Arm Knitting - Basic instructions for knitting with the arms

• Material and preparation
• Arm knitting: the knitting technique
  • The binding off
• knitting patterns
  • Kraus knitted on the right
  • Patentmuster
  • Examples of arm knitting

Knitting without needles - even for knit beginners. With the hands, you can process thinner or thicker material and enjoy your knitwear in no time. Depending on the yarn thickness, scarves and loops with a visually permeable design or rustic-looking blankets with XXL-size meshes are created in this special way. Arms do not need needles, and the hands do what the needle does. The mesh size is determined by the circumference of your forearms, so that a number of knitted fabrics can have a length of over ten centimeters, depending on the material thickness. In this way, you knit a narrow scarf in less than an hour and you can immediately see first successes. The wool should have a certain thread thickness, because the fabric is otherwise very permeable. Who wants to achieve a closed appearance with this mesh size, however, needs thick special wool or should process several threads at the same time to achieve the desired result.

Material and preparation

Use soft wools such as merino wool, wool with silk or thick wicking. The less the wool is twisted, the softer the knitting result. A twisting occurs when the shaved wool is pulled out of the wool fleece thinly into a thread and twisted with itself to make the fibers resilient. If this monofilament twisted together with another thread, creates a twofold twined thread. The more individual threads come together, the firmer and more stable the wool becomes. It also distinguishes between "softly twisted" and "tightly twisted". These statements refer to how many twists are made on a given length of thread. A few twists create a loose twist and thus a very soft wool.

You need this:

• Wool as desired
• scissors
• Your hands

You will find in the trade special types of wool, which are designed with their thickness perfect for arm knitting. For example, the "Express" by Lane Mondial. However, this wool has its price and is for cost reasons more suitable for smaller knitting projects. Therefore, it is worthwhile to scour your own wool supplies and merge several matching wool varieties to a thick thread. The same wool in different shades causes a mottling or a color gradient, while materials with different wool thickness provide for an irregular surface texture.

Use of Konenwolle - Konenwolle yarns are called, which are not in the form of a ball of 25, 50 or 100 grams, but were spooled with a quantity of several hundred grams on a cone. Because of its fineness, this wool is mostly used for knitting machines, but it is also available in the appropriate strength for hand knitting. The advantage is the continuous thread. For example, while you have to re-start on woolen bunches for fifty grams, you can knit five hundred grams of uncooked wool on Konenwolle. What is especially advantageous in arm knitting, since it is difficult in the giant meshes to sew the thread approaches invisibly.

Arm knitting: the knitting technique

Arm knitting is very easy, no matter if you are a beginner or already a needleknit artist. Since the stitches become as big as your forearms, it's very easy to pull off any stitch as you pull the thread through the stitch with your whole hand. Begin with a loop to strike the first course.

The thread is placed over the fingers and knotted into a loop as shown in the picture. Pay attention to enough initial thread, which consumes piece by piece when picking up the other stitches.

The resulting loop is now striped over the arm and forms the first stitch. On the left hand (opposite left-handers) are now the threads for the stitch pickup, the short thread is above the thumb.

From below, reach into the "thread triangle" of the thumb, take the front thread of the index finger and pull it through the triangle of the thumb.

The resulting loop forms the second stitch and is now also pushed onto the right arm.

Pull the two beginning threads a little taut, this pulls the stitch together to the size of your arm circumference. They grab the two threads again and form the next stitch in the same way. For practice use ten stitches.

For the first row of knitting, grab the long wool thread that goes to the ball or the cone, take it in the right hand and pull the first stitch from the right hand over this thread. This forms a loop into which they reach in with their left hand and slide on the left arm. Pull on the long thread so that the loop contracts. With this first stitch, it is helpful to pull on both initial threads to correct unwanted stitches. For all other rows of short stop thread is then superfluous.

Grasp the thread again with your right hand and then let the next stitch slide over the thread from the right hand. Take the loop on the left hand and move in this way with all remaining stitches.

At the bottom of the row, pull on the bottom edge of the knit so the stitches can form. The first row is ready.

The second row is worked in the same way. The thread comes in the left hand and with the right hand, the first stitch is pulled over the thread. Drive your right hand into the loop from the front to the back. Retrieve the thread, cover the stitch with the right hand, reach in from the front and push it onto the arm. Pull the fabric down slightly and knit the next row in minutes.

After several rows, you get an impression of the knitting pattern, which is called smooth right. On the front, the right stitches appear, on the back you can see the left stitches.

The binding off

If you have worked the knitting piece in sufficient length, must be bound off. For the binding off, the stitches are on the left arm. The edge stitch is knit as normal and pushed onto the right arm.

Kick off the second stitch and keep it in your hand.

Pull the stitch from the right arm over the stitch in your hand and then onto the right arm.

Knit the next stitch, hold it in your hand, and put the stitch over your right arm again. Take on the right arm.

Knit in this way until the last stitch. Finally, cut the thread and pull through the last stitch. Pull the fabric smooth and ready.

knitting patterns

Even when knitting your arm, you can set visual accents by using different knitting techniques. In addition to a smooth knit right knit or the patent pattern is possible.

Kraus knitted on the right

In this pattern image usually every row is knitted on the right. However, since you can not (or can not) knit the knitwear, knit one row to the right and the next row to the left. Knit a row of right stitches as described above. The stitches are now in the example on the right arm. Knit the first stitch as a normal edge stitch. Now take the second stitch from the right wrist, hold it tight and put the thread in front of this stitch.

Pull it back through the loop and slide it onto your left arm.

Take the next stitch from the right arm, hold it with your hand, put the thread in front of the stitch and pull it back to the back. Continue this way until the end of the row. To do this, you always access the newly created stitches from the front to the back.

Then pull the fabric down again and you can see the difference in the stitch pattern. The left stitches form a transverse thread in the fabric. Knit alternately a row of right and a row of left stitches.

If the finished piece of knitting is used as a loop in landscape format, you will receive vertical "ribs" in this way.

Patentmuster

We start again with a right row on the left arm. Knit the first stitch on the right side as edge stitch. Then take the following stitch from the left arm, hold it in your hand, and put the thread on the stitch as you did on the wrap.

Now drive with your right hand in the stitch and the "envelope" and push both on the arm.

Then the thread is taken and the following stitch stitched right.

Take off the following stitch together with the thread and put it on the right arm. In this way is then knitted to the end of the row.

For the next row, knit the edge stitch on the right. Depending on the number of stitches followed by a single stitch or a stitch, which lies together with a thread turn on your arm. In our example, the second stitch is a single stitch. This will now be added an envelope. Take the stitch from the right arm, put the thread down and push it on the left arm.

The next stitch is a thread wrap on your right arm. Both are then knitted together as right stitch.

In this way work to the end of the series. In each successive row, a single stitch is given a thread turn and is slipped on the other arm without knitting, a stitched loop is then knitted together with the other.

Examples of arm knitting

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The thicker the thread, the more plastic the knit becomes. In this way you will be able to knit beautiful and unique blankets, pillows or throws in no time at all. This blanket was made from a multi-ply virgin wool blend and developed within two hours.