How To Cast On & Finger Knit Super Bulky Yarn (Big Up)

The yarn is a big as a pillow, soft as a cloud, and once it's in your hands, within a couple of hours, you'll be proud! It works up almost instantly.

Super bulky yarn means super quick results!

But how do you work up our new Big Up yarn without any tools but your own hands?

Here's a few tips to get you started...

Once you have your yarn, you will need to cut off the ties in order to ready it for winding into a workable ball by untwisting the hank and placing it in a circle on a table...

Cut off all ties that are not holding the ends of the yarn together. Look for the last tie that holds the two ends of the hank together, cut this tie and undo the knot that holds your yarn ends together.

Once all ties are cut, you are now ready to wind your hank into a ball.

Because this yarn is so thick, you can quite literally keep hand winding it without using a swift.

Be sure to just detangle lightly as you go...we placed our skein in a plastic container to hold it in one place and to be able to detangle easily.

Once your yarn is wound up, you are now ready to give knitting a go!

We have not used any tools and will continue that way—we're about 10 minutes into the process and ready to hand-knit!  

Now let's cast on with a broom stick and get knitting! 

First, you'll want to create a slip knot. Once you've done that, slide it onto your broom handle and snug it slightly, but not too tight!

Next, you'll be adding stitches by the long tail cast on method directly onto your broomstick one by one.

Once you've got the required number of stitches on (16 for the throw), you are now ready to start knitting.

Finger knitting is no different than regular knitting — it's just that your fingers are now your needles.

Push your fingers through the first loop and grab your yarn just like a needle would. Once you've grabbed it, pull it though the loop on the stick. Once that's done, you can now slide your first stitch off the broom handle. One stitch done!

Congrats - you are finger knitting! One handy tip is to be sure to keep your yarn flat and the direction of the strands flat. You can see what this entails better when watching the video. Like knitting with needles, you do not want to twist your yarn either!

You will continue to pull your yarn though the loops until you reach the end of your first row. Once you do, you will then knit backwards to complete your second row. What do I mean by backwards? You will NOT be turning your work - there is no need to purl back like you would with regular needles.

What we do next is called reverse knitting—simply put, it's pulling your yarn in the reverse direction through the loops and creating a mirror image knit stitch as you return on the second row of your knitting. Once you've knit your second row, keep knitting until you have just enough yarn left for binding off your work.

You should have at least double in length to the width of your piece left in yarn to be able to bind off.

Once you've used up as much yarn as possible, it's now time to bind off!

You can bind off on either side of the work, but we recommend the knit side just for more uniformity between the cast on and bind off edging.

Binding off is just like binding off with your needles but using your fingers instead.

Visualize your fingers as needles and knit two stitches. Once you've knit two stitches, you can then pass the first knit stitch over the second and voila, you have bound off one stitch!

Knit the next stitch and pass the second stitch over the third. Continue in this fashion until you reach you very last stitch - pass the stitch over and pull the tail through to secure the end of your bind off.

Now that you've bound off you're probably wondering how do I now weave in these big fluffy ends? This step also requires just your hands and a pair of scissors. Cut your yarn to about 4 inches in length then weave the yarn end back into your work being sure to make it secure with pulling through a few times. Since the yarn is so thick it will be fine to have a bit of your ends showing in your work. Do you best to tuck them all in. Watch our video for how we do it...

And that's all there is to it! You will have a finished 2 skein throw in just about two hours of knitting! Big yarn, big results!

Find lots of colours to choose from at Zulily at 35% off... click here.