handicapped crochet?

[amby525]

is there any thing out there to help some one who has lost most or all of the use of one hand to crochet or knit?

i am a cook in a nursing home and i helped the activites director with a crochet class. a few of our residents would love to crochet again but have almost no use in one hand. i was thinking of something to hold the hook that could be clamped to a table or their wheelchair.And they use their good hand to hold the yarn. is what i'm thinking impossibale or could it work? let me know if you have any ideas.

 

thank you

[heart]

I'm not sure about crochet , but I've seen these looms, knifty knitter?, they come in different colors 3-4 in a pak, you make hats and round things, purses? lots of things can be made with tubes. I haven't tried one, but it may be easier for them to do. I think you just weave the yarn around the prongs and then pull the yarn over. I've seen them at walmart and hobby lobby.

[wowyshmowy]

GREAT IDEA heart!!!

 

I found my brand new knifty knitter at the Salvation Army Thrift Store.

Haven't tried it yet.

You can get free knifty knitter patterns on the web.

[Gail]

In Europe there used to be a common knitting aid called a knitting sheath, basically a smooth curved piece of wood with a hole down the centre to receive the blunt end of the needle. the busy knitter could hold it under her arm to keep it steady, and free one hand. I believe these are still used on some of the remoter Scottish islands , and I found a link to some museum examples ( very elaborate ones given as love tokens:hug )

http://www.gtj.org.uk/en/themeitems/21946

I would imagine a reasonably competent woodworker could make something similar for a hook:hook , especially if it's long like a tunisian hook, the benefit of tucking under the arm is that your ladies might have some control of the hook.

I have a lot of personal experience of trying to clamp things to wheelchairs or trays, and removable screw clamps can't take constant movement .

If you decide to go with a clamp idea, perhaps someone could make a Viceclamp ( I'm not sure what its called in the US - I mean a smaller version of the sort of thing woodworkers have on a workbench, to hold timber still whilst sawing ) which could be permanently attached with screws to the tray?

alternatively my son (my pride and joy), who is profoundly disabled, is learning to play the drums , and the music therapist uses sports wrists supports to hold the drumsticks in his hands, but that won't help if your ladies have poor arm co-ordination

I think its great that you're trying to find a way to allow these ladies to enjoy crochet again:clap , please post how you get on with it

[amby525]

thank all of you for the advice. i am going to buy a niffty knitter as see if i can go it one handed.

i will also try to find a way to make? a knitting sheath. thank you for helping i would love to get these ladies doing something crafty again.

[CaliAdria]

It's very random that this thread topic came up today. I've been crocheting like crazy for Christmas (as I think most of us are doing) and at the end of the day my hand HURTS. I was thinking last night about what I would do if I developed severe arthritis when I get older... how would I function if I couldn't crochet? My mom used to make beautiful stuff with thread and now her eyes are so bad that she can't see to work on it anymore. It's so SAD.

[SaxDragon]

some ideas

 

In south america (brazil? Peru? I forget which country exactly) the men wear a belt in which one knitting needle is anchored. I've seen it a few times over the years, most recently in a magazine (probably about knitting LOL). When I first tried to teach myself to knit (20 years ago) I used to sort of tuck the working needle into my lap, it worked okay. I have since learned to use both hands/needles, but sometimes I think tucking it was better :-)

 

One lady I know uses those trigger crochet hooks. She has far more control of her arm than her hand. She told me it took a little getting used to, but works just fine.

 

For some, those jumbo sized hooks and needles with super bulky yarn (like the MoEz afghans) might work. Doesn't take as much hand control to use as with smaller stuff. At least for me - maybe I'm just lazy LOL

 

Monk's cloth is fun to weave yarn through to make those neat designs, except my cats help to much, so I don't try it anymore :-) Scarf length strips aren't to bad to work with.

 

A recent bee sting brought to the idea of similarly looking for some way to hold my crochet, but I had no luck :-( I've seen some sort of clamping device that held one knitting needle but with crochet, I'd need it to hold both ends of my work so I could crochet in between - kind of upside down. The only thing I didn't have on hand to try was one of those clothes hangers with the skirt clamps on each end - could hang it on something, clamp the work between the things, and crochet. I'll have to buy one to try it out someday (I have one of those portable clothes bars that I use to macrame while sitting down - that's what I'd've hung the hanger on - in a nursing home, maybe an IV stand could be used to hang it on?).

 

edit: Found these two thing a book (Knitting and Crochet for the Physically Handicapped and Elderly by S. Hollingworth, published in '81 but it didn't say what company) and a yahoo group ( http://groups.yahoo.com/group/disability-needlework/ ).

 

edit: http://www.CrochetWithDee.com has a one handed crochet page, has several links including one for the clamp device.

[amby525]

thank you so much for the info this will help a lot

[ErinLindsey]

Would this help some of the people?

 

http://www.dynamic-living.com/crochet-aid.htm

 

I found a mention of it at this website http://dynamic-living.livejournal.com/tag/stroke (scroll down a teeny bit)

 

I do remember, but cant find the link, a story of a man who either lost his arm, or had some sort of injury that made him lose the use of his arm. He had a friend create him a special crochet hook with a clamp on it. He clamped it to a table, and crocheted with it. Some of the pictures of his work made me jealous. At the time I saw that website, I hadnt yet taken the plunge into fancier crochet.

 

I'll keep looking and see if I can find the link to that website that showed the guy's crochet hook setup.