Arm Knitting

Before Christmas my sister made and gave me a loop scarf she made by “arm knitting”. I had never heard of arm knitting, but being an “expert” finger knitter I could imagine what it meant.

Then like that, BAM, I kept seeing everyone talking about arm knitting online. It must have been one of those things that just spread like wildfire for knitters on pinterst.

Fast forward a few weeks, my sister and I were at Hobby Lobby and I was drawn to this crazy, colorful, chunky yarn (Yarn Bee, whimsy bulky, westbrooke 120, $5.99/per). My sister said it reminded her of my kool aid dyed yarn. I wanted it, but really had no projects in mind so my sister suggested an arm knit scarf. I bought two skeins for an extra chunky scarf.

I just searched youtube for videos, watched a few and went to work. And just to show how arm knitting has taken off, my mom said she saw a promo for Target where they had their own arm knitting tutorial online. The technique is supposed to be VERY QUICK with suggested knit times of 20-30 minutes. Me? It took me 3 hours.

I think I cast on no fewer than 3 times, I kept using the working lead yard, rather than the tail and I didn’t want to waste 4 feet of yarn. I was also really being very meticulous with keeping it all very tight. You can see that arm knitting is very loose already, and I didn’t want it to be even more so. As a spinner, I often will place a skein around my neck and wish I could just wear that as a scarf. Well, this knitting technique mimics that notion perfectly. If you want to attempt this, I highly suggest a very chunky and very textured or busy yarn, a yarn that you might not really be able to get away with on a typical knitting project. This project really showcases the yarn for itself.

And one little last sidenote. When we were looking at the yarn my sister was holding the skein and so I asked “what is it made of?” and she said “100.Percent. Acrylic.” and we both laughed remembering this radio hit from the early 90s.