Friday, May 14, 2010

Knitting Injury

I guess I'm now officially a knitter....I've suffered my first knitting injury. Last night I was watching Arrested Development on Netflix and knitting happily along on my Swan Song socks when I poked the tip of my right size 1 needle into the tip of my left index finger. Not deeply enough to bleed, but enough to hurt. Dang it.

I'm the first to admit that I put a lot of undue stress on the tip of my left index finger because of the way I hold my needles. I can remember when my Granny (Daddy's mother) once tried to teach me to knit that she kept telling me "You're holding it wrong." I finally said, "I don't have enough hands to learn to knit" and she switched to trying to teach me to crochet. I guess she figured I would be less dangerous with one pointy metal object than with two.

When I was recently knitting in the presence of my 99-year-old great-aunt, she too told me, "You're holding it wrong." I just smiled and said, "I know, but it works for me." And it does. But it does involve my brushing the tip of my right needle over the tip of my left index finger repeatedly.

I think a solution to this would be to simply wear a band-aid on the tip of my left finger while knitting. I'll try that when I settle down with sticks and string tonight. Any suggestions about a better solution would be greatly appreciated. :-)

Happy Friday, everyone!

4 comments:

  1. lol! I think you need a "sleeve" for that fingertip! Either knit yourself one in a really tight gauge, or use the "rubber fingers" money counters use to be able to easily count sheets of paper, or money!

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  2. What a terrific idea! I'll pick one of those "fingers" up the next time I'm in Office Depot....which is nearly as often as I'm in a yarn shop. *LOL*

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  3. my favorite way to knit has always been propping my needle on my tummy and knitting in a t-shape....totrally incorrect, and I didn't do it all the time. I made myself learn German style so that I could knit with two colors. That might work for you; the left pointer does all the work. It is similar to crochet, but I never found it as aesthetically pleasant as English knitting. And, if it is not pleasant, why not go to the store and buy a sweater or sox, or slippers, or scarf..or whatever? And, if needles don't click, I don't like 'em!

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  4. Ooooh, German style is not for me....that's the way Granny tried to teach me long, long ago. I'd rather wear a band-aid! *LOL* Back before the internet made knitting information so much easier to find, I called that "left-handed knitting". I think the reason it's so awkward for me to knit continental is that I learned to crochet with my yarn coming from the right instead of the left. So, when I learned to knit it was more natural for me to have my yarn on my right instead of my left. I agree that if it's not fun, why bother? One of my aunts, watching me knit a pair of socks, commented "You can go buy a whole bag of socks at WalMart for a few bucks. Why knit them?" Without even looking up from my knitting, I replied, "And what's the fun in buying socks at WalMart?" :-)

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