#not doing wrist intensive crafts like knit and crochet

[silverskye13]

um now that you mention it, my own hands start hurting after drawing for too long ,,, do you know where I could learn those stretches you mentioned ???

If you find that your hand/wrist/arm/shoulder get painful when you're working on art set a timer for 1 hour [if you feel severe pain, you should rest, but in lieu of that, set your timer for every half hour.]

Every time that timer goes off, you can go through these stretches. They're the ones I do, anyway:

Do this thing with your arm extended, grab the fingertips in your other hand and pull back. You should feel a gentle stretch in your forearm. I will hold both of those positions for around 10 seconds. You can hold for longer if you want a better stretch. Some people hold it for 20-30 seconds.

Then I repeat those stretches but with my palm facing inwards like this:

I like to curl my fingers when I do it too. Wiggle em around a little.

After that, place your palm flat on the table and bend your elbow at a 90° angle, like you're doing your best impression of an alligator crawling out of the water. [Or if you're a nerd like me, you can pretend you're summoning the jaguar from Road to El Dorado:

[getting on the ground isn't necessary for your dramatic recreation, you can do it on your desk. Anyway.]

With your elbow bent at the angle, you're going to push down gently on your palm and roll your wrist in a circle. This loosens up your elbow and your shoulder, as well as rotates your wrist.

After that, roll your shoulders a few times. Shrug them a few more.

Then extend your arms out to your sides [T-pose for dominance] and make circles with your arms. Big and small. You can do 10 big and 10 small, or just make circles to your heart's content.

Finally, wiggle it out. Pretend you're in grade school and your teacher just told you to wiggle out your energy. Do your best impression of a limp loose rubber goose. Just get silly. This is just to shake out any remaining stiffness, and gives you an excuse to stand up, if you haven't done so already.

If you're incorporating these stretches into your art routine, now is also a good time to take a drink of water. Stay hydrated.

Important things to remember:

At no point in time should these stretches cause severe pain. If you feel shooting pains, pins and needles in your hand/fingertips, or burning in your muscles, stop what you're doing and rest. That is your body telling you something is wrong and it wants time to heal. Whatever you're doing, it will wait.

Also, if you find you are resting, but everything still hurts, one thing I've done in the past is sleep with a wrist brace. This keeps your wrist/hand from flopping around and getting into awkward positions at night. If you too would like to sleep with a wrist brace, remember to keep the brace firm but loose. It should be firm enough to keep you from bending your wrist all the way, not so tight that it cuts off blood flow, makes you sore, or makes your fingers tingle. Especially if your joints swell at night.

This is not a magic fix for your wrist/arm issues. I am not a medical professional or a personal trainer. Do get help if you have pain that lasts more than a week, or at a severity that it impacts your daily life, or makes it hard to pick up objects.

Thank you for coming to my TedTalk.

[starrycat123-blog]

I have discovered why crocheters (generally) hold the yarn tail with their left hand.

Knitters (generally) hold it with their right, and I was taught knitting first, so I went into crochet happily holding the tail in my right hand.

Except the way I did it, I'd let go of the crochet hook (or hold it between my thighs), yarn over, and then pick the hook back up. Which turns out to be a lot of strain on a person's hands and wrists, especially the right side. my dominant side.

My overuse issues were not caused by this but rather by a passionate desire that occurred during my summer break wherein I was making an amigurumi (it was my first one) and was so engrossed in it that I'd be crocheting for as many hours a day as I could, every day for like. Two weeks, I think?

(I was young and overconfident, and I very much regret it. I know it was dumb. I probably read about it and just forgot as well. But crochet was the only thing I wanted to do, every day and all day, so I wasn't thinking. I don't want that lecture, I've learned directly via the horrors of life.) (but if y'all wanna share any hand-care tips and tricks I'd be thrilled to hear them)

I almost finished the project, just had some ends to weave in, when suddenly I found that my fingers/hands/wrists were so weak I could not push down the nozzle of a hand soap bottle with just my thumb like I used to. All buttons needed to be approached differently. (The microwave, etc, you get the gist). My hands would be like 'this is moderately hard work you should be paying us for' when I'd literally just be in the bathroom wiping my butt.

Hand and wrist overuse strain sucks by the way. And they'll happen to anyone and everyone, no matter how young and strong you feel!! I'm only 20! So do everything you can to avoid having this happen to you before you mess up your hands, possibly to the extent that they never feel the same again. A guideline I've read online is to take a 20-minute break every 2 hours, but you can also just take 20 minutes every time you even think they're tired, whichever would be more frequent. Don't make the horrible mistake I did!! Your hands are so important and you use them all the time. The list of activities you can do without them is very small and does not have the arts and crafts you love on it. You cannot 100% stay off them no matter how hard you try because you will always have to use the bathroom and open doors and eat food, and it will be a constant ache in the early recovery period which will last a while. Also idk if this will be applicable to everyone but I was prescribed a low dose of Prednisone to take for a week to aid the hand recovery and the pill tastes so bad. Sometimes I can swallow it quickly enough that the taste is less intense and doesn't last as long, but one of the days I had such a hard time with it that I managed to swallow the pill and then I threw up in the kitchen sink like five minutes later after feeling like garbage. It was like half bile cause I hadn't eaten much yet but it was still really unpleasant. To Conclude this paragraph: take care of your hands!!! It's so so important and you will regret it so so much if you don't. Doesn't matter how old you are. It's easy to forget that overuse is a thing that exists and can happen, especially if it's never happened to you. (first time for me. honestly I think it was thoughtlessness and not remembering the dangers rather than it being overconfidence.) Let my warning solidify into your mind as a rule that you will never forget. If you can learn this lesson via warnings rather than directly via the horrors, that would be ideal.

