An effect you see quite often with polymer clay texture is what we call the knit look. It’s so beautifully uniform and perfect and makes you wonder how on earth someone made that. It’s much easier than it looks, and I’m here to show you how you can make your very own knit look with polymer clay!

Supplies:

• Polymer clay in your choice of color
• Exacto knife/blade
• Needle tool

Step 1: Prepare your strands

To get started, we need to roll out longer snakes of polymer clay. However small you roll them is completely up to you. If you’re creating a small knit accessory, you may want to roll out thinner snakes of clay.

Tip: To make your finished knit piece more realistic, try to roll these snakes as uniformly as possible. All of them should be about the same thickness.

Step 2: Twist

Next, take 2 snakes of clay and twist them tightly together, turning them either to the left or the right (This is very important. You’ll find out why in the next step.). You should have 1 twisted strand of clay now.

Step 3: Twist some more!

Take 2 new snakes and twist them together in the opposite direction of the clay you twisted in step 2. Ideally this will be twisted to the same tightness so both strands are uniform. You should now have 2 twisted strands of clay.

Step 4: Align your strands

Choose one of your strands and lay it down on your work surface. Trim it to be a little longer than the length you’ll need (that way we have extra wiggle room to do a finishing trim at the end). Place the other strand next to it, lining up the twists so the are meeting in the middle at a downward angle. Trim, and continue alternating these strands until your section is as wide as you need it.

Then, you’ll want to cut the strand to the desired length of your piece and set the remaining strand directly to the right (or left) of that trimmed strand, doing this until you’re out of knit pattern. You can make more knit strands until your piece is as wide as you like.

Step 5: Flatten your piece

Once your strands are arranged the way you want them, take your fingers and slightly push down on the surface of the clay to slightly flatten everything. Be careful not to squish out the details, but flattening it will help the piece look more like the surface of knitted fabric.

Step 6: Trim it up!

So you’re right and left sides should be fairly even and left untrimmed, or else your pattern won’t look right on the edges, but your top and bottom edge may need some help with evening out. Take your blade and give it a trim so that those edges look even.

Tip: If you’re looking for a fun shape like some of the tutorials and projects you see online, you can use a cookie or clay cutter to create a shape.

Step 7: Add your bottom edge

If you look at the bottom edge of a knit piece (it applies to the top too, but since this particular project is meant to look like a work in progress, the rest of the piece is on the knitting needle). It has a slightly scalloped edge for the stitches that are used to get into the knit pattern.

To add this, take another snake and line it up along the bottom edge of your stitches. I pushed this up slightly into the bottom edge just to make sure it’s going to adhere to my knit area. Then I take my needle tool and indent the clay between each row, smoothing it over with my fingers to get rid of any harsh edges.

If you are creating a stand alone, completed knitting piece, you could also do this to the top edge too.

Step 8: Finishing

Once you are happy with the way your knit piece looks, it’s time for the oven! Follow your clay package’s instructions regarding bake times and temperatures. I chose to glaze mine once everything was cool.

You can make some fun knitting needles to accessorize your knit piece too! I made simple ones with a toothpick, some scrap clay, and TLS.

I cut my toothpick in half and then down to size and added a small ball of clay to the cut end for the non-needle end of the knitting needles. I used TLS to help adhere the clay to the wood during baking.

Once those are cooled down, I painted them silver to keep them simple, following up with glaze to protect that paint.

I made my knit sample for this project too big for these knitting needles (I wanted to make sure the stitches would be clearly visible in the photos/videos), but I assembled it anyway just to show you what it looks like as a WIP.

This tutorial was inspired by a custom dragon I recently made.