My next few crochet video tutorials will be in response to customer requests. If there are other crochet techniques you’d like me to cover in future videos, please leave a comment below, or email me (june@planetjune.com) with your suggestions!
If you’ve ever lost your place while crocheting in a spiral, or discovered that you must have made a mistake many rounds earlier, I highly recommend you use a stitch marker to mark the start of every round while you crochet your amigurumi! But how do you go about doing that? How does it help you avoid mistakes, and what do you do if you realise you’ve made one?
Or, if your pattern directs you to mark a specific stitch while you crochet, how exactly do you do that?
In my latest video, I’ll walk you through everything you need to know about using a stitch marker with amigurumi (or any other crochet worked in a continuous spiral), including:
How to mark the first stitch of the round
How to fix a mistake
How to mark a specific stitch
As always, the video is available in right-handed and left-handed versions.
This video is ideal for amigurumi beginners, but I recommend you watch it even if you’ve been making amigurumi for years – you may still pick up a tip or two!
Hand and wrist pain is a common story for crocheters, knitters, and other crafters who spend a lot of time making repetitive motions with their hands.
If you visit the doctor, you may be told you have carpal tunnel syndrome, tendinitis, arthritis, an RSI (repetitive strain injury), and that may be the case… or it may not.
Before you consider serious medical treatments like steroid injections or surgery to help with your hand pain, I’d suggest you read my story below, and see if you can fix yourself without the need for drugs or surgical interventions.
Disclaimer: I’m not a medical professional, and if your doctor has diagnosed you with a condition, their recommended treatment may be the right solution for you. But I’d recommend you try this simple self-administered pressure treatment first – it can’t make things any worse, it’s fast and free, and it may relieve you of serious pain!
My Story
In 2007, I was mis-diagnosed with carpal tunnel syndrome.
The pain was debilitating. I could no longer perform everyday tasks without agonizing pain: turning a door handle; pushing open a door with my palm; using a computer mouse; operating a can opener…
I was referred to a specialist, given a fancy wrist brace to lock my wrist straight, and told that if that didn’t fix the problem, my only other options were steroid injections or carpal tunnel surgery.
I wore the wrist brace for months, and learned to mouse left-handed. The brace helped with the pain, but the problem didn’t go away.
Eventually, I found a cure that was ridiculously simple, I could perform on myself at no cost, and has completely fixed the problem.
None of the doctors I visited considered this as a possibility.
The cause of all my debilitating wrist pain was a knotted muscle near my elbow.
Myofascial Pain Syndrome, Trigger Points & Referred Pain
When you overuse a muscle, it can cause sensitive areas of tight fibres to form, creating a knot in the muscle. The point where the knot forms is called a trigger point, and pressing on it causes an achy pain.
Now, here’s the crazy part: the muscle knot at the trigger point can cause serious pain in a different part of your body. This is called referred pain.
So the pain you feel may be caused by a trigger point elsewhere. No matter how much you treat your hand or wrist, you won’t be able to fix the problem if the pain, like mine, is caused by a trigger point in your upper forearm!
Treat Yourself
Once you know where the trigger point is that’s causing your pain, you can ‘unlock’ it – and stop the referred pain – by releasing the muscle knot yourself.
I learnt this ischemic pressure technique by watching a video from Dr Jonathan Kuttner, an expert in chronic muscle and joint pain. He has a couple of quick videos that explain the process – I highly recommend you watch them:
The process is the same to ‘turn off’ any trigger point. The key is to start with low enough pressure on the trigger point so it doesn’t hurt, then to gradually increase the pressure, but never to the level where it hurts.
(From experience, I can tell you that, if you’re too forceful, you’ll end up feeling like you’ve bruised yourself, and you don’t do any good. Slow and gentle is the way to go.)
My Treatment
Coincidentally, the trigger point Jonathan demonstrates ‘turning off’ in his video is the same one that caused my carpal tunnel-like symptoms and wrist/hand pain, so I could follow the instructions in his video exactly.
I’ve never been able to feel the nodule of knotted muscle he describes, but I know I’m in the right place when I feel the tender spot on my arm.
In 2009, when my condition was agonising, I could press the trigger point in my arm and immediately feel the referred pain in the back of my hand and wrist! That’s what convinced me that this was a) a real phenomenon and b) the cause of my problems.
Here’s me from an email I sent in 2009 when I’d just cured myself of my supposed ‘carpal tunnel syndrome’:
The myofascial thing is amazing – my wrist was so painful I couldn’t put any pressure on it while it was at all bent, so I couldn’t even open a door or a jar without it being agonisingly painful. I got one of those wrist splint things and it helped me to avoid the pain but it didn’t get better. And then I was googling and found this AMAZING thing – basically it was a referred pain caused by a muscle knot just below my elbow. And by doing gentle acupressure [sic] with my finger on this point, I healed it! I know it sounds like rubbish, but it’s totally true – when I pushed this exact spot on my arm, I could feel the pain in my wrist, even though I wasn’t doing anything to my wrist. Total magic.
Since then, I’ve rarely had the pain escalate to the terrible point it was at. I always treat it as soon as I realise what’s happening, and the knot has never had a chance to form as badly as it was back then.
I’ve developed the same problem in the other arm too, and now I can always find the trigger point on each arm – I feel a tender ache when I press on them. I try to do the ischemic pressure treatment whenever I remember, to stop the knot from forming in the first place. This works really well for me!
Finding Other Trigger Points
There are trigger points all over the body, and you can consult a trigger point diagram (like this one) that shows the position of the trigger point (marked with an X) and the possible locations of referred pain for that point (shown as a cloud of red). You can use those to help diagnose if any of your unexplained chronic pains may be caused by trigger points, and try to deactivate them if so.
I’ve had several other problems with pain that have also turned out to be trigger point related:
I get pain at the base of my thumbs when I crochet (or use my phone) too much, and I’ve discovered that there are two trigger points in the thumb. Treating the lower trigger point at the base of the thumb seems to help me.
I also occasionally get terrible upper back pain. When I have it, I can never get comfortable and I can’t sleep for the pain. The back pain turned out to be caused by trigger points, and now when my upper back and shoulders are hurting, I can usually fix it by unlocking the trigger points in my levator scapulae or trapezius muscles. (Here’s Jonathan’s article Trigger Points for Neck Pain).
Give It a Go
I have no idea how many people with hand pains from crochet or other crafts may also actually be suffering from a simple trigger point caused by a knotted muscle in their forearm, but please do try some trigger point pressure therapy and report back here if it helps!
A couple of tips on what to expect:
If your pain is bad, I’ve found that it may take daily sessions over a week or two to completely turn off the trigger point, but you should be able to feel an improvement immediately.
Your trigger points will probably reactivate in time, but knowing where they are and how to treat them means you can fix yourself in future before the stage of agonising pain, limited function and sleepless nights.
I hope this works for you as well as it has for me.
My patriotic Beaver just can’t wait until Canada Day (July 1st) to start his celebrations!
I’ve just updated my Maple Leaf Collection crochet pattern to also include instructions for making this small thread Canadian Flag too – it’s perfect for an amigurumi to hold.
If you’ve already bought the Maple Leaf Collection, log back into your PlanetJune account, go to your old order for the Maple Leaf Collection and re-download the Canadian Flag Background PDF – you’ll see a new page at the end with the updated details for the thread flag!
Canadiana crochet patterns
I have a small, but growing, collection of Canadian-themed patterns now – the adorable Beaver, and the Maple Leaf Collection (which includes the Canadian Flag background):
Don’t miss the launch discount, at the end of this post!
I have a very special new design for you today – it’s a beautifully-shaped Seahorse crochet pattern:
Aren’t they sweet? I’m so pleased with how they turned out 🙂
Seahorse Fun Facts
Seahorses are a very unusual-looking type of fish.
They live in sheltered areas of warm seas across the world.
Seahorses swim upright, using their dorsal fin (at the back) to move them forwards and their pectoral fins (at either side of the head) for steering.
They are slow, weak swimmers, so they use their prehensile tails to grasp onto seaweed, coral, etc so they don’t drift away in the currents.
Unlike most animals, the male seahorse cares for the babies. The eggs are kept safely in a special brood pouch on his stomach until they are ready to emerge as fully-formed miniature seahorses!
About the Design
My seahorse design is realistically shaped and about 9″ (22.5cm) long when worked in worsted weight yarn.
It’s an elegant low-sew design, as the entire head, body and tail are crocheted as one piece. The only sewing is to attach the fins and coronet.
I made my samples in Lion Brand Vanna’s Choice worsted weight yarn in realistic seahorsey shades, but you have lots of scope for creativity in your yarn choice!
Multicoloured or variegated yarns would work well.
