Arm Knitting - Stylish Scarf

Most knitters know how to knit using all types of needles, whether it be straight or circular needles, long or short, small or large. But did you know you can knit with your ARMS?!

When you find yourself lacking a pair needles you can still make awesome creations using just some chunky yarn and your body.

We're going to show you how to knit this awesome scarf using arm knitting! By substituting other yarns you can get a chunkier scarf, different color combinations, and even other projects such as rugs, blankets, or pillowcases...The possibilities are endless.

Lots of colorful Delight

For this project we used one strand of a bulky yarn (DROPS Andes) held together with THREE strands of DROPS Delight. The color changes in this scarf  from red to purple to blue are from the Delight, but you could stick with two solid colors for a more tweed-y looking scarf. This is a fun scarf to experiment with.
The bulkier your yarn is the less "loose" the stitches are going to look, and you'll wind up with a denser piece.   Try holding three strands of Andes, Three strands of Eskimo, or a bunch of strands of a thinner yarn.  It could look neat with different colors of Fabel. Let your imagination run wild.

Arm knitted stitches

You can find all of our yarns in our Webstore to make your own arm knitted scarf.

 How To Knit with your arms:
(and make this scarf)

1: Make a slip knot with a long tail and put over your right arm. Tighten, but keep it a bit loose so it is easy to slide on your arm.

Slip Knot to start with

2: You will now cast on stitches in the same way you would long tail cast stitches onto a needle.  Pretend your arm is the needle in this instance. 
If you need more help casting on, watch this video and envision your arm as the needle. The video is a bit easier to see than these pictures.

Casting on...

3: Cast on Ten stitches

Ten stitches cast onto your arm.

4: To knit your first stitch, hold the yarn that is attached to your ball in your right hand (the arm that has all of the stitches on it)

Grab the yarn with your right hand and pull the first stitch on your arm over your hand while pulling the yarn you are holding through the stitch.
This will make what looks like a loop.

5: Now put your left hand through this loop and tighten the stitch onto your left arm by pulling the working yarn.

The arrow indicates the loop to put your hand through

6: Hold the yarn in your right hand again, and repeat the process. Grab the yarn with your right hand and pull the next stitch on your right arm over your right hand.
Put the loop you've just formed over your left hand and tighten onto your left arm.

Hold working yarn in hand

Pull stitch on your arm over your hand

Place loop/stitch that is formed onto your left hand

7: Continue this with the rest of the stitches until they are all on your left arm. You have just arm knitted one row!

Knitted one row, now onto the second

8: Now reverse the process.  Hold the working yarn in your LEFT hand and pull the stitch over, forming the loop that you place your right hand through.
Continue to do this until the end of the row.

9: Knit as many rows as you want to obtain the correct length for your scarf. We continued until the scarf would wrap around your neck twice, but it can be made shorter or longer, depending on the look you want! It is easy to judge the length as you go and adjust the length.

Once your piece starts to make progress...

10: Bind off the same way you would on needles. Knit two stitches and then pull the first stitch you made over the second stitch and off of your hand.  Knit another stitch (so there are two on the your arm again) and pull the previous stitch over the new stitch and your hand.  Watch this video if you need more help binding off. 

11: Once you've bound off, take the cast on edge and bind off edge of your arm scarf and place them together.  Seam them together by weaving yarn into each stitch across the row loosely and tying off at end.

12: Voila! An arm-knitted scarf. You can do this with chunkier yarn or with more stitches to make rugs or blankets with a tighter weave. This scarf wraps around your neck twice, but it can be made shorter or longer, depending on the look you want!

Finished product! We love it.

Post whatever arm knitted projects you come up with or your finished versions of this scarf to our Facebook Page!! We want to see them.

Happy Arm Knitting

XO,