Knitting Finger Knit fast and easy scarf!

A version with photos showing the steps can be found here, but due to the amount of photoes, I figured I'd make a text-only version for the people with slow connections.

How to make an easy scarf!

For those who don’t knit or crochet, and for those of us who do, but like trying other things. "Finger weaving", they call this and it’s very simple.

What you’ll need:
* Yarn. Any kind will do, but some are better than others, see note later on.
* Scissors. You don’t need them, but it’s a lot easier cutting yarn than tearing it off.
* Hands. I assume most of us have these.

We learned to do this when I was in first grade, and it’s an excellent way to make a quick scarf. It doesn’t take any skills other than being able to tie a knot, and lift loops of yarn.

First, you tie the end of your yarn to your thumb. Not too hard; you’ll be taking it off again fairly soon.

Once that’s done, you weave the yarn between your fingers, in a sort of slalom pattern. Then you weave it back again the opposite way, so all your fingers have loops on them.

Take the yarn and pull it around, laying it over the loops on your fingers.

Then, you pull each loop over the yarn and your fingertips, so you’ll have just a single loop left on each finger. Keep doing this for a while.

Once you’ve done this for some rounds, I usually do between six and ten, loosen the yarn from your thumb and pull at it. You should now have the beginning of your scarf, and be able to see the shape and pattern.

Keep doing rounds, pulling the yarn at the end every once in a while to see how long it’s gotten. It shouldn’t take you long to have enough for a quite long scarf, depending of course a bit on your BJD’s height. This is fairly easy and quick, though, and even for a Hound or similar size, you’ll have a scarf in no time. It took less than ten minutes to make one in this size, even with photos.

For a smaller doll, you might want to use only three fingers, otherwise doing the same, and you’ll be better off with a smaller yarn. The one I used here would look big on a 45cm BJD. So for them, try thinner yarn. The basics are still the same.

You don’t have to pull at the yarn often; it can build up very well. And it’s sort of fun to let it, and see how long it’ll be when you finally do pull. There’s quite a difference.

When you’re ready to finish, you cut off the yarn.

Then you pull it through your loops, one by one. Then you pull and you should have a small knot in the end.

These ends, on either side, can be used to fasten ornaments or pompoms, or anything else you want, or they can be looped through the scarf for few times and tied off.

A note about the yarn: You can use any kind of yarn for this. For my two scarves, I used a fancy yarn in a wool/acrylic/polyester mix and an acrylic/lurex mix. For the acrylic/lurex one, I used two different yarns, because the thinner the yarn, the larger the holes. Yarn with high cotton content should probably be used double, because they have very big holes. Also, be a bit careful with cotton yarn, because it can burn you pretty badly if you drag it across your fingers.

You can also vary a bit with using more or less fingers. I did three strands done with two, four and five fingers. If you want to do five, you’ll need to tie the yarn to something else.

The great advantage of this, apart from simplicity and speed, is that it’s not as limiting to the movements as knitting and crocheting. I occasionally do during lectures, because I don’t have to put it away to type. Not only can you easily hold a pen with the weave on, but you’re also weaving on the hand you don’t use to write with.

The finished result:

 

I have the entire process in picture here: http://users.livejournal.com/bloodstained_/18384.html

There were too many pics to post it efficiently here.

 

I'm glad people find this useful!

SeriousBunny: The loop around the thumb should end up in the end of the "scarf" when you pull at it. I'll try making a better explanation once I have the time.

 

This video shows the way I learned to do it, though there are other ways, too.