Post by MJ or Pars Caeli

Hi friends! This is MJ from Pars Caeli, and I’m delighted to share a craze that has hit our house hard. Thanks to an awesome book by my friend, Anne Weil, called Knitting Without Needles, my 11-year old daughter spent all winter and now a lot of spring knitting. I’m not a knitter, and I find working with knitting needles more cumbersome than I’d like so I assumed that knitting would be too much for my daughter. However, finger knitting is approachable, quick, and offers a ton of great project ideas like the one I want to show you today!

To make this adorable sea creatures, you’ll need:

• 38 yds of super bulky yarn (number 6 on package)
• Scissors
• Buttons or googly eyes
• Your fingers

1. If you haven’t tried finger knitting, the concepts are similar to traditional knitting, with your fingers acting as the needles. In this project, we used a two-finger knitting process. You can follow our sequence above or check out this simple video to see it in action. Finger knit a
   strand until it’s about 2.5 yards long.
   
   
2. Cut the very long strand into four equal pieces. Pull off the small pieces that remain at the ends and tie off the remaining ends.
   
3. With the remaining yarn, make a ball for the interior of the octupus head. Depending on the final size you’d like for your creature, create the ball the approximate size you’d like. We made ours about 3 inches in diameter.
4. Carefully place each of the four pieces in overlapping and crisscrossed pattern around the ball so that an equal amount of each strand flows down each side of the ball.
5. Secure all of the strands with another piece of yarn at the base of the ball.
6. Add eyes. We choose googly but buttons are a fun addition, too!

Your octopus tentacles can be as long (ours are really generous) or short (cute for a baby octopus look) as you’d like. You can also choose a ribbon instead of yarn to tie the strands at the base of the head for a bow tie look!

Give finger knitting a try; there a ton of variations and possibilities! And you likely have everything you need right at your fingertips. For more great project ideas, check out Knitting with Needles and share your projects in the comments below!

Happy creating! Xoxo, MJ

MJ is a graphic and product designer, wife, and proud momma to three. She founded Pars Caeli (meaning a piece of heaven), a delightful blog and shop, to add more creative to the everyday. MJ worked with our team to bring her lunchbox jokes to life in our product Lunchtime LOL Notes, now available at The Land of Nod to bring on a case of the giggles!