Sunday, August 28, 2011

Knitting for relieving stress

I've been doing a bit of research the last few days about stress and it's affects on our bodies. I am especially interested in how it increases pain. I deal with fibromyalgia and arthritis and I can definitely say that it is worse when I'm stressed out.
Here are a couple links I've found that make some good reading on the topic. http://ezinearticles.com/?Knitting-For-Stress-Relief-Therapy&id=2720851
http://www.knitvana.com/node/5

The other topic I want to discuss is pain while knitting and ways to relieve it. I knit not just for fun, but also to sell and help supplement my income. Because I knit so much, I find that there are times when I need to finish a project that a customer is waiting for and I just have to knit while my hands hurt.

One way I deal with it is making sure I take my pain meds according to the doctors orders and regularly. I have made a habit of only taking them when I'm actually in pain and I had to stop that and take them regularly so I could maintain them in my system before I actually need them. I hope that makes sense. LOL

The other things I do to help are: Use a tens unit (a little machine that gives electrical impulses that relax the muscles around the sore area). Use fingerless gloves. Use a heating pad/ice pack after I'm done knitting for the day, and yes, there are times when I just have to let the customer know that the item will take a little longer and give myself a couple days to recover.

If you have other options that you know of, I would love to hear them!

Peg

Saturday, August 27, 2011

Leg Warmers!

My hand pain the last couple days has been pretty bad. I'm slowly losing my ability to grip things and I have numbness in the tip of my thumb. Stupid neuropathy!

I started a pair of leg warmers today. I'm using large needles and a pretty bulky weight yarn that is violet with a black thread that is wound through it. They are turning out plush and soft. I'll take pictures of them when I get a little more made. The pattern is super easy, just a rectangle of k2,p2 ribs. When I get them done, I will just sew up the back. If they turn out nice, I may alter the pattern so they can be done on double points and not have the seam. I might also attempt some that have ribbing at the top and bottom and stockinette stitch in the center. Using larger needles and yarn seems to help ease some of the pain in my hands as well.

Well, back to knitting
Peg

Thursday, August 25, 2011

Sore hands

The worse thing about fibromyalgia and any chronic pain issue is when it affects the things you love to do. Right now its about knitting with pain in my hands. If it were just a matter of being in pain when I'm doing something that is a hobby, it would be different, but I'm trying to supplement my income with my knitting and my sore hands are getting in my way to my goal. I really want to get this knitting business going and I'm trying to ignore the pain while taking a bunch of medication to ease it as much as I can. Yesterday I took the strong stuff and fell asleep while I was knitting. ugh!

I'm working diligently on a dog sweater. I finished one yesterday and started this one in the morning. It has a cable knit design on the collar that took me a while to figure out. The design wasn't difficult, but the pattern that I'm following in a book from the library had a mistake in it and I kept ending up with the design on the wrong side of the work. I figured it out, but it took me some time. I ended up having to delete a row completely to do it.

Well, back to knitting

Peg

Sunday, August 21, 2011

Knitting business?


I decided to try again to start a knitting business. This time, though, I plan to add teaching knitting as well as selling my actual finished items.
I got another order to make a Jayne Cobb hat and knitted furiously all day to get one made. Here's my finished hat:

I told Chelle that I should make one for her to wear to work to see if anyone will ask for one. She said sure, so I definitely will be making one for her soon.
I know that my hands are going to rebel to all the knitting, but I plan to keep on my medication for pain and hopefully will be able to knit fast enough to make a business a possibility. Not only do I have pain from fibro and arthritis in my hands but also neuropathy as well. I use a pain medication that is specifically for nerves.
Well...back to knitting! I plan to make a dog sweater next.


Wednesday, August 17, 2011

Me and technology = disaster


Sorry for not posting for so long. I haven't been good about keeping up my blog, but I have been doing a little knitting the last couple weeks. I'm working on a pair of gloves after finishing a pair of socks a while ago.
I'm not liking the way the fingers turned out, but they actually look better when worn. I'm working on the other glove now. I got the yarn from my Aunt Andrea and I love it! Its a brushed DK weight yarn and she gave me some in this icy blue color as well as a pretty lavender and black.

My fibro has been pretty under control lately. I am having regular flare ups, but they aren't as long or as painful as they were a year ago. I find that stress is a huge factor in rather I'm going to flare up or not. Swimming every evening is a great way for me to help keep my flare ups from being too much to handle. It also is helping me to increase my range of motion.

Our household is chaotic at times, but I love it. Having younger room mates helps to keep me active and busy. We enjoy playing Dungeons & Dragons together a couple nights a week and we invade the swimming pool in the evenings.

My title to my blog is because I was fighting with my camera yesterday, trying to get a picture of my gloves to download on this blog. First, I found that my camera doesn't have the cord I need to download pictures from it to the computer. I asked Steven about it and he said I had a chip in my camera that I could take out and insert in the computer tower to download the pictures. Well, the tower's slot that you put the chips into didn't light up or work. So then I got the great idea that I could load the picture onto my Nook from the chip, then transfer it to the web directly from the Nook. I couldn't figure out how to do that after trying for a while. I did manage to load the picture onto my computer from the Nook, however, so I then decided to download it to the blog. My internet decided to go down while I was downloading it! We had no internet yesterday from around 2:00pm and lasting the entire night. I was grateful to find it working this morning and was finally able to download the picture. Jeeze!!!!! Way too much hassle to get a picture up!
My next project...A Jayne Cobb hat! My friend, Bec, posted a note at her work place that I make and sell them and someone contacted her that they would like one! Yay!!

Finished gloves: