Last fall, we moved across the country and into a new house. This was a huge shakeup! One of the things I needed was a new laundry basket to fit a dark and awkward corner in our bathroom. 

I ended up buying this laundry basket at Target. The size was just right, but the gray fabric just made me sad. Right now gray walls are everywhere, but we decided to paint the house in more cheerful colors - peach, turquoise, and a very pale pink. So gray just wouldn't do. Luckily, I'm a weaver! I set out to weave a fabric that would go with our new color scheme, and brighten up that dark corner in the bathroom.

If you're staying at home to help flatten the curve of COVID-19, you might have more time on your hands to knit, spin, weave, crochet, or participate in other fiber arts. This can be a silver lining, and it is also a time to make sure you're taking care of your hands! It would be a huge bummer to be staying inside with hands that are too sore to knit!

​I shared some of these links a few years ago, when I was suffering from repetitive stress at work.  Now, they're updated with a few more tips I've discovered.

ICYMI, How to wash your hands. And, if you're tired of humming "Happy Birthday" twice through, you can use this website to come up with a different song (plus a downloadable poster). And don't forget the lotion!

If you're missing that massage you'd normally get during a manicure, here's how to massage your own hands. 

This video helped me a ton. And I wish I had incorporated the exercises from this video a little bit sooner. 

Esther Rodgers (aka Jazzturtle) has a great class called Fiber Preparation for Spinning. Don't let the title of the class fool you - she shares lots of ergonomical tips and exercises for taking care of our most precious equipment - our bodies. 

We Are Knitters has this handy infographic. It moves! (Is gif-o-graphic a word?)

If you're more into the written word, Carson Demers is the expert on ergonomics for knitters. He has this fantastic book, and he's written a few great articles for Ply Magazine, too. He also has an interview on the Fruity Knitting Podcast. (Interview starts at about the 41 minute mark)

Everything we do with our bodies has a cumulative effect, which is why I love "spoga," aka Spinners' Yoga. Also great for knitters, weavers, crocheters, rug hookers...basically anyone who sits down and uses their hands to craft.

I'd love to know if there are any other resources you find really helpful for keeping your hands in tip-top shape!

Today I want to share a different kind of "link love." I want to talk about our hands, and how we can take care of them. But first, a little bit about why this is so important to me:

Did you know I have a whole 'nother business? It's over here. Or, if you prefer Amazon, we sell there too. In 2016, we quit our full-time jobs to work on our business. In February of this year, my husband was asked back to his old job, and he accepted. (Health Insurance! 401(k)! Adulting!) Of course, that has meant a lot more work for me in our business. There has been all sorts of new stuff to learn that I hadn't really needed to do before. Paperwork. Emails. Navigating the different selling platforms. Figuring out the post office. The hardest part? Packing boxes.

All those products that come from Amazon or our website or even eBay? They're packed by human hands. From February to July, they were packed by my hands. I knew right away that this was no small task for me. All of the motions were small and simple. I rarely spent more than two hours packing boxes. I knew I was generating a lot of income for my business every time I packed boxes. I knew this should be easy. 

But still, my hands were sore. So sore that knitting was almost impossible. I'd hold knitting needles in my hands for about five minutes before everything froze up. At one point, the pain in my hands was so bad that all I could do was clutch a mug of hot tea, because the heat was the only thing that felt good on my hands. One night, I was in so much pain that I laid down in bed with a mug of hot tea in my hands, balanced on my belly. I woke up soaking wet and cold after having rolled over and spilling the now cold tea all over my bed. I lived in a constant state of worry that I would develop De Quervain's tenosynovitis, something that has bothered my mom's hands for years.

​Unmoored from fiber art as a refuge, I had to figure out how to keep my hands healthy so that I could work and play with my hands.

The biggest thing that helped me was to hire someone else to do the work. Seriously, if you have a task in your business that's causing you pain (mental or physical), it's so worth it to hire the work out. My employee is much faster than I am at packing boxes, and has even come up with several innovations to make it faster and easier. I can still jump in and help if I have to, but most days, he's got it covered, and I have more time to work on other bits of our business, plus write to you all!

So - I promised links, and here they are:

This video helped me a ton. And I wish I had incorporated the exercises from this video a little bit sooner. 

Esther Rodgers (aka Jazzturtle) has a great Craftsy class called Fiber Preparation for Spinning. Don't let the title of the class fool you - she shares lots of ergonomical tips and exercises for taking care of our most precious equipment - our bodies. 

We Are Knitters has this handy infographic. It moves! (Is gif-o-graphic a word?)

If you're more into the written word, Carson Demers is the expert on ergonomics for knitters. He has this fantastic book, and he's written a few great articles for Ply Magazine, too. He also has an interview on the Fruity Knitting Podcast. (Interview starts at about the 41 minute mark)

Everything we do with our bodies has a cumulative effect, which is why I love "spoga," aka Spinners' Yoga. Also great for knitters, weavers, crocheters, rug hookers...basically anyone who sits down and uses their hands to craft.

I'd love to know if there are any other resources you find really helpful for keeping your hands in tip-top shape!

xx,

Pamela