Knitting looms are a great tool for helping young kids make useful garments and play items out of yarn. Click through to see a variety of looms and how we use them.

What is a knitting loom?

There are a number of different knitting looms on the market. Everything from the smallest spool looms to looms large enough and configured in such a way to make afghans!

Knitting looms are a simple tool that is used to hold the live stitches as you’re working on a knitting project. Each loom has pegs that stick up from a base. Each peg holds a single live stitch, and to knit, you move from one peg to the next, carrying the working yarn along and wrapping the previous round’s loop over the yarn to complete a stitch.

We aren’t explaining the process in exact detail because there are plenty of instructions published online. Today we just want to talk about why these are great tools for new knitters (young and old!).

If you’d like to learn more about the history of knitting looms and see some detailed instruction photos, check out this article from Knitty.com.

Why are there so many different shapes?

Knitting looms come in a variety of configurations to allow the knitter to make different sized and shaped items.

• small spool looms allow you to create narrow tubes of knitting. Granted, this may not seem like the most useful outcome, but the knitted cord can be used as handles on a knitted bag, looped around itself, braided, or sewn together to create a variety of items. Check out these images for ideas.
• circular looms can be used to knit in the round. These are perfect for knitting hats, bags, or the body of a sweater. Circular looms are multi-purpose in that they can also be used to knit a flat item (just knit back and forth along the pegs rather than in the round).
• straight looms are perfect for knitting a flat item, like scarves.
• Not sure what you want to start with? Check out this combo package.

Why use a knitting loom?

Knitting looms are great for anyone who wants to make a knitted item but doesn’t want to use traditional needles. Here’s why we like looms:

• you ARE knitting; we know that knitting seems complicated, but for something as simple as a scarf or a hat, there’s no easier way to go than a knitting loom, and it’s not cheating – knitting is knitting!
• looms are easy to use; for someone who doesn’t know how to knit, starting off with a loom is much more intuitive than using needles
• looms are forgiving; if you accidentally drop a stitch or forget to knit a stitch, you’ll notice it right away because the pegs of the loom are keeping track of each stitch (whereas on needles, you’d have to count your stitches with each row to make sure nothing is amiss)
• there are plenty of simple videos and tutorials to help you get started

Using Knitting Looms with Kids

There are a lot of great reasons to get a kiddo hooked (hehe) on knitting looms.

• there are health benefits associated with knitting. the repetitive process of making each stitch can induce a meditative effect, increase a person’s sense of calm and reducing anxiety.
• there’s a sense of accomplishment and pride that comes from making something
• young kids are still developing their fine motor skills, and working with a hook and knitting loom is a great challenge with the aforementioned incentive that they’ll be creating something with all of their hard work. Luc and Alex have great fine motor skills, but I’m sure that that using knitting looms has further improved their dexterity.
• knitting looms are a great on-the-go activity! The smaller ones are easy to pack in a day-bag. You can also keep a project stored in the car so that they don’t get bored on along or short trips (it’s super easy to start and stop knitting without getting lost or confused).

If you’re just getting started, we have a couple of tips:

• start younger kids on a smaller spool loom. With fewer stitches to work on each round, their tube of knitting will grow really fast, and there’s nothing like seeing the progress happen right before their eyes. In the
• use self-striping yarn, or any sort of yarn that changes color as it goes. Seeing the colors change from one stitch to the next is a really easy way for kids to mark their progress, and it can be an incentive for them to do “just one more row” because they want to get to the next color. My boys love the color options from Lion Brand’s Landscape yarns.

In the photo above Luc is wearing the first scarf that he made on a spool loom using a skein of Lanscape yarn. He dressed himself that day and was so proud of his cozy accessory. <3