Knitting and Being Disabled

Hello, my dear readers, welcome to my little corner on the internet.

 There is something that has been weighing heavily on my mind for a while. Something that just doesn’t seem fair and ostracized people, unintentionally I know but it hurts. Knitting and being disabled; it is wicked frustrating to me. I want to take time to talk about it and hopefully stir up a conversation.

When I was a little kid, I wanted to learn how to knit but one thing stopped me. I couldn’t find any resources to learn to knit and being disabled. So, I gave up because the tutorials on YouTube were geared for abled people. I thought all I could do was admire the craft from a far. I was sad but I eventually accept the fate of not learning to knit. That was a normal thing to do being disabled. Don’t get me wrong I did basically everything I wanted to do but I couldn’t figure out knitting.

Almost ten years later, my sister learned and tried to teach me but sort of failed because she was too new to teach it. A spark was ignited, and I was determined to knit even if I wasn’t good at it. My older sister taught me the basic knit stitch and the loop around the thumb cast on. Honestly, I sucked at it at first and made mistakes that were incomprehensible to outsiders. At one point when I frogged my first scarf and somehow it was in a triangular shape but only when frogging it. Oops! I digressed but I will get back on topic before I lose you to boredom.    

 Have you carefully looked at the tutorials and what is expected on the new knitter? No? That’s okay, I’ll explain what I mean. When I tried to figure out to cast on – that was epically hard because I could not figure out how to adapt to my needs. Every tutorial had you use both hands equally while twisting the needle around to magically cast on stitches (it is magic, but I digress). There are no tutorials on YouTube or other platforms geared for disabled people. Did you know you can do the long tail cast on without moving the knitting needle in your hand? Also, that you can flick with one hand? I cannot believe how hard it is for knitters to find techniques that match their needs. I’m not blaming anyone or trying to insult anyone, but I think we can do better. There should be resources for the disabled to learn how to knit with ease.

I have never hidden my disability on my platform because that is what you are getting with me and Feisty Mouse Knits. I want to use my platform to provide some resources on knitting for the disability community. I think it’s important for everyone to be able the simple and more difficult techniques. In the long run, I’m hoping this becomes hopeful to new and seasoned knitters.

Thank you to those you made it to the end of this blog post! I know it got wordy, my apologies. I hope you stay awhile in my corner of the internet and follow me on my social media.