The Craftiest Workshop

I wanted to use up some of the yarn collection that I have.
I found these easy to make snakes which I thought would be great as props for songs or fingerplays so I decided to make some.

A great summer activity for a older camp craft or a rainy day activity.

The same method can be used to create a yarn infinity necklace.

Start by pulling a bit of yarn. Wrap the loose end of the yarn around your left thumb palm up. Weave the yarn under your index finger, over your middle finger, under your ring finger and over your pinkie finger.

Continue wrapping going back toward your index finger. Go under your pinkie, over your ring finger, under your middle finger and over your index finger.

There should be one stitch on each finger. Weave back toward your pinkie under your index, over your middle, under your ring and over your pinkie.

To finish casting on, weave back under pinkie, over ring, under middle and over index.

You will have two stitches on each finger. Take the stitch closest to your palm on your index finger and pull it up and over the stitch closest to your fingertip and then off your finger.

It should look like this.

Continue pulling the stitch closest to the palm on each finger up and over the one closest to the fingertip. Middle, ring and then pinkie.

Here is what it looks like when you are done that.

Now you go back to weaving. Under index, over middle, under ring and over pinkie.

And back the other way: under pinkie, over ring, under middle and over index.

Once again you pull the stitches up and over on each finger like you did before (six pictures back). You weave again, pull stitches up and over, weave again etc.

You keep this going and as you finish a row you can pull on the end and it should start looking like this.

When you feel like your snake is long enough, it is time to cast off. Cut the yarn from your ball leaving a 12 inch tail. Take the end and put it through the stitch on your index finger from tip to palm. Pull tight and off your finger. Do the same thing with each finger.

Your finished snake should look like this.

Now you need to make one more snake. I just eyeballed the length as I went to try to get them the same length. You could count rows when you make the first snake so that it isn’t a guess. Follow the same instructions over again for your second snake.

Choose an end and tie your snakes together using a square knot. Take one of the pieces of yarn you were tying together and thread it through with a darning needle. Thread the yarn through the stitches of the two snakes to darn them together.

Continue back and forth through the stitches until you reach the other end.

Next you want to flip the snake over. Tie a knot with the two yarn pieces at the end you just finished weaving toward. Choose the longest piece and thread it through your darning needle. Pinch the snake together and darn to make the tail end narrower.

Decide how big you would like the head of your snake to be and stop darning there. Knot the thread off and cut it.

Flip the snake back over and, using a hot glue gun, glue on two googly eyes and a tongue (I used felt).

Once you get the hang of it, one full snake only takes 20-30 min.

Finger knitting is quite relaxing and really easy to do.
Just don’t weave the yarn too tightly on your fingers or it is hard to slip the stitches up and over.

If anyone has made anything else using finger knitting, please comment.