That being said. My hands/wrists/fingers are still not what they used to be (despite it having been two months now), and holding the yarn tail in my left hand significantly helps me now that I'm trying to start up crocheting again (in the hopes that the weakness in my hands is just because I've rested them and now they are not as muscular). I'm weak (or overcautious, but I'm leaning toward weak) still anyway though, can't even do a row of 48 sc (in the round. Idk if it's different straight across) without getting a little tired. Holding the yarn in my left hand balances the work that my hands do so it's a little more equal between my left and right. Which is nice :)

[altijdjouwnaantje]

Why don't you just go ahead and ask me to pick a favorite child? ... No, I'm being dramatic, it's more like asking me to pick my best friend.

Crochet and I had a very intense thing for a couple years, but she hurt me badly. Got quite severe RSI in my wrists and I had to give her up for my own good.

Then came knitting and it was a similar kind of craze, I made a lot prettier things too and I was able to stick with her for much longer. Getting carpal tunnel syndrome during my pregnancies and "mother's wrist" tendinitis from breastfeeding meant that we parted ways. Also gave me issues with my elbows, left hand, neck and shoulders.

Sewing and me go back the longest, and I do love making things, altering things, mending etc, but sewing is not portable at all so it's a bigger effort to stick with her.

Embroidery is amazing and allows so much creative freedom and spontaneity and it's so portable and you can liven up boring things or hide stains or prettify your mends. I love her.

I'm excited about quilting and patchwork right now because it's a new thing, my latest crush.

Weaving is meditative but I'm also scared that she'll bring me more RSI. I got back into it after teaching myself darning.

I wanna try felting because it looks magical, but I'm actually not a fan of felt at all.

Cross stitch is a big no for me though. I cannot be that regular in my stitching, I cannot follow those diagrams, I cannot count and keep track of my progress.

There are still a couple fibre crafts left for me to try and pick up the basics from, but basically my answer to fibre arts is an enthusiastic YES!

[nonasuch]

Hey so, you're tricking people into crafts, right? I used to crochet and knit a whole lot, but I've had to stop. I'm prone to RSI (fingers-wrists-elbows-shoulders) and used to be able to recuperate, but since having kids, I haven't been able to do yarn work because I get RSI just taking care of my preschooler and my baby...

I've been doing some sewing and it's better than crochet, knitting, ... but at times it's still too much. I've read that cross stitch, embroidery, weaving and spinning are also not recommended for people prone to RSI, feels like textiles are off limits. :/ Got any healthier crafts to recommend for Mrs. Tendinitis?

hm. most of the crafts I do are kind of fine-motor-intensive. what about, like, resin and alcohol inks, or paint pours? that might be easier on your hands. maybe soap making? anyone else have suggestions?

[bitletsanddrabbles]

Crochet Tips for People with RSI?

I want to learn to crochet. I can knit, and don’t get me wrong, I absolutely love it! Have for years. But then I walk into the pattern section of the craft stores and see afghan books and kinda whimper, ‘cause they’re all beautiful and all involve a hook.

Now, I have tried to learn. The last time I even managed to mostly finish a slightly misshaped pot holder. There were to problems:

1) the hyperactive kitten my roommate and I had thought the yarn was a great toy!

2) while I had no problems with the hook, holding the tension of the yarn aggravated the holy living daylights out of the chronic tendonitis I gave myself when I was 22.

These days the first problem isn’t a concern. My current boy is a senior lazy fluff who will play only in brief spurts and is mostly uninterested in yarn. The tendonitis though? Still an issue. Seriously, I’ve recovered to the point I can knit or type for hours on end, but something about holding yarn tension when crocheting leaves my wrist screaming and afghans haven’t been enough intensive to get me to try again.

THIS, on the other hand, is something I ABSOLUTELY NEED!

There are, of course, people who will make it for a reasonable $280, and I won’t say I’m not tempted to just chuck the contents of my bank account at them. (For those who don’t do yarn craft, I’m not being sarcastic about the ‘reasonable’ part. That is a very fair price!) Thing is that I do want to learn and that’s the kind of project that can galvanize me into doing it. I mean, I learned to knit entirely so I could make myself a Hufflepuff scarf that was more black than yellow! And I’d like to be able to pick out my own yarn and....yeah. Also, with my trying to find ways to keep myself off tumblr for the sake of my mental state (for more, see my recent post on the pandemic and how it’s going for me), now is a great time to learn!

So, does anyone have any advice on how to keep tension without murdering my hand?