Arm Knitting & Finger Knitting

Knitting is nothing more than using two sticks to make a bunch of loops in string. Over and over and over again.

Despite how difficult, convoluted, and just plain incomprehensible the act of knitting may seem to the uninitiated (and indeed, even to the veteran knitter on a bad day), at its core knitting is always just a bunch of loops.

I shouldn’t be surprised, then, to see something like this come along: arm knitting and finger knitting, which replaces those sticks with your own arms/fingers.

I’ve had a similar thought in passing, while playing one of those “deserted island” games where you pick what you would absolutely and totally have to bring with you if you were stranded on a deserted island. My choices usually oscillate between boxes of wine and boxes of fibre. (I could settle for a 50/50 mix, probably.)

Interestingly, though I would certainly love to chuck in a set of Addi Turbo lace tip interchangeable needles, if I had to choose between those and a good stash of wool, I would invariably pick the wool. I figured that I could always just whittle some twigs into dpn’s, or even use my own fingers if things got really desperate.

Well, turns out that knitting with your fingers is no new thing – apparently it’s often taught to kids to teach them the basics of knitting. Click here for a great tutorial on finger knitting, or on the video below:

Australian fibre artist Teresa Dair has taken finger knitting one step further. In addition to creating some seriously cool and funky knit stuff that she sells in her shop, back in May 2011 she had an exhibit at the Craft and Quilt Fair in Perth where she demonstrated arm knitting.

It’s pretty cool, though obviously you end up with a seriously large garment. Good for funky scarves; not so good for socks. I’ll have to try this out sometime and report back.

Knitting, WTF Knits