You should now have two rows of wool on your fingers. Pinch the ends of the wool in place with your thumb to free up your other hand.

Next, take the lower row on your little finger and bring it up and over the top of your finger. Do the same with your other three fingers until you are back to only having a single row across your fingers and some loopy wool at the back of your hand.

Wriggle this row down your fingers a bit to give you enough space to wind more wool through your fingers. Once you have two rows again, bring the lower row up and over your fingers like you did before.

Repeat!

Continue to add rows and loop them over your fingers, pulling them taught every few rows to keep it neat. The knitted structure will gradually appear behind your hand.

After about 10 rows, you should have enough for a small bracelet. This makes for a good activity for children as they get something quite professional looking fairly quickly.

You can keep adding rows until you get it to the length you want. If you need to pause and come back to it another day, thread something through the row where your fingers would be (a knitting needle, spoon, stick, whatever you can find), then carry on when you're ready.

To finish, take the loop on your little finger and put it on your ring finger as shown in the gif above. Lift the bottom loop over the top of your ring finger just like we were doing before. Move the loop to your middle finger and bring the lower loop over the top again. Finally, move the loop on to your index finger and bring the lower loop over the top once more.

You should now be left with just one loop on your index finger. Slide it off and post the trailing thread through the loop. Take the thread from the other end of the object where you started from and tie the two ends together which stops the whole thing coming undone.

And that's it!

There are bags of uses for these things, from scarves, bunting and bracelets to keychain accessories and googly-eyed creatures!

Let me know if you make anything fun in the comments, I'm always keen to hear what brilliant ideas people come up with for these :)

Happy finger knitting!