Healthier Knitting Tips

Article by Catherine Hollingsworth

Is your knitting damaging your health?  If you are a knitting addict, like I am, you probably have a few aches and pains associated with your addiction.

 

I have been knitting for more than 46 years now, and, I’m afraid all my bad habits have come home to roost.  My neck gets stiff, my wrist hurts from carpel tunnel, and my back and shoulders ache. I have eyestrain, too. Oh, yeah, I also have something called trigger finger.  It’s a repetitive motion injury of the tendon.  In my case, the ring finger of my left hand has a small pea-sized lump that really hurts at times.  So, what’s an avid knitter to do?

 

Of course, I won’t quit knitting, so I figured I had better learn how to correct some of my bad habits.  I talked with Dr. Greg Egeland at the Ireland Chiropractic Clinic. He had some good advice for all knitters, and I am sure you’ll thank him, too.

 

To reduce the neck strain, try placing a pillow on your lap while you work.  This raises your work, and supports your arms, so your neck won’t have to bend down as much. I find this really helps ease my neck strain.  Also, the neck muscles in the back of the neck begin to weaken over time from the counter-pull of the muscles in the front of the neck.  To help correct this imbalance, try placing your hands together and pushing on the back of your head while straining to bend your head backwards.  Hold and repeat this isometric exercise several times while working.

 

To help your upper back, you can do some exercises by standing in the corner of a room.  Lean into the corner, and walk away so that your upper body rests on the walls.   Hold your arms, elbows bent at right angles, out to the side and shoulder-high.  Now, push yourself out from the wall with your elbows. This is the best thing I have found to help my shoulders, and to ease the strain of an “all-nighter” when I have to finish a project for a deadline.

 

I have heard many a knitter complain about their wrists.  I find that if I am really on a knitting marathon, I’ll get wrist pain.  One helpful tip I use is to rotate your projects from, say, socks on double points, to a sweater on circular needles.  This helps, because you use different muscles in your hands with each type of needle.  One Christmas I spent weeks crocheting for gifts, only to have such pain in my hands and wrists that I could barely enjoy the holidays.  You can also purchase gloves, which act like support hose for your wrists.  They fit tightly and massage your hands as you work, which reduces the fatigue and pain.  Try doing isometrics for your hands, too.  Hold your hands together like you are praying, but with your fingers splayed out.  Push together and release; repeat. This helps to relax the fingers.

 

Eyestrain is another problem, altogether.  As you age, so do your eyes. This also means, just as you get the knitting techniques mastered, you can’t see your charts or your stitches!  Invest in good lighting.  Your eyes, and the perfection of your knitting or crocheting projects are worth it.  You can buy several types of daylight-corrected lighting.  I found the most attractive lamp for my living room and my knitting chair.  It’s an adjustable gooseneck lamp with a weighted base and a marbleized glass shade. The bulb is a 25- watt fluorescent lamp designed by a NASA scientist.  Wow, what a difference it makes! Especially in the dark, winter months of Alaska.  I can see to knit with black again.  Nifty magnifying glasses are available, too.  They clip on your regular glasses to help read the charts, or see little stitches.

 

Most of all, don’t forget to stand up once in awhile, stretch, and drink water, too.  Oh, and don’t stay up all night just to get that project done. Get some sleep.

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From Catherine Hollingsworth-

 

My love of knitting began when I was a 10-year-old.  My grandmother gave me a “learn to Knit” book, plastic needles and Red Heart yarn while I was visiting her one summer in Nebraska. She didn’t knit, by the way.

 

Since I have always had a one-track mind, and the challenge was probably better than being bored the whole summer, I picked up those needles.  The rest is history, and I have now been knitting for over 46 years.

 

I studied art and architecture in college.  I have a degree in interior design, and I studied at Parsons School of Design.  I thought architecture was my passion. 

 

In 1989, I became disabled when multiple chemical sensitivity, or environmental illness, required me to keep away from building materials and began to keep me in bed with horrible migraines, muscle aches and “brain fog”.  Creative through and through, I needed a new, safer, outlet for design, so my knitting became my new art and the yarn my favorite medium.

 

I have designed for yarn companies and for our local knitting guild charity projects. I knit professionally and write a weekly column, called Two Sticks, for The Anchorage Daily News. I have lived in Alaska for over 18 years.