Glossy or sparkly yarns would add a magical touch.
Scale it down with finer yarn and a smaller hook for a cute miniature seahorse.
Make a giant cuddly seahorse using my Giant Amigurumi techniques!
About the Pattern
As always, the pattern includes full instructions and detailed step-by-step photographs for assembly and all special techniques used, so you can follow along and make a perfect seahorse.
I’ve also included stitch diagrams in addition to written instructions for all the fins and coronet, so you can use whichever instructions work best for your learning style.
You’ll love the way it magically comes together…
Buy Now & Launch Discount
Ready to get started? Pick up my Seahorse crochet pattern from my shop right now. Or, if you’re not ready to make it just yet, add it to your Ravelry queue or favourites so you don’t forget about it:
And for one week only, you can take an extra 50c off the price: add the Seahorse pattern to your shopping cart, and enter the discount code MAGIC at checkout! (Offer ends Thursday 6 June, 2019.)
I feel that there’s something almost magical about these special creatures – don’t you agree? And their beautiful elegant shape lends itself so well to a sculptural design like this.
I really hope you’ll enjoy my Seahorse pattern. Don’t forget to share photos with me when you’ve made one:
The standard way to finish an open-ended piece in amigurumi is to join with a slip stitch (sl st) to the next stitch, to reduce the height jog of the spiral between the first and last stitches of the final round. It’s a quick and easy method, and is perfectly fine if you’ll be stitching the piece down to something else so the edge won’t show in the finished amigurumi.
That’s not always the case, though – sometimes the edge will be visible in the finished piece, and in this case the sl st finish isn’t the best choice – it leaves a little bump that’s impossible to hide completely.
When I decided to make a video tutorial to show the most invisible finish for an open edge in amigurumi, I realised that, while there’s a standard method for amigurumi worked in joined rounds (and this actually forms the basis of my Perfect Stripes Invisible Join), there’s no consensus for amigurumi worked in spirals…
And you know what that means: it’s time for another crochet investigation!
Method
All my candidates are based on the standard invisible finish for joined rounds, but I considered two ways that the method can be varied that may affect the look of the finished edge:
Should there be a slip stitch before the join, or not? A slip stitch would reduce the height difference before the join, but might end up more visible than without.
Should there be a duplicated stitch, or an additional stitch added? The additional stitch was my original preferred method from 2009 (there’s no need to maintain the stitch count if the edge won’t be worked back into, so the duplicate stitch isn’t necessary) but is that a good reason to keep doing it? (Of course not – not if there’s a better way…)
So that gives us four candidates for the experiment:
C: no slip stitch, join in next stitch D: no slip stitch, duplicate stitch join E: slip stitch, join in next stitch F: slip stitch, duplicate stitch join
The photos below show the results of each test, together with:
A: the piece after the final stitch is worked, before any join (note the difference in height between the final stitch, below the hook, and the next stitch to its right) B: slip stitch join (the yarn tail isn’t woven in here, but you can clearly see the knot just below the tail that can’t be completely hidden)
Results
I compared the 4 samples and noted my observations (don’t worry if you can’t see all these in the photos above; they are much more apparent when viewed from multiple angles):
C: height jog very visible; stitch count not maintained D: height jog minimised; skipped stitch visible from front; stitch count is maintained E: height jog minimised; sl st visible from front; stitch count not maintained F: height jog minimised; sl st and skipped stitch visible from front; stitch count is maintained
C is an immediate fail: you can clearly see that it does the worst job of blending the height difference between the start and end of the final round.
F is the next to go: there’s an extra bar visible beneath the V from either a slipped stitch or a skipped stitch, and F has both while D and E only have one each, so it’s the worst in terms of invisibility, with extra bars visible beneath two stitches.
That leaves D and E. They’re both pretty good in terms of invisibility, but I’m going to award the prize to D: the fact that it maintains the stitch count around the edge makes it the most versatile; you can use it for an open-ended piece or one that will be stitched to something else with no problems, so this means you’ll have one fewer technique to remember!
Refining the Technique
While working on the test, I also noted that the downside of any of these methods is that you have to pull the duplicate stitch very carefully to the right size to make it look truly invisible, which makes it more difficult to then weave in the yarn tail without disturbing the size. So, I came up with a tiny refinement that makes it much easier to control the size of the duplicate stitch and keep it held in place once you’ve adjusted it to the right size.
Intrigