Knit Without Needles – Finger Knit Basket Pattern

Learn how to knit without needles! This bright, finger knit basket pattern is fast and easy to make. It stands up tall with the help of some plastic canvas hidden between the layers. There’s a video tutorial below as well.

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Finishing Touches KAL

I designed this pattern for the Finishing Touches KAL. This year long event is broken into 4 sections. This pattern is for the 3rd section: Home. We have great prizes for each of the 4 sections, thanks to our generous sponsors. See all the details, including the giveaway entry information and links to the other patterns, in the main KAL post on Underground Crafter. Be sure to join in all the fun on the KAL Corner Knitting Facebook group too.

Crayola, Off The Hook

Lion Brand sent me some of their new Crayola Off the Hook yarn for free to use for this design. I first saw this yarn earlier this year at a conference and couldn’t wait for it to become available! Lion Brand has teamed up with Crayola to make several of their yarns in bright, bold, crayon colors. How fun is that?

Knit Without Needles

Off the Hook yarn is a loop yarn, meaning that all the loops are already formed for you and held in place with a thread. It’s fuzzy and soft, so stitches don’t pull out easily on their own. This means you don’t need a needle to hold your stitches in place!

Working with loop yarn is fun and fast, and a great introduction to knitting. By pulling loops through other loops with just your fingers, you can create many knitting stitches. But you don’t actually have to know how to knit in order to do it.

Plastic Canvas Frame

Loop yarn is soft and fluffy, so without some sort of frame, the basket wouldn’t hold it’s shape very well at all. Adding a stiff frame fixes that, but would make the basket hard to wash. To solve this problem, I added a plastic canvas frame in such a way that it can easily be removed! Now the basket can be washed easily and then the frame can be reinserted. The plastic canvas is also flexible, so the basket can easily be squeezed into tighter spaces, while still standing upright.

This pattern is protected by copyright. Please do not distribute or share this pattern in any way other than by sharing a link to this page or to the pattern page on Ravelry. Click here for copyright information.

Finger Knit Basket

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Materials

• Lion Brand Crayola Off the Hook yarn (100% polyester, 100g per skein)
  • 2 skeins #109 Cornflower (blue)
  • 1 skein #171 Fern (green)
• 12 x 18 inch sheet of stiff plastic canvas
• 2-3 yds scrap white yarn or crochet thread (to sew canvas together)
• Jumbo darning needle or crochet hook to weave in ends

Project Level

Easy: Working in the round, with some increases.

Size

12 inches diameter x 7 inches tall.

Gauge

Because the loops are a set size in this yarn, gauge will not vary and no swatch is needed.

Abbreviations used

k = knit (see Special Stitches)
inc = increase (see Special Stitches)
st(s) = stitch(es)

Recommended Resources

• How to Use Off the Hook from Lion Brand

Special Stitches

For clarity I will be calling loops that are on the working yarn “loops” and loops that have already been worked “stitches” throughout the pattern.

Knit (k): Pull next loop through indicated stitch, from the back to the front.

Increase (inc): Pull the next 2 loops through indicated stitch, from the back to the front.

Bind off: Pull next st through current st.

Instructions

Bottom

Entire piece is worked from the right side. It does not matter which direction you work, as long as you work the same way throughout.

Ensure you have enough of a tail to weave in later (about 4 inches is enough). If you do not, cut open the first one or two loops until you do. At the bottom of each loop there is a string holding the loop together – cut that string to open the loop.

Mark the first stitch of each round with a stitch marker. Move the marker with each round.

Rnd 1: Arrange the first 4 loops in a circle. (4 sts)

Rnds 2-3: Inc in each st. (16 sts)

Rnd 4: [Inc in next st, k next st] around. (24 sts)

Rnd 5: [Inc in next st, k next 2 sts] around. (32 sts)

Rnd 6: [Inc in next st, k next 3 sts] around. (40 sts)

Rnd 7: [Inc in next st, k next 4 sts] around. (48 sts)

Do not cut yarn. Bind off around, until there is only 1 st left.

Work should now measure approximately 12 inches in diameter. This is the bottom circle of the basket. The right side will show on the outside of the basket. The lumpier wrong side will be on the inside of the basket.

We are now going to pull loops up behind the bind off edge to start working up the sides.

Sides (Blue)

Rnd 1: Bring the working yarn to the front of your work. Working under the bind off edge, push remaining st from bind of through the first bind off stitch, from front to back. [Push next loop up through next bound off st, from front to back] around. (48 sts)

Flip work over so wrong side of bottom circle is facing up.

Rnds 2-8: Being sure to stay on the right side of the work, bring working yarn to the back and k each st around. (48 sts)

Cut open next 2 loops on working yarn to create a tail, and cut blue yarn leaving the tail to weave in later.

Sides (Green)

We are now going to create a round of extra, unused loops. Later, we will be using those loops to form the top edging.

Leave a starting tail of green yarn, cutting open 1 or 2 loops if necessary.

Rnd 9: With green yarn, [k next st, pull next loop forward between st just worked and next st] around. (48 sts, 48 free loops).

Rnd 10: Working only into the sts and ignoring the extra loops that were pulled forward, k around. (48 sts)

Rnds 11 – 15: K

Bind off around, until there is only 1 st. Cut open next 2 loops on working yarn to create a tail, and cut the yarn. Pull tail through last st to secure it.

Top Edging

Cut a scrap of green yarn that is 4 loops long and open up all 4 loops.

Using the free loops from rnd 9, bind off until only 1 loop remains.

Pull the scrap of green yarn through the remaining loop and pull both ends through to wrong side of work.

Plastic Canvas Frame:

Cut the sheet of plastic canvas in half lengthwise and trim any rough edges.

Overlap the ends by an inch of two, and sew them together with scrap of yarn or thread to form a long strip.

Overlap the ends of the long strip to forms a cylinder, so that it fits tightly inside the basket, and sew them together.

Finishing

Weave in all ends

Insert plastic mesh frame into basket.

Fold green side down to cover the plastic mesh, so that top edging rests on the top.

Additional options:

• For a sturdier basket, add a circle of plastic mesh to the bottom.
• For a more padded bottom (or to cover a plastic mesh circle), make another bottom circle out of the green yarn and place it on the inside of the basket. You will need a 2nd skein of green yarn to do this.
• You can make a smaller basket by stopping the bottom circle earlier. The stitch count won’t matter to the rest of the pattern. For a larger basket, make a bigger bottom circle, increasing 8 sts with each extra rnd.

Video Tutorial

View this video on YouTube

I hope you enjoyed knitting without needles. A downloadable pdf of this pattern is also available on Ravelry, for a small fee. The fee for the pdf format is to offset the advertising revenue lost when you print or download the pattern rather than viewing it online.

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