Easy Finger Knitting Snakes for Chinese New Year 2025
Are Yarn Crafts for Kids collection continues to grow. You may have seen a number of our Finger Knitting projects these past few months – we created some easy Finger Knitting Butterflies and wonderful Finger Knitting Bunnies recently. Today, we have some simple looking Finger Knitting Snakes.. And with Chinese New Year 2025 being the Year of the Snake… this is the perfect fabulous Snake craft for you to have a go at!
Finger knitted snake craft for Year of the Snake 2025
BUT.. there is something a little different about them.
Yes, we use two colours of wool, to give them that two tone snake skin textured, but we also experimented with something new…
As with traditional knitting, we wanted to experiement as if you can “increase” a stitch and “decrease” a stitch when finger knitting.. and what the results would look like.. can you guess.. did our finger knitting experiment work out??
Oh yes it did… the snake’s heads are created in this wonderful technique.
As with traditional finger knitting.. getting your “head around” how to increase and decrease a stitch DOES feel a little tricky at first, but once you have had a go, you will wonder why you haven’t done it before.. now I am wondering what else we can finger knit with out newly found finger knitting technique
Crafting in a group – e.g. scout group or in the classroom? Read this first!
TOP TIP UPFRONT: this snake uses a 2 – 4 – 2 finger “Pattern” – ie you are taking regular finger knitting and learning how to add stitches and remove stitches. If you are crafting in a GROUP, you will find not all kids can do this. For group crafting – why not make a regular 2 or 3 finger “sausage”(with the two colors) and then fold over one end, to make the “bulkier” head? You may have to make a test snake first. But just something to consider!
Making a test snake, means you can also unravel it and see how much wool you need per snake. This is something I forgot to do when I created this craft a few years ago.
Chinese New Year and the Year of the Snake:
We love Snake crafts and they are perfect for the Year of the Snake too! So if you are looking for some great Chinese New Year crafts, to pop over!
Finger Knitting Snakes – Materials
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- 2 Colours of Wool or yarn* (I like one to be green, but of course any colours go – red double knit yarn, green yarn or yellow yarn are fun colours for snakes!)
- Googly Eyes and Glue or a hot glue gun (optional)
- YOUR FINGERS! (and a little patience to learn the increase/ decrease stitch)
No knitting needles needed 🙂
UPDATE: a reader, kindly measured the length of the wool needed per snake and she recommended 3m (for 30cm snake), but would have preferred 4m per snake. So if you are prepping wool for a group activity, maybe make balls of 4m yarn!
*you can use different types of yarn, the thicker the better. Bulky yarn is perfect – super chunky or t-shirt yarn work well. If you have thinner, regular yarn like we are using here, doubling up two strands is better! It is also a nice way to get two colours for the snake’s skin!
Finger Knitting Snake – How To:
I do think Finger Knitting How Tos lend themselves VERY well to videos (though I have the BASIC step by step instructions below with photographs).. which is why ta-daaaaa we have yet another How to Finger Knit video for you. The video is both on auto play, or you can scroll down to the bottom of this blog post for the YouTube version.
Note: that we start this project by using the two middle fingers… and then increase the stitches to the index finger and small finger, then decrease down again to the ring and middle finger… watch the video for full instructions.
Totally love these little snakes. I think they are SO CUTE!
Step 1 : How to Finger Knit
This is a visual photo step by step instructions as to how to do BASIC finger knitting. I have added them as an FYI. As mentioned, for the finger knitted snakes, we start this project by using the two middle fingers… and then increase the stitches to the index finger and small finger, then decrease down again to the ring and middle finger… watch the video for full instructions.
Hold the wool comfortably with your thumb.Wrap the wool behind your index finger and in front of your middle finger. Then behind your ring finger and around your pinky finger. Then in front of your ring finger, behind your middle finger and around your index finger. Literally weaving your yarn around you fingers.
You need to do it again. Wrap the wool in front of your middle finger. Behind your index finger. Then around your pinky. In front of your wedding finger, behind your middle finger and then around your index finger. So you have two loops on each finger.
Now you need to pull the bottom loop up and over the top loop and the tip of your finger. On all fingers So you’re left with one loop on each finger. Then start again. Keep repeating these steps until you have a long enough piece. Long enough to wrap around your head.
My cat things I made them for her.. well I guess they DO make a good cat toy (but maybe exclude the google eyes and use a bit of knotted wool instead.
As mentioned we have many Chinese New Year crafts for you to try out:
See our full list of Finger Knitting Projects for lots more finger knitting ideas! Great ideas for making a headband or bracelet..
I also like these Snake Crafts for Kids – (including more Yarn Snakes)
- Paper Chain Snakes
- Snake Printed Draft Excluders
- Cardboard Tube Roll Snake
- Old Tie Snake
- Cardboard Wrapped Snakes
How about some of these other wonderful Yarn Crafts for Kids:
