Holidays don’t always go as we expect them to, do they? I planned to spend the week between Christmas and New Year’s working on a number of different crochet projects and potential new designs. Unfortunately, that isn’t going to happen.
On the evening of Christmas Day, we went down to my father-in-law’s to do our Shelton family gift exchange with him and my sister-in-law, who had been working all day. I brought a fabulous soup made in my new Instant Pot (post coming soon!) along with salad, dessert, and disposable tableware so my elderly father-in-law wouldn’t have much to clean up.
I grabbed a small paring knife to slice open the package of plastic cutlery. I don’t know whether I was tired and gauged the angle wrong or if my hand actually slipped, but I ended up making a very deep slice into the tip of my index finger. I knew it was bad as soon as I did it.
For awhile that evening and the next morning, I thought I might be taking a trip to the ER or urgent care to have it cauterized. However, after hours of pressure created by gauze wrapped tightly with paper tape, everything managed to knit and seal itself back together. (Yes, see the fiber pun?)
However, the end of my finger is still very sore and I’m going to have to keep this big gauze wrap on the end for a few more days, until I’m convinced I’m not at risk of opening that deep cut all the way back up.
I’m able to type now, without using that finger, as it’s too fat to hit just one key on the keyboard! Crochet is out for the next few days, since the way I hold the yarn simply won’t work with this huge wrapped fingertip.
Luckily, the cut is on my right fingertip and I’m left-handed, so I can still do plenty of writing and sketching for plans for the new pattern designs. I can also spend time browsing through my vast library of stitch pattern books.
I can also start making headway on the vast backlog of crochet book reviews I need to write. So expect to see quite a few of those appearing over the next couple of weeks!
I’m sure we’ve all experienced times when we can’t crochet for some reason or other. So how do you spend your crochet time when you can’t actually crochet? We’d love to hear your stories!
Louisa Calder ( https://www.amazon.com/Louisa-Calders-Creative-Crochet-Calder/dp/0670442038 ) devotes a chapter to crocheters who don’t have the use of one hand, due to stroke or arthritis, on how to use a vise attached to a table to hold the crochet hook. I tried it when I broke my hand a few years ago, with limited success, but I remember feeling satisfied that I would always be able to do some crocheting, no matter what.
I hope you heal fast, I’ve done that before in fact just this last December, had a huge order due thankfully it only kept me down abut 10 days and I was able to finish for my client especially since it was most of her presents she was giving.
Looking forward to seeing your new ideas.