Pin of the Week: Finger Yoga

Since I have been sidelined by a crafting-related injury that has made my hands and arms hurt, I’ve been researching some stretches and things that can make my hands and arms a little stronger and healthier.

It just happened that I came across a pin for Finger Yoga the other day, and while I haven’t explored it completely it does look like it has some interesting stretches, nicely illustrated with big pictures.

It uses the traditional language of yoga to describe these “poses,” including backward arches, forward folds and twists. You’ll find some traditional yoga mudras (hand poses) as well as other stretches that I imagine are also good for people who spend too much time at the computer as well as too much time at the knitting needles (and I happen to do both, so I’m excited to delve into this one a little deeper).

Some of these are downright scary looking to me — remember that you should be really gentle with yourself, don’t stretch to the point of pain and if something does hurt, stop doing it!

Want to follow my Pinterest knitting board? You can find it at that link right there!

[Photo via Finger Yoga.]

Next Pattern:

As I write this, it’s probably time to start thinking about winter knitting if you haven’t already. And it’s definitely time to think about gift knitting if you have any of that you plan to do for the holidays.

The Dreamy Waves Scarf from Knit Picks, designed by Stacey Winklepleck, would be a great project to go in either category.

It uses two different multicolored yarns and a simple repeating wave pattern to make a project that looks a lot more complicated and dramatic than it is. The gradient look happens naturally just by switching which yarn you’re knitting with.

This pattern uses worsted weight yarn so it’s a pretty quick project even though a scarf is large and this one is pretty wide. It measures 8.5 inches (21.5 cm) wide and 63 inches or 120 cm long. Of course you can make it longer or shorter as you like. As written it takes one ball of each color so it’s a pretty economical project, too.

It’s rated for intermediate knitters but if you know how to do various increases and decreases you’ll be all set. The pattern uses knit 2 together, make 1 left and right, centered double decrease and slip slip knit. All of the stitches are explained in a glossary in the pattern so even if you haven’t done all of them it shouldn’t be too hard to figure out.

The pattern also includes tons of options for different colorways in yarn that Knit Picks sells, so you can see how different combinations knit up before you buy the yarn. That’s such a great idea!

Of course if you already have two multicolored yarns with long color runs on hand, you can absolutely use them, too. It might also be fun, but would give you a totally different look, to use a solid color and a bunch of scraps or one multicolored yarn to see how the different colors play together. So many options!

You can grab this free pattern and check out all the color options at Knit Picks.

[Photo: Knit Picks]

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