When I was pregnant with my fourth child, my oldest was looking for a new handicraft idea. I had the thought that if she enjoyed finger knitting (which she loved and did well) then maybe she’d enjoy expanding into more knitting. Since I’m learning different crafts along with her, we took it one step up to loom knitting. She took to it very easily. In fact, once she learned the basic steps, which repeat over and over, she completed a little hat for her newest baby brother just before he was born, which he wore while in the NICU. 🥰

Target Age for Handicrafter

It depends on the child, but I have had from 5.5 years old and up loom knitting. My 7 year old is makes part of one but leaves it as a headband. My daughter was 5.5 when she made the hat above in 1 day. My current 10 year old enjoys knocking out a new hat for himself from time to time as well.

Ideal age: 5-8 with adult help to get started and finish, 9-10+ should be able to do it alone with minimal help.

Amount of materials needed: very minimal

Basic of Basics

The only things you need to get started are yarn, looms, yarn needle, and the hook. If you do more involved loom knitting you may need eyes, thread, stuffing, etc., but those four items will get you started.

• Knitting looms. You can use the rectangular or round looms. It depends on what you want to make. For beginners, I’d say round for hats and rectangular for scarves.
• Yarn. (For fuller projects, you can choose a thicker yarn. My kids learn using standard yarn so it’s not filled in well but we live in Texas so they like wearing it despite it being thin. You can pull 2 pieces of yarn at once if what you have is not as thick as you’d like. It’ll fill it in better. Having thinner yarn allows you to see it better, though, to learn the technique.)
• Hook
• Yarn needle

Tutorials To Get You Started

This seems to be an easy-to-follow tutorial: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BonWux0A2yM

This website has a really helpful chart on how large to make hats. It also has picture tutorials on how to loom knit a hat. https://www.loomahat.com/how-to-loom-knit-a-hat/

Where To Buy Supplies

You can purchase supplies at any hobby store, such as Hobby Lobby or Michaels. Walmart may even have looms and yarn you can use. The looms usually come in a set with different sizes in it, along with a plastic yarn needle and hook.

A Few of our Examples