It doesn’t happen to me very often, but every now and then when I do a killer amount of knitting I get aching hands. Actually, all of my muscles have been aching, which is probably the rain, the coming Autumn, the work on the house – just life and getting older – but the piece I’m knitting right now is a large chunk o’knitting, and for several reasons I prefer to knit this one on straights.
When it’s finished it will be a dress with large intarsia roses across it – a knit dress, light worsted weight yarn on size 6 needles (generally my favorite yarn weight and needle size) but it’s 200 sts across (it will have a side seam) and every two or three rows I need to stop and rest my hands. I’d rather not work on circs because I can’t find any with a needle long enough to allow me to get a good speed going, and this is due next week. So I knit on straights and rest my hands every bit. I also find that I’ve been putting off this knitting – working on charts, editing, watching a movie – when the most intelligent thing would be to work on the dress and when I take my necessary breaks, then pick up the chart, manuscript or return to the movie.
Ah, life is filled with choices.
Note: Just so’s you knows, when I knit I rest my right arm on a bolster, so after I get 7 or 8 inches finished, the fabric rests on the bolster, too, so I don’t have a lot of weight hanging off of the needles. Never fear! The pain is mostly from just WORKING so many sts in a row, and the fact that I’m working sort of fast is also cause for some finger angst. Fear not, I won’t overdo it – these hands are my life!
It’s been rainy here for a few days – Max is reading a lot (to the cat) and loving it. School is good.