Finger-Knittin' Good

(Sorry, couldn't resist!)

Even though my mom was (and is) and expert knitter, I learned finger-knitting at school, from a girl named Aimee Hanson (it was probably the most benign thing I learned from Aimee; she had a shockingly detailed--if inaccurate--knowledge of sex for a second-grader).

I forgot all about it, though, until reading about it in The Creative Family. I tried to get the boys interested last fall, but it seemed too complicated and we got distracted by other things.

Then I saw this amazing bit of fingerknitted rainbow wonderfulness and was inspired.

I bought a skein of handspun rainbow yarn at the end of buy nothing month (33 yards of yarn makes for three very very tiny balls).

And got the boys going. First I started with M, who picked it up easily.


Then I worked with E over a couple of sessions, until he was able to work the yarn on his own.


But it's been Z who really took off with it.

Twice I've set him up with his finger knitting before I went away and have come back to the thing having grown by yards.

From the Waldorf Connection lecture on handwork (by Heather of Shivaya Naturals), I learned that this kind of activity can calm little ones, so that when the boys start bouncing off the walls or trying to kill each other after a long day, I get out the finger knitting.

The other day, Z was running back and forth between his room and mine, crashing into my bed on every turn, which really drives me bonkers.

"Do you need to finger knit?" I asked.

"Yes," he replied eagerly.

After he was settled in with his little rainbow rope he said, "I have a feeling about finger knitting."

"What is your feeling?" I asked.

"That it's magic," he replied.

I think he's right.