Monday, September 26, 2011

Lumpy, Bumpy, Finger Knit, Pumpkin Coasters


A (age 10) and E (age 6) worked on another finger knitting project today (a younger child could probably take on, at least the first part of this project, but it might take several days, and require some assistance).

They started out, like normal for finger knitting, by tying a loop of yarn around one index finger...


...then making a second loop, with the yarn ball end of the yarn, in front of the first...


...slipping the first loop over the second, and off their finger...


...and pulling the ends tight...


...then, repeating until they had a few inches of crochet like chain. If you need a better how-to, for basic finger knitting, I suggest this video, on YouTube.


After they had about four inches of chain, they switched to orange yarn, by snipping the green yarn loose, and tying the new end to the loose end of the orange.


Then, they continued on, finger knitting with the orange yarn...



...until their chain was around four and a half feet long. They cut a long (nearly as long as their chain) tail, and tied it off through the last loop on their fingers.


Keeping the tail free, I helped them twist their chains, into spiral circles, starting at the orange end...


...and working toward the green. I placed a knitting needle through the holes in each coiled part of the chain, to hold the spiral in place...


...while the girls used a yarn needle, to sew the tail, back and forth, through the spiral...



...until it was all held, securely, together. They weren't real careful about keeping their spiral tight, once they pulled out the knitting needle, giving their pumpkins, the lumpy, bumpy edges.

They made a spiral stem, with the green portion of the chain...


...and secured it down, with a few additional stitches to the orange, trimming, and weaving in what remained of the tail...


...for finished pumpkin...


...coasters.


It's great to be a homeschooler.

7 comments:

Christy Killoran said...

I love this. I don't think my fingers can do that though!!!

Unknown said...

I think these a BEAUTIFUL...I wish you could come over to Tennessee and teach me and my girls how to do this in person! :0)

Ticia said...

I need to show this to a friend who's boys finger knit, or one of them does. I think the bumpiness makes it cuter. Who wants a round pumpkin?

After you go to Tennessee, then you can come to Texas and show me. Please!

Little Wonders' Days said...

Those are so pretty!

Phyllis said...

I love them. Fingerknitting looks like a wonderful handicraft!

Unknown said...

oh i've been trying to figure out what to do with the finger knitting my daughter has been doing. this is perfect :)

Amanda said...

Just stopping by to let you know that I have featured your project on Fun Family Crafts today! You can see it here
http://funfamilycrafts.com/finger-knit-pumpkins/

If you have other kid friendly crafts, I'd love it if you would submit them :) If you would like to display a featured button on your site, you can grab one from the right side bar of your post above.