Using a homemade knitting loom made from a cardboard tube and popsicle sticks, kids can make these fingerless gloves in under an hour. They’re fun to make, and perfect for keeping your hands warm and your fingers free typing, writing or texting. (No needles, no knitting skills required).
Total time = approx. 1 hour
Guys! I am so excited to show you the fingerless gloves my daycare kids made using homemade cardboard looms.
Check out all of our easy yarn crafts here.
These kids, who don’t know how to knit or crochet, made gloves they can actually wear, using looms we fashioned from things we had around the house:
- one loom was made from a Pringles can
- one loom was made from a bread crumb canister
- one loom was made from a roll of duct tape
How. cool. is. that?
I got the inspiration for this project after teaching the girls how to knit on a toilet roll loom last year. That process produced thin knitted bracelets and hair bands, and I got thinking about what we could make if we used a bigger loom.
I did a trial run with using a Pringles can tube, and ta-da… That’s how I came up with these gloves.
The Pringles can produced quite a slim tube/glove, which was fine for my youngest hooligan, so we used even bigger looms for the older hooligans – a breadcrumb container and the roll of duct tape.
These gloves knit up really quickly, so your kids can easily make a pair in an hour or so – even less if they’re making a short pair to just cover their hands and wrists.
How fun for kids to be able to make something that they can actually wear!
The written instructions are below, but if you’ve never done loom knitting (also known as French knitting) before, you can watch our toilet roll knitting video to see how to make the loom and how to cast on, knit on it, and how to cast off. P.S. I do plan to make a video specifically for this project, and I’ll swap it in when I do.
Watch the How-To Video:
How to Loom Knit Fingerless Gloves
Supplies:
Instructions:
Time needed: 1 hour and 15 minutes
How to Make Fingerless Gloves on a Homemade Knitting Loom
- Make Your Loom
To make your knitting loom, cut a cardboard tube to about 3″ in length.
With a hot glue gun, glue 8 popsicle sticks, evenly spaced, to the outside of the tube.
Optional: You can glue a small button to the top of each popsicle stick to prevent your stitches from slipping off the stick while knitting.
Note: The bigger your child, the bigger circumference your cardboard tube will need to be.
- Knit Your Glove
Cast on and knit until your glove reaches a length that you’re happy with.
If you’re familiar with circular loom knitting, you’ll already know how to do this. If you’re not, please watch the instructional video above.
- Cast Off Stitches
When your glove reaches the desired length, cast off your stitches, cut your yarn, leaving a long tail (see next step) and knot to secure.
- Making the Thumbhole
To make your thumbhole, put the glove on your hand, and wiggle your thumb through the knitting where you want your thumbhole to be.
- Stitch to Secure
Thread a plastic sewing needle with the long tail of yarn (from step three) and make several stitches to cinch the yarn between your thumb and forefinger together.
Weave the remainder of the tail into your knitting.
- Repeat
Using the same process, make your second glove.
How fun and easy was that?
And how thrilled and proud are your kids going to be to wear atotally cool pair of fingerless gloves that they hand-crafted themselves?!
Your kids will also love:
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Jackie is a mom, wife, home daycare provider, and the creative spirit behind Happy Hooligans. She specializes in kids’ crafts and activities, easy recipes, and parenting. She began blogging in 2011, and today, Happy Hooligans inspires more than 2 million parents, caregivers and Early Years Professionals all over the globe.
