Some fibre and one’s fingers and ‘doodling’ likely produced the first piece of ‘knitting’, maybe a cord to tie around the waist and keep leaves or pelts or lengths of grass covering the lower regions likely for warmth or protection more so than modesty. Maybe the fibre was long grass or sinew or vines or hair. Perhaps that first length of looped material got coiled into some mud and when it dried – voila – the first floor mat. I could google for historical facts but, heck, imagination works great.
What started all this was – well, sitting with some fibre and doodling on my fingers and producing a length of finger knitting and suddenly remembering that, when I was seven or eight and knew how to knit using knitting needles, I was introduced to finger knitting by a friend and was so enchanted with the simplicity of it I finger knit my way around an entire city block, allowing the chain of knitting to ‘follow’ me in a most satisfying trail . (I seem to recall that more than one neighbour called my mother to ask if she knew what her daughter was doing.)
Shown is finger knitting using three strands of yarn: you put a slip knot on your forefinger, loop the yarn over finger beside the slip knot, lift the slip knot stitch over the looped yarn and repeat. It could be used as a cord for a belt or gift wrapping or anything else that requires tying.
It could be coiled into a flat surface, square, round, oval etc. It could be coiled flat and then built up the sides for a hat or holder or cat bed etc. It could be used as yarn and finger knit into a thicker cord. I wonder how far I could get around my present city block with this much wool….
This is hemp rope finger knit with a single strand.
I very much like the firm structure of the stitches and can imagine using the chain as panels in an over garment such as a vest, perhaps crocheted together or machine stitched onto a backing like fine burlap, then the burlap cut away in places to highlight the panels.
That pile of chiffon scarves I bought at a church sale awhile ago to use for teaching/practicing juggling got put to use (temporarily) as a medium for finger knitting. Joined corner to corner with simple knots and then finger knit, the scarves knit up thin-thick-thin and could be worn as a necklet scarf. There is something pleasant about knitting with the fibre worked right against the skin: even with these scarves, all chiffon, I became aware of the subtle differences in texture running through and across my fingers.