Corking

I made these homemade corkers with a group of girls this summer (ages 8-14) after someone donated two commercially-made ones to our non-profit summer and after-school program and the girls went crazy over them. When I was a kid we used to make them out of wooden sewing spools and nails but you can't find wooden spools anymore. When I searched for some to buy and discovered the prices I was shocked. Then I found a review for this book and it sounded like just the thing I was looking for. This book shows you how to make them in all sizes, out of ordinary items like paper towel tubes, cans, tape and nails. They are easy to make and they work great!! It is also nice to have some ideas of what to do with the yarn ropes afterwards, which this book also covers. I would have liked to see a few more ideas in this part, especially for the larger can corkers. Overall, a great investment.

This is a great introduction to fiber crafts. First, you make a spool knitter from either a toilet paper roll or empty can. Then once you are knitting, it gives some very creative ideas for using the results. I'd put it up there with "Kids Knitting" by Melanie Falick as a great fiber book for kids.

Now there is a book to list projects to do with these long knitted snakes. We never did know what to do with them (other than sew a boring dog mat.) We spent hours knitting with Red Heart varigated yarn in bright crayon colors, admiring the changing hues. This is a fun activity book for kids, and corking is great for long car rides.If you like "corking" or spool knitting, try frame knitting. This is a technique where you loop yarn around two rows of nails on parallel bars of wood. The loops are lifted over the nails just as in spool knitting. The resulting fabric can be used as a scarf or shawl, depending on how wide the frame is made. (You can buy these, but they are a nice wood project for father-mother/son-daughter.) The art teacher in our elementary school had kids make these frames, then knit long swatches of knitting. The resulting wildly colored fabrics were displayed at an open house and were a huge hit. They looked like Mexican serapes and were just stunning. You can use yarn from clearance sales and really have your kids experience the joy of creating handcrafts.

This is the best book on corking (spool knitting) that I've ever found. It includes directions for making several sizes of corkers from materials you probably already have around the house and a lot of different projects not just the potholders that everyone remembers learning how to make when they were kids. This book shows you how to make bendable animals, baby mittens, finger puppets, socks and much more. The directions are clear and easy to follow. I started a six and a ten year old corking and have had several requests to make corkers for their friends.