Spool Knitting

You don't have to be too old to remember when thread was wound on spools made of wood. An empty spool was a treasure for a child. They could be made into a variety of toys. The big plus for little girls was having your dad make the spool into a spool knitter. Now a days we have ready made spool knitters in the craft stores. Even the large, round plastic looms are just a large spool knitter. When I was a child, however, our spool knitters were wood spools into which several finishing nails had been driven evenly spaced around the center hole. You could always count on your grandmother for yarn and a crochet hook to lift the stitches over the nails. We made yards of what I now know is called I cord.

What could you do with all this cord? Well, you coiled it into a circle and stitched the coils together to make rugs for your doll house. Of course they were out of scale, far too thick and heavy, but who cared? You could stitch the coils together to make a hat for a doll or even one for yourself. You could fasten the ends together and make a bracelet. You could make coasters.

While the end product was nice to have it was the process that most girls found fascinating, There was something magic about sitting quietly lifting the yarn over each stitch, turning the spool as you went around and seeing the cord come out of the bottom growing longer and longer. For many little girls it was their introduction to the act of creating something useful out of yarn. It made knitters out of many of us.