It was such a beautiful day today that we sat outside and knitted away. Neighbors stopped by to chat a bit while some neighborhood children partook in a little yarn fun with the extra spool knitters.
Spool knitting is so much fun for children … no matter their real age. And upcycling the actual knitter is easy with just a few discarded (but saved) materials. We had lots of fun making and using them today.
ღ Mom
Hand-Made Spool Knitters {Tutorial}
Supplies::
- pencil
- ruler
- scissors
- craft knife
- packing tape (or 3 or 4 fat rubber bands)
- hot glue (or white school glue–takes longer to set)
- 1 empty cardboard tube from a roll of aluminum foil (makes 4 knitters)
- 4 popsicle sticks per knitter (or 2 sticks cut evenly in half)
Instructions::
Gather supplies. Lay out newspaper on a flat firm work surface.
The tubes from aluminum foil rolls usually measure about 12-inches long which makes several knitters.
Photos can better explain how to do this so follow along below. Click on pics for closeups.
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- #1–Measuring Tube: Draw a line around the tube every 3 inches. Cut through the tube on these lines.
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- #2–After Cutting: You will have four shorter tubes.
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- #3–Popsicle Guides (A): Trace around a tube onto some paper. Remove tube. Mark 4 evenly spaced lines around the circle (you can eyeball it).
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- #4–Popsicle Guides (B): Put a tube in the circle. Draw on the tube where the 4 lines from Part A are. Or you can eyeball the spacing.
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- #5–Gluing Prongs: Put down a line of glue (use guides). Attach stick lining one end up with the bottom of the tube.
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- #6–Nearly finished: This is what the knitter looks like after glueing all 4 popsicle prongs. Notice how the prongs line up at the top & bottom of the tube.
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- #7–Stabilize Knitter: Starting at the top, wrap tape (or rubber bands) around the tube from top to bottom. Remove excess tape.
{ Spool Knitting Resources }
♥ Read and/or print this Spool Knitting book (pub 1909) from Project Gutenberg. The projects in this book uses a 2-prong knitter. Since our knitter has 4-prongs, just use any 2 of the 4 prongs that are opposite each other.
♥ Red Heart Yarns French Knitter (YouTube)
solace and joy 