Woman in Real Life

I told you I was garland-obsessed this Christmas! First it was the festive pom pom garland. Then it was the natural dried orange and lemon garland. Now it's this loom-knit red and white holiday garland. I think it's fun for Christmas, but this colour scheme obviously works for Valentine's Day too. A bonus for ya.

I've had the little loom that I made this garland with since I was a kid. It's been rolling around the storage room (literally) for several years, with some of the yarn I used as a child trailing from it. It wasn't until my daughter started collecting all these crafty Darn Yarn kits with bigger looms in them that it occurred to me that I could actually still use my wee loom. I discovered that the process is very soothing and just as fun to do as an adult as it was when I was a child. And nowadays I have more of a commitment to finish a project. So, come on, let's get in touch with our inner children!

For this project, you simply need a knitting loom, a hook and some yarn - any old yarn will do. I have had this white yarn sitting around for over a decade. I kid you not. A co-worker and I would knit at lunch time and I was making a blue and white zig zag afghan. Yeah, I didn't make it very far. But let's hear it for hoarding! I eventually used the yarn! Yay!

Obviously I can't tell you where I got the loom. It was a loooong time ago. But there are plenty of knitting looms here. Get a bunch of sizes so you can make scarves and all that jazz. Okay, to the tutorial. Start by making a slipknot. In case you have brain farts like I do, I'm showing you how to make a slipknot, starting with the pic above. Lying the yarn flat, take the end of the yarn and pass it over the length of yarn, creating a loop.



Make another loop shape in the length of yarn and pass it up through the first loop, going over top of the yarn end.


Pull 'er on through. It will be obvious if you did it right or not. If not, try again. Nobody will know.


Put the slipknot over one of the pegs on the knitting loom and pull it tight-ish.


Wind the yarn counter-clockwise around the next peg to the left. Going clockwise around the loom, continue to wrap the yarn counter-clockwise around each peg until there are TWO loops on each peg.


This is what the top of the loom will look like, above.


Hold the length of yarn down with your thumb to prevent it from slipping off the loom.


With the hook, bring the bottom loop of yarn over the top loop and drop it (starting with the peg nearest the yarn end you're holding with your thumb). Do this for each peg so that you have one yarn loop on each peg. Then do the wrapping process again so that you have two loops on each peg again. Bring the bottoms over the tops again and so on until the garland is as long as you want it to be. Simple right? And it creates a child-like glee when you start to see your knitting come out the bottom.

Casting off is simple but not that easy to explain. I advise you to check out this clear tutorial. Since this loom only has four pegs, it's not a lengthy or difficult task.


I decided to do both a red and a white garland. Rather than simply hanging them together I thought it would be pretty to twist them around each other.


We have two big doors leading into our family room. This is where we do most of our Christmas partying. The rest is done in the kitchen, which is adjacent to the family room. You can see the loom knit garland from both rooms.



The other door into the family room is decorated with our festive pom pom garland. Garlands aplenty.


You can get the kids involved with this garland project too. Put a holiday movie on and get to it. You'll have long lengths of garland in no time at all! I actually made the red garland much longer than the white because I wasn't paying attention and it went much quicker than I thought it would. That's okay because I just created loops on each side of the hanging garland with the excess red.

What do you think? Seem like fun? Have you (or your kids) used knitting looms lately?


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Curly Crafty Mom



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