Knitting Tips with Carson Demers, author of Knitting Comfortably

I attended Stitches SoCal recently, and one of the events was a short talk by Carson Demers who talks about knitting comfortably. In fact, he wrote the book on it.

His book is Knitting Comfortably: The Ergonomics of Handknitting 

Here are a few highlights from his talk (shared with permission.)

1. Think of your chair as a tool. If it's too cushy and comfortable and has you leaning back, then you need to bring your head forward to knit. This could be hard on the neck.

Also, the chair should have no armrests. Your feet should sit comfortably on the floor with your hips at a right angle.

Occasionally it's good to knit while standing or walking.

2. Use a special stitch marker which we call a movement marker in your knitting.

Every time you reach that marker, check yourself – check your posture, etc.

Do things like relax or rotate your shoulders, do an ankle stretch, take some deep breaths, stand up and stretch. This will keep you from getting too stiff from staying in one position for a long time.

3. If you have a complicated stitch pattern, or colorwork, when you come to an easy row, stop and stretch out your hands or do another favorite stretch.

4. Instead of putting all your notions, needles, spare yarn, etc all around you as you knit (your “knitting nest”), put them in another room, so you have to actually get up when it's time to use them.

5. If you feel tension or stress, try to relax. If you have sore muscles give yourself a chance to rest, just like an athlete rests after a workout.

6. Try using a swatch not just for gauge, but to practice a complex stitch pattern, to work on fixing dropped stitches, or to get comfortable doing a steek. This will mean you'll be less tense and stressed when you actually knit your garment -- you will have practiced the tough or complex stitches.

Carson Demers is can be found at www.ergoiknit.com. Carson has given me permission to share these tips with you. Aren’t we lucky!

More tips can be found in his book Knitting Comfortably: The Ergonomics of Handknitting.

Let me know if you try any of these tips, and what you think of them. I will try them, too, and I will report back.

 

Once again, the book is Knitting Comfortably: The Ergonomics of Handknitting