What is a knitting loom?

If you look closely at any knitted items (t-shirts, sweaters, etc) you will find that the stitches are actually little v-shapes. In knitting, you are essentially making loops into loops.  

Image: Wikipedia

A knitting loom is a tool used for knitting. It is a great alternative to using needles ("sticks") as it is easy to learn and causes less strain on the hands. 

Knitting looms come in rectangular or circular shapes, but all will have pegs equally spaced around the circumference. 

(Left) Circular knitting loom with 24 pegs
(Right) Picking tool

Yarn is wound round each peg and a picking tool is used to lift the yarn loops over the previous loop. 

With the knitting loom a circular tube or a flat piece can be knitted.

Many stitches that can be done with needles can be done with the knitting loom.

With newspaper yarn, using a knitting loom to knit is beneficial for these reasons:

1. Knitting looms are easier to learn and produces consistent results even for beginners. 

2. Newspaper yarns might be thick and heavy. If knitting needles are used, they might be thick and troublesome to manipulate, on top of the weight of the newspaper yarn. 

The limitations of knitting looms are:

1. They are not as portable as needles. 

2. The pegs are fixed, so if you want the stitches to be closer for a denser fabric, another loom with more pegs/closer spacing between each peg has to be used OR use a thicker yarn.

3. Not all stitches that can be done with needles can be done on the loom

4. Knitting is limited by the number of pegs available, no more stitches can be added to increase the size of the knitting, unlike needles. 

Even with these limitations, the ease of use and learning has made loom knitting popular in recent years; with the increasing number of books, online tutorials, forums and groups as proof.