Handmade Holidays: Garland Kids Can Make!

Yesterday I took my daughter to her Daisy Scout troop meeting, and while I was there I taught her troop members how to finger knit. I used this tutorial from Knitty.com to refresh my own memory on how to do it, practiced with my eldest two kids on Saturday afternoon and on Sunday I had four little 6-year-old girls and their mothers finger knitting along with me!

During the time we spent together each girl made a chain that was at least long enough to wear as a necklace or a bracelet. Some of them chose to keep on knitting away, so they took theirs home with them to make them longer.

I'm not sure if the other girls will continue their finger knitting adventures or not, but my daughter is definitely hooked! She came home and went to town on some red yarn after I told her she could use the resulting finger-knitted chain as holiday garland. Here's what she made:

She used up the entire left-over skein of that particular red yarn, and it only covers about the top 1/3 of our tree. So today she's starting over with a new ball of some left-over red acrylic from my stash (I knew that would come in handy one day!) and she's going to make enough to fill the whole tree with festive garland!

Here's a close-up so you can see the cute little chain:

I think this would be fun to do with handspun, too. It would be great for art yarn necklaces!

Since my daughter loves this so much, I'm thinking of getting her a knitting loom. The process for finger knitting and loom knitting is almost the same thing, so she should be able to pick it up quickly. Maybe she can make hats for babies and donate them to local hospitals!