French knitting is one of those skills, like making pom poms, that I think lots of us learn when we are younger. It is a lovely skill to teach children or a simple craft to enjoy ourselves. So whether this tutorial serves as an introduction or as a reminder, I hope you enjoy a bit of French knitting.
To begin your own piece of French knitting you will need some wool, a darning needle, a knitting dolly and a pair of scissors. My knitting dolly is from the Hampshire Coppice Craftsmen’s Group. I have used 4 ply yarn, but you can use any wool you like as long as it will fit down the centre of your dolly.
To get started, thread the end of your wool onto your darning needle and thread it through the dolly.
You need to pull about 5 inches of wool out of the bottom of the dolly. Then pull your needle off. Next you need to cast on your stitches, which means wrapping your wool around the pegs at the top. Taking the wool from the ball, loop the wool around each peg in turn.
Next you need to wrap the wool around the four pegs once more, but instead of looping it around, simply pull the wool around the outside of each of the four pegs. This last wrap will sit above the first loops, which sit towards the bottom of the pegs. Now you have two stitches on each peg.
Now you can start knitting. To do this, put your darning needle under the bottom of the first looped stitch. Pull this stitch up and over the wrapped stitch above it and off the top of the peg.
Continue to do this to each of the stitches, pulling the wool around as you go to create the wrapped stitches at the top of each peg. When you have knitted around a few times, gently pull the wool hanging out the bottom of the dolly to feed your knitting through.
To cast off, cut your wool from the ball and thread this end onto your needle. Thread this piece of wool through each of the stitches left on the pegs and pull them off the pegs. Pull the wool to gather the four stitches together.
French knitting is simple and its really portable too. I’m going to be writing some tutorials soon to show you what you can do with your French knitting!
If you fancy trying out French knitting then you can buy knitting dollies from Amazon. If you purchase anything through the links in my post you are helping to support my blog as I get a small referral fee from Amazon. Thank you!
All about Sprout 
I still have the french knitting dolly my granda made for me when I was little, a bobbin with some nails knocked in 🙂 It’s got a PHD in at that moment haha I wanted to make a rug but I got part way and got distracted
Oops!
I love that yours is homemade 🙂
Just beautiful……I have lots of found memories of this. Thanks for sharing.
Me too!
Oh what a lovely post. This takes me back to my days with my “Knitting Nancy” 🙂
Thank you – me too!
Thank you so much for this tutorial, I am sure my daughter (and me lol) would love to knit way, but I haven’t seen any kind of knitting dollies here in the States, I wonder is there is a way to make one 🙂
My pleasure – it’s a great way of knitting! You can put four nails into a cotton reel or there is a link in my post to buy from Amazon 🙂
You can get them online at Amazon or you can purchase them at JoAnn’s, Michael’s, Hobby Lobby. They call them knitting looms, I think, and they come in several sizes.
What to you do with the long snakes this thing makes?
Lots of things! You can wind them into flowers, use them to embellish your sewing projects, or coil them into cushion covers or rugs 🙂
You explained how too, very well. Now for me to try. Thank You.
My pleasure, enjoy knitting!
Just bought a hand carved bobbin at a craft fair. Can’t wait to use it. Happy childhood memoriesmi
Sounds wonderful!
My grandmother’s neighbor, Mrs. Miller and of French heritage, taught my sister and I how to do this but called it cattailing. Oh my now I’ve found this and I’ll be able to teach my grandaughters (and sons). Thank you so much!!!!
O my pleasure, I’m so pleased! Thank you for your lovely comment 🙂
My father put 4 nails in an empty wooden thread spool and my grandma showed me how to do this knitting. Brought back HAPPY memories.
O I’m so pleased it brought back happy memories for you Donna! Thank you for reading and for your lovely comment.
JUST LOVE IT, TAKES ME BACK YEARS. I CAN NOW SHOW MY TWO BEAUTIFUL GRANDDAUGHTERS MY OLD PASS TIME. THANK YOU.
How lovely Margaret, enjoy!
what difference would more nails make?
Hi Andrew,
Thanks for getting in touch. More nails would make a bigger tube and you would probably need a larger hole to feed the knitting through. Google ‘loom knitting’ , I think you would find that is the kind of thing you are imagining.
Georgina