A Hook to Save Your Hand!!

A young man in Austin, Harrison Richards, has started his own company by creating a unique line of hand turned exotic wood crochet hooks that allow your hand muscles to totally relax while you are "hooking".  As a massage therapist concerned with my own hand function, as well as that of many of my carpal tunnel clients, I am just totally taken aback with the elegance, simplicity and form/function design of these beautiful polished hooks.

Using a hook specifically made to rest in the palm of your hand, your hand muscles relax, a far cry from what happens when you try to hold and work with a skinny metal hook for lengths of time.

I received mine this week, and yesterday had a glorious lazy day re-learning my dusty/rusty crochet skills. I have been a long-time knitter, but I also have experienced some repetitive motion issues with that craft... so this idea totally intrigued me when I was recently invited to an event to try them out. Because this hook was so comfortable to use, I started and completed a small basket (pattern on Ravelry) in no time at all.

People that know me well, know that I value things made by hand (as well as the artists who support themselves entirely by their own hand).  A Furls Crochet Hook is a piece of art, and - the BONUS:  a tool to actually preserve and extend hand function for fiber artists.   Amazing.  Check it out!!

Furls Crochet

Compartmentalize. or NOT!

I have recently become aware that I have had a lifetime obsession (fixation??) with making containers.  Useful, or "un-useful" (but touchable, beautiful... textured).  Quilted, knitted... crocheted..

and now, moving on to crochet...

What does it mean?  It's (as usual) about the process, the joy of making them, but it is also about the object.  the vessel, the bag, the basket.  The container.  To contain something.  One thing.  Many little things.... or nothing.

While trying to find my way in the making a living department, and the "living my life" for the first time department, and also the "starting" of a new series on the wall (hello,  procrastination!), what does this container obsession mean about who I am?  It's not a new thing; I have always been drawn to making something... that holds something else.

So I think - Is it that the making of these containers is a way to let the "control" genie out of the box?  I would like to envision that the "making" process... whatever is going on, is an expression of the "controlling" me... and if that part of me can be released each time a container is finished, can the"other", more free side of me, just let go and GET A MOVE ON?

Meanwhile, I watch and wonder at the color in the skies, every day... finding peace, absorbing changing color...

Marblehead, MA, Sept 2012

Pond sky, at home in Austin, November

Coots, Mallards, Austin, December 2012