Handmade knitting tools

I have been experimenting with different materials for an art project and decided that I needed some knitting tools to help make some of the art.

Crochet tools

Using a drill as a lathe and then filing and sanding, I fashioned a crochet hook from some soft scrap wood but it broke. So I then remade it using a dried twig with a natural hook shape but it also broke. At the Ashburton MenzShed, I tried again using a harder wood, but again had the same problem with the wooden hook breaking, so shaped a nail into a hook and glued it into a hole I drilled in the handle I had left over. 

The MenzShed has a drill with electronic speed control, depth setting and laser alignment. To get the hole in the right place, I first drilled a hole in scrap the same diameter as the base of the handle so I had something to hold it with while drilling into the small point at the top of the handle.

To knit a tube, I inserted push pins into a thick cardboard tube and wrapped the yarn around each pin. I use the crochet hooks to make stitches as I pull the yarn off the pins. 

A tube knitted using the pins around the cardboard tube.

A long crocheted chain using just the crochet hook

From the same harder wood I also created a pair of knitting needles on the lathe. It took a while to get them both to the same size and shape and then smooth with sandpaper. For the knitting needles to work well, they needed to be sanded to 1000 grit. I finished them with Danish Oil.

Knitting needles and practice knitting