Finger Knitting Tutorial

Looking for a quick, super simple, and mindless craft?  You have found it in finger knitting!  You use your fingers and yarn to create a long chain that looks like this:

When I was a kid and my mom needed to keep us quiet during boring things, she would pull out a stash of yarn and let us go to town.  I would knit a chain longer than me using a whole skein, and then wrap it all around me like a scarf or necklace.

Now, you may be thinking, cute story, but what would I do with a long chain of yarn?  Honestly, not much.  But, how 'bout instead of yarn you used leather strips?  Bedazzle that up and you’ve got yourself an awesome bracelet, or necklace, or belt!

Pretty stylin’ right?

This tutorial will teach you how to finger knit, then tomorrow check back to see how I turned it from kid craft to runway chic!

This tutorial has a lot of pictures, but that’s to help you get it down!  This really is an easy craft and even young kids can do it.  So grab a ball of yarn to practice and let’s get started!

First let’s set things up.  You'll be working straight off the ball of yarn, so no need to measure out a length.  Tie the end of the yarn around the thumb of your non-dominant hand.  (I’m right handed so I used my left hand.  Use whatever hand is comfortable for you, the process is the same.) 

With the yarn secured to your thumb, weave the yarn behind your index finger, in front of your middle finger, behind you ring finger, and in front of your pinkie, just like this:

Then, just weave the yarn back.  Draw it around your pinkie finger, in front of your ring finger, behind your middle finger, and in front of your index finger.  It should look like this:

Now take that string behind your hand, like this (with handy arrows pointing the way):

And then bring the string back up to your thumb:

Alright, that’s the set up!  Now to start knitting.

Starting with the index finger, place the long strand above the strand on the index finger.  (The long strand is the one across your palm.)  Pull the bottom strand (the strand on the finger) away from the finger creating a hole.  Put your index finger through that hole and slip the yarn behind the finger. 

Sound confusing?  Here’s some pictures to help.  The first one shows the hole, with the long strand on top and the finger strand on the bottom:

The finger goes through that hole and the yarn you are pulling goes behind the finger.

Making more sense now?  Repeat this move for each finger:

And that’s it!  If it doesn’t make sense, just try it a few times following closely to the pictures and you’ll get it. 

To keep going all you do is wrap the yarn around your hand again from back to front:

And repeat the process.  Do this over and over as long as you like (it can actually get to be a soothing process from the repetitiveness of it) and pretty soon you will have a funky looking chain of yarn on your hand.

Finishing this off is simple.  When you have a length that you like, just cut the yarn leaving at least 5 inches. 

Just slip that yarn end through each finger loop, pulling it off the finger as you go.

When you take it off it will look like this:

But to turn it into that skinny chain, just pull on both ends and voila!

And that’s it!  Easy right?  And now you have a cool and funky yarn chain!

This tutorial was just to show the finger knitting basics.  Tune in tomorrow to see how I used this process to make a more stylish, adult version!