Sparkle Crafts

Sparkle Craft: Nippy Day Knitting

In this week’s Martin & Sylvia: Saturdays! story “Nippy Day Knitting,” Martin and Sylvia are excited for some cool weather making as the summer’s heat wanes and they wake to a rather chilly day. With dreams of knit hats and scarves the two busily get to work. Well, did you know that you too can knit – even if you don’t have any knitting needles? All you need is some yarn and your fingers!

Today we’re going to do a bit of finger knitting of our own with a twist – beads! – to make unique and funky necklaces you can wear no matter the weather.

You Will Need

• Your fingers
• Yarn of your choosing
• Beads large enough to fit onto the yarn
• Scissors

Before You Start – The Basics

Finger knitting is perfect for little ones ages 5+ since it takes a bit of fine motor skill to master. But once your little one has the basics down, the process will go quite quickly! If you child is younger, you may want to do the finger knitting on your own hand, having your little one help you lift each loop over your fingers.

There have been many helpful posts and videos done on how to finger knit (like this one), but our favorite by far is this one from Classic Play. You’ll notice that we flipped our finger knitting and hold out hand facing palm-in rather than palm-out – either way is fine, so long as it’s comfortable.

OK, do you have the basics down? Great! Now it’s time to add some flair!

What To Do

The main difference in this project is the addition of beads. Since you will be finger knitting with a seemingly infinitely long piece of yarn (since it will be attached to your yarn ball), you will need to string the beads on before you begin. If you want a very beaded necklace, then you will need LOTS of beads. Remember, once you start knitting, you won’t be able to add any more beads! Once you have a good number of beads on your yarn, gently push the beads towards the yarn ball along your yarn.

If you use all 4 of your fingers in your knitting, your necklace will be quite thick. For this necklace you may want to knit on just two or three fingers. (We made our necklace with three fingers.) Finger knit a few inches that will make up the back and sides of the necklace. When you’re ready, start sliding beads over one at a time, like so:

Continue to finger knit, pulling the bottom loop over the top working from your pinky to your thumb on however many fingers you’re knitting on. When you’re ready, slip on some more beads. You can even do a whole bunch! You will just pull the lower loop and bead up and over the top loop and bead.

After you add all your beads, continue to finger knit the other side and back. When you’re done, finish off your finger knitting and leave a bit of a tail that you can use to tie your necklace on. Pull your finger knitting a bit tight so that all the rows come together.

You’ve done it! You can now wear your lovely beaded finger knit necklace wherever you’d like, and more importantly, no matter the weather!

Explore More & Make Connections

What other things would you like to finger knit? Do you think you could add beads to those projects as well? Grab your yarn and give it a try!

Knitting is often something people like to do when it’s cold out. Why do you think that is? What sorts of things do you like to do when it’s cold?