I Can Knit

I can knit again. It feels great. I been through ups and downs (mostly downs) the past 4 months. I bought a house, moved out of my parents' house for the first time in my life, moved in with my boyfriend, and got engaged! Wonderful, right? Well, it should've been.

About the time I started seriously looking for a house, I began having pain in my pinkie fingers while I knit. I was in the process of a Find Your Fade shawl and an Umaro blanket. Switching to the thick, bulky blanket from the tiny delicate shawl helped relieve the pain temporarily. I went on about my house hunting, regular job, and my knitting. I knit through the pain. Other than that the pain did not bother me.

Come June 11th, a month after my offer was accepted on my house and a month before we would actually close. I woke up with a pain in my neck at the base of my skull and a migraine. I have had migraines in the past. Very infrequently. My father and sister both get them regularly. I had just had one a few weeks prior that made me have to leave work early. So, I'm pretty sure the cause was stress. I am easily stressed out when I'm not in my comfort zone and buying a house was WAAY out of my comfort zone.

So anyways, it was around this time that I also started having debilitating hand, wrist and arm pain at work. Now this was a real problem. It's one thing to have pain while I'm knitting, but now this is affecting my livelihood! So I was in a panic, I was stressed, scared, and in pain! The pain stuck with me all day and night. I swore off knitting temporarily in order to heal. I figured I must have carpal tunnel, then I found it was probably cubital tunnel because mostly my pinkie and ring finger hurt and were occasionally tingly. I went to a few doctors. They both dismissed it as over use from knitting and told me to rest, maybe wear a brace, try some vitamins and see how it feels in a month.

So I did so and waited. I moved. I got engaged. I started living independently from my parents. This was stressful and scary. I was overthinking everything. Cleaning, cooking, buying (SO MUCH BUYING), keeping the house maintained, unpacking, organizing, etc, etc,etc. And what do I normally do to unwind, relax, and decompress? Knit. What's the one thing I couldn't do? Knit. As soon as my hands would feel a little better one day, I would give it a go, only to be completely crushed when the pain would flare up even worse and for even longer. Would I ever be able to knit? I became even more stressed and fearful that the one thing I've found in life that I love to do, without a doubt, I might never be able to do again?

I read so many articles online of people never fully recovering from cubital tunnel or tendonitis (or whatever I actually had) that I was in such fear and depression.

How could this happen to me? I finally have my own little dream house where I've made the 2nd bedroom into a craft room, filled with all my yarn, and now I can't enjoy it.

There were many tearful nights of panic attacks, depression, moping around. I picked up cross-stitch to feed my need for creating. I do enjoy cross-stitch but it's not like what I feel for knitting.

Slowly my pain symptoms cleared up enough at work that I was no longer dreading each day. I could use a mouse and keyboard with mostly no pain.

I also saw a massage therapist for my neck and back pain and also maybe to fix my hands. I've gone twice and it has helped my neck pain (it's not gone yet), but I can't say it did anything for my hands. It gave me some stress relief, though. Massages are great.

Finally I did some more research on something that I found about 2 months ago while researching RSI treatments.

It's called Tension Myositis Syndrome, or Mindbody Syndrome. I won't go into the details but essentially it attributes RSI symptoms to repressed rage/anger/stress/fear. It can be something from childhood or even recent events. This covers more than just RSI. Any sort of chronic or unexplained pain might be due to TMS.

Anyways, I looked into the disorder about 5 days ago. I started reading the book "The Mindbody Prescription." I spent some time looking inward and admitting to myself everything that I'm scared of, everything that is stressing me out, and just talking to myself about what's going on and why I feel how I do.

I've started journaling about my feelings, or just anything I can think of. I tried weightlifting and found it caused me no pain.

I've been willing myself to accept that there is nothing real about my pain and that it is caused purely by emotions. I have seen marked improvement. I can generally go about my day with little to no pain. If I catch myself thinking about my hands, the pain will return. I feel little pinches and occasional burning but it comes and goes. I'm sure there is still some inner turmoil that I have yet to address.

But the biggest most amazing result is that I can knit again. Before, just thinking about knitting or picking up a knitting needle would cause my fingers to burn and my wrists to ache. That was the fear. Now I tell myself that there is nothing wrong. I won't have to quit knitting forever, and I knitting is enjoyable. Now I can knit.

I can't believe it, almost. It makes me so happy. I was in such a depressed state that I hadn't organized my crafting room at all. It hurt me to look at the yarn. It pained me to see it and know I can't knit. I stopped watching knitting podcasts, I avoided looking at projects on ravelry, tumblr and instagram. It made me so sad  to see them.

But now I'm back. I'm loving my yarn, I'm looking at projects, I'm planning new garments to knit and I'm not focusing on the pain.

When I didn't have knitting in my life, there was only the pain to think about. I'm not 100% cured and I'm trying not to overdo it on the knitting but I am feeling positive and strong. I am feeling whole again.

I Have to Stop Knitting - Dealing with RSI

I'm in pain. Physically, mentally and emotionally. I'm feeling a little more hopeful now. But just a few days ago I was having panic attacks and seriously feeling down on myself.

I've given myself some sort of strain, sprain, pinch, or something. Back in May I was knitting 3-4 hours a night on my Find Your Fade Shawl as well as my Umaro Blanket. It's all a little fuzzy now, but I do remember developing pain in my pinkie fingers when knitting my Fade. Eventually, I finished my blanket and shortly after I started having pain at work, using a mouse and keyboard all day.

Since the beginning of June I haven't knit. It might be killing me. I'm so scared that I will have to give up knitting forever. I keep telling myself that even abstaining from knitting for 6 months wouldn't be so bad if I knew that I would be back in shape to knit for the rest of my life.

So far I haven't had any such reassurance from any doctors. The orthopedic surgeon brushed me off since I had little tingling and no problems on my x-rays. My general doctor just gave me a corticosteriod to take for 6 days. I don't know if that did anything. No one will diagnose me. No one will give me any other tests. I'm feeling a bit lost.

I have pain in my pinkie fingers, forearms, neck, and back. Work is getting easier since I bought an ergonomic mouse.

I still can't knit.

I tried Portuguese knitting. It didn't help. Turns out the pain comes from how I hold my needles. My pinkies can't handle it right now.

I'm going to a massage therapist tomorrow who specializes in medical massage. He thinks it's my neck. I hope he's right and he can fix it.

I've got a lot going on in my life. I just bought a house for the first time. I got engaged. It's a lot to handle.

I hope I can distract myself with some other hobbies while my hands fix themselves. I've got sewing, coloring, blogging, gaming, reading. I haven't done any cross stitch for a long while.


I might get in to photography, too, I'd love to take more flattering pictures of my knitting projects and yarn.

I just want some help. I just want to feel better. I feel like part of me is missing without my knitting. I can't even look at others' knitting projects on Ravelry or Instagram without feeling depressed.

:(

Recent Acquisitions

Soooo....I said my biggest goal this year is to knit entirely from stash. No buying. No spending. No fun.

Well, I already failed. Honestly, now that I think about it, I don't know what came over me. Inspiration struck, I suppose. I bought 6 enormous skeins of Cascade Ecological Wool in the Natural (un-dyed) colorway.

8.8 oz. of Yummy Yarn

I had a moment of weakness. I've been having car trouble which is stressing me out, it's a certain time of the month, which may or may not have an effect on my will to resist things I don't need (yarn, mocha lattes, Pokémon cards), and is stressing me out, and I had an important certification test for my job last Friday (which may or may not be the day that I purchased said yarn), which was stressing me out.

The solution? Buy yarn and drink lots of delicious coffee. Good news: I passed my test, my car will be fixed today and I really really love the yarn so far.

Umaro - Photo © Jared Flood/Brooklyn Tweed

My plan is to knit the Umaro blanket.  I've had this baby in my queue since I started knitting back in 2011. Now that I am planning to move out, I think this throw will be great to have for decorative and functional purposes.

I hesitated to buy this yarn because I read mixed reviews on Ravelry. I have quite sensitive skin around my chest and neck so that is the first thing I look for when buying a new yarn. I typically stick with soft merino yarns. Being that this yarn is 100% Peruvian Highland Wool, I had my concerns. Many reviews gushed about how soft it was, some noted an itchiness, and there was a disagreement about the weight of the yarn. Bulky? Aran? Who knows.

I speculated about the possible itchiness. I would really hate to spend the money, knit the blanket and never use it because it's itchy. But the reasonable price, and my need to buy yarn, was too great to resist.

I received the yarn from Eat.Sleep.Knit. on Monday (free 2 day shipping!) along with my prizes for the first 2 Yarnathon Candylands, and 2 yarn lotto tickets (won 50 yards). Just what I needed. And oh my gosh, the box was so heavy. My dad was lifting it up trying to guess what was inside. I told him it was a blanket with some assembly required. Ha.

The yarn is gorgeous. It has been minimally processed which gives it a more distinct sheep-y smell than most yarns I've used. Being un-dyed, it also doesn't have any sort of nasty vinegar smell like most Malabrigo yarns have. I can't say I enjoy the sheep smell, but I don't hate it.

The feel of the yarn is amazingly soft on my arms and hands. Pressing it to my neck, it feels slightly itchy but no more than a sweater I made from Malabrigo Sock. This makes me so happy! I was very very nervous about the yarn being too itchy. I had a blanket crocheted by my Aunt when I was younger and it was the nastiest, most stiff and itchy blanket I've ever used. That was my worst fear. As much as I love Ravelry and the plethora of information it provides, I just cannot take another person's opinion on how itchy yarn is. Everyone is different.

But I am totally satisfied with my purchase and after knitting the blanket, I may consider purchasing more for future projects. The yarn comes in such comically large skeins, I love it! And it's pretty cheap compared to other yarn I've purchased.

Candy Colorways from Squoosh Fiberarts

One problem, though. I failed to take note of the required needle size for the project. Looks like I'll be making another purchase soon! I don't have a spare circular size US 15 needle. I think the largest my interchangeable sets come with are 10 or 10.5. I will buy the needles next month. Probably HiyaHiya or Chiagoo metal fixed circulars. And....well, another skein of yarn could just fall into my basket as well. I'm thinking this lovely set of Squoosh Fiberarts Beefcake Minis in the exclusive candy colorways for the Yarnathon.

Stay tuned.

Yarnathon

I feel I should explain what the Yarnathon is, how it works, and why it's so great. Most of my projects throughout the year are motivated by some aspect of the Yarnathon, whether it be earning a badge, buying yarn or joining a KAL. I will undoubtedly be mentioning the Yarnathon in just about every post! So here it is.

What is the Yarnathon?

It is a year-long competition between the customers of the Georgia located yarn store, Eat.Sleep.Knit. Anyone who makes a purchase is placed one of 4 teams. Each team completes various activities throughout the year including booster badges, KALs, and team challenges. Teams compete using a quantity of stars. However, you individually move on a game board of sorts and as you hit milestones of yardage, you earn prizes and store credit! The prizes can range from candy to stitch markers to travel mugs, as well as Eat.Sleep.Knit. branded t-shirts and project bags! Essentially, it's an incredibly engaging and fun customer loyalty program.

How it works

To earn prizes, you must earn a certain number of yards of yarn. You can earn yards by buying yarn, completing knitalongs, and earning booster badges.

Buying

Buying yarn is straight forward. Yardage you buy = yardage earned. ESK offers bonuses like a sweater boost on buying 6+ skeins of the same yarn. This gives you an extra 50% yardage added to your total. Every quarter there are a handful of yarns given a "Power Boost" which can range from an extra 50% of yardage earned to 200%!

Knit-a-longs

Every year there are a handful of knit-a-longs you can participate in. These must be completed with yarn bought from ESK. There is usually a good variety of types of KALs. When you complete a KAL, depending on the size of the project, you will earn yardage towards your total as well as stars for your team.

Planning for KALs is so much fun and it helps me be productive in my knitting throughout the year. What's great about the KALs is that they have deadlines to meet for submitting your project. If you meet that deadline, you are eligible to win $20 of store credit in a voting thread on the discussion board where everyone votes for their favorite project and a random winner as well. But there is no pressure to complete on time because you can submit the finished KAL any time before the end of the year. I love having the deadline. It keeps me on track, but at the same time, life happens. Not everyone can knit as quickly as others. Not everyone can complete projects realistically. 

Booster Badges

The booster badge club is my favorite part of the yarnathon. Think of it like earning a patch in Girl Scouts. You complete a knitting related task and earn that badge. Each badge is worth either 20, 15, or 10 points. Once you earn a certain amount of points you become eligible for a prize! This year there are 6 levels of prizes. You can earn yardage, store credit, and stars for your team total.

I really love the booster badges because they push me to branch out and try new techniques. They include things like knit a pair of socks, knit a colorwork project, make a pompom, steek a project, and complete a crochet project. There are badges related to purchasing yarn, as well. And there are badges for the oops moments during the crafting process. Some of my favorites are start knitting with the tail of your yarn and accidentally twist stitches when joining in the round.

Yarnatron

 The last way to earn yards is the Yarnatron puzzles. Every week there is a new puzzle. You must identify 2 skeins of yarn based on a picture of the yarn. They will have a common word in the names of their colorway. That word is the answer to the puzzle. You get 50 yards for each right answer for a total of 2000 yards for the whole year.

Why It's Awesome

Every year the Yarnathon is based on a different theme! This year it is candy land. The game board is candy themed and the store has acquired special candy themed yarn from dyers like Madelinetosh, Squoosh Fiberarts, and Blue Moon Fiber Arts. There are candy prizes and Candyland inspired game board. Each team mascot has a candy themed name. I am a Peppermint Pony. I love the amount of thought and creativity that is put into creating the Yarnathon each year.

It’s Simple

Yes, there are a lot of rules and components to the Yarnathon. But it is incredibly simple to see your progress on their website. When you log into your account you can view your current yards and stars earned, any KALs you have submitted for, what booster badges you have earned, and where you are on the gameboard through the Yarnathon Dashboard. You rarely must keep track of anything yourself. I really love the ease of the Yarnathon Dashboard. You also have the choice of how you want to participate. You can do as little or as much as you want.

The Community

The community of crafters that they have created around this game is amazing. The discussion board on Ravelry is such a great place to socialize, get help, and find inspiration. The employees are very accommodating and try their hardest to please as many people as possible and answer questions through Ravelry. They have a presence on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter as well. People from all over the world participate in the Yarnathon and it is really a great group and a fun time.

Yarn Lotto

In every order you place, you will receive a Yarn Lotto card. You scratch off the 6 spaces on the card and receive the prize if you match three of the same! I love the chance to win store credit, yarn, yardage, and project bags. It is just a fun bonus that really sets this store apart from others.

Customer Service

The Yarnathon is awesome because of the amount of engagement the store has with its customers. The employees (or kitties as they call themselves) work so hard every year to create such a wonderful and rewarding experience for their customers. The employees are very accommodating and try their hardest to please as many people as possible and answer questions through Ravelry. They have a presence on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter as well. The employees are quick to answer questions, provide color suggestions, and they are even so kind to contact you when they don’t have enough matching skeins of what you ordered. The shipping is so fast. If you order in the morning, it will likely ship the same day. I love Eat.Sleep.Knit so much that I consider it my local yarn store even though I live hundreds of miles away.

Final Thoughts

I have given a summary of the major components of the Yarnathon. However, I didn't touch on every single small aspect of it, and there are always fun surprises along the way. The game lasts all year and the kitties are sure to keep us on our toes with all kinds of challenges and games. Checking in on the group discussion board is the best way to find out what is going on. There is a questions thread available if you have any questions.

I highly recommend you check out Eat.Sleep.Knit and the Yarnathon. If you love the yarn they sell and plan to buy yarn anyways, you might as well join in on the fun and earn some cute prizes while you're at it.

Go forth and stash!

The Current State of Affairs - Sock Struggles

Following up on my goals for 2017, here is what I am thinking for my #boxOsoxKAL2017.

So far I have 1 pair of socks almost completed. I have a few issues with both socks.

Side bar: I have yet to find a sock formula that works every time. I have tried toe up, cuff down, different size needles, different yarn, and an assortment of stitch patterns. A side goal of this KAL, I'm hoping, is to achieve a sock recipe for myself. My feet are not tiny but they are smaller than average. Typically, I CO 64 sts. and go from there. I have a wide foot, no arch, and narrow heels, not to mention large calves. I thought I must not be knitting at a tight enough gauge. Perhaps my lack of arch is causing the bunching on the top of my foot. Maybe I'm not meant to knit socks.

The solution? The Fish-lips Kiss Heel. I bought the pattern (only $1 folks!) and tried following all of the sizing information provided. Maybe I skimmed it. I'm sure I didn't miss anything vital. Probably. Regardless, I thought this was my solution for socks. I think it still may be. So far this remains to be seen. It's probably user error...

I thought I knit the first sock too wide around and so the heel wasn't fitting right. It wasn't enough of a mistake to make me frog it. So, I continued on to the second sock. Finished it, slid that bad boy on my foot and, pop, my heel was perfectly cupped by the fish lips kiss heel! Amazing! My toes were not so fortunate. I have about 1 inch of excess fabric at the toe. How?? I used the cardboard foot that I made from my very own foot! The same one I used for the first sock. So I tried the first back on and lo and behold, that one was too long as well.

Fish-lips kiss heel sock in Freia Ombre Sock - Flare

It seems my mistake must be in where I measured my ankle bone line since that is how you gauge the length of the foot. I'm a little bummed and slightly annoyed. But that's what I get for tracing my foot myself rather than letting someone else do it.

Dejectedly, I am going to frog the heel and some of the foot on both socks. I will reknit and hopefully have a nice pair of socks in the end.

I'm not sure if I will retrace my foot form or just use another pair of socks that I knit as a reference. I only have one pair of perfectly sized socks and they are in fact an inch or two shorter than this new pair :( I thought the fish lips kiss heel would be my answer to toe up sock sizing, but I still screwed it up.

After I sort out the perfect size for my socks, I plan on using my stashes sock yarn throughout the year. Here is what I have decided on so far:

• Freia Ombre Sock - Flare
• SweetGeorgia Sock - Intergalactic
• BMFA BFL Fingering - Dr. Baker
•  KnitPicks Felici - Balloon Ride, Ever After
• Shoppel Wolle - Crazy Zauberball - Grey
• Knit Picks Stroll Fingering - Dogwood Heather, Pumpkin, Wonderland Heather
• SweetGeorgia Yarns Tough Love Sock - Grapefruit, Lemon Curd
• Cascade Yarns Heritage Silk - Herb

WOW. I didn't realize how much sock yarn I had until I just listed it out. It would be amazing if I could knit all of that yarn. On top of it, I'm hoping to get 2 pairs out of some skeins. My feet are small and I like ankle socks.

As far as patterns go, I may branch out into a textures design like a rib or maybe Hermione's everyday socks. I don't want to get too complicated because I suffer from second sock syndrome. I even bought a long fixed needle to attempt two at a time socks, or at the very least magic loop. I think wooden dpns are slowing me down! Bring on the lightning-speed, metal needles. I will become a sock machine!

Knitting Goals - 2017

Why Make Goals?

Let's pretend this post is actually being made on the first of the month. I need an excuse to talk about my knitting goals for this year! I figure this will be a good starting point for the blog.

So... goals, goals, goals. I think of my knitting goals to be quite loose. Knitting, for me, is not my number one priority in life (though I wish it could be), and so I won't be too mad at myself if I can't stick to these goals. I will of course do my best to achieve them but life happens sometimes, and this year is turning out to be a pretty productive and busy year for me.

Regardless of my doubt in my ability to reach these goals, I think it is very important to set goals. Setting goals and planning my projects for the year really helps me to be productive. The same goes for anything in life, I think. I find it becomes very easy to sort of yet days slip by without accomplishing much. As I've grown older I have developed a sort of urge to do something. If I feel like I'm not doing something productive, it really bothers me. I hate wasting a weekend getting nothing done. To stay on track, having goals keeps me focused towards something. It gives my everyday life some meaning.

How does this relate to my knitting? Well, having a plan allows me to move from project to project without much downtime. As soon as I finish a project, I already have the yarn and pattern ready to go for the next one. My hope is that this method will keep me from straying from my stash yarn to new delicious yarns (spoiler alert, this is my main goal this year).

My Knitting Goals for 2017:

• Knit 12 pairs of socks (#boxosoxKAL2017)
• Knit perfect fitting socks
• Complete the highest level of the Q1, Q3, and Q4 KALS of the Yarnathon
• Knit entirely from stash
• Only buy new yarn with store credit
• Finish the pixelated pullover I half frogged a few years ago
• Toss or donate old/undesirable yarn (possibly sell/trade on rav)
• Post on this knitting blog once a week minimum
• Organize yarn and group skeins with patterns

To elaborate, my biggest goal is to knit from my stash. I'm trying my hardest to save up money this year to buy a house. Last year I might have gotten a teeny bit out of control buying yarn. Iwas buying yarn every month! And as tempting as brand new skeins are, I really really need to back off on the buying. I was fortunate enough to receive some store credit to Eat. Sleep. Knit (my favorite online yarn store) for Christmas. I will be slowly chipping away at it. As much as it pains me, I shall resist the yarn-y temptations!

And in all honesty, I think I will really benefit from stash knitting. I probably have some yarn I've completely forgotten about. I think it will challenge me to be more creative and really work with what I've got. It is so easy to overlook yarn buried in piles and stashed in drawers in favor of a pretty new one. The best part: if I can make this happen, I'll have room for more yarn next year plus a whole pile of beautiful hand knits!


I'm really excited for this year and everything that it will bring me. My life has been moving so quickly in the last year, yet so, so  slowly in some ways. I finished school and found a job, bought a car, and now I'm looking to purchase my first home! And I will be knitting all the while. Feel free to join me on my knitty adventure~!

~Happy knitting~

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