Learning to Knit on a Circle Loom

I bought a set of circle looms from our local craft store about 8 months ago and they have been sitting in my big bucket of wool and needles since then. This weekend I decided I really should try and learn how to use them. A quick Google of "Loom Knitting" gave me plenty of sites to choose from but this one is just brilliant "The Purling Sprite", her "Loom Knitting Basics" tutorial is great. I had a little practice of the basic stitches and then decided for the sake of speed I would just knit using the very simple twisted knit stitch. It is SO simple, I remember doing French knitting as a child with a wooden cotton reel with some little tacks in it, this is basically the same but on a larger scale. 

I set about making a hat for Evie and quickly realised that I should have been knitting on the next size up of loom, no problem I just unravelled and started again and because it was so fast to do I didn't spend ages wondering if there was a different way around it. It knitted up quickly, I had some really chunky wool which in the UK I would call double double and which I think in America is called worsted. It was perfect and I was soon finished. Then I just needed to make a little pom pom for the top, all done. 

Except that Callum, aged 2, decided that he needed to have one as his big sister did. He only likes things in the colours of Thomas (blue) or Percy (green) so I rifled though my wool and found some that I thought would suffice, it was thinner though so I knitted it double, a strand of each colour. Back to the loom only this time the smaller one that I had discarded for Evie's hat. I gave it him when I was done and it's been on his head ever since! A success I think. 

The top photo shows some green wool he chose yesterday when we were out as he wants one knitted in this colour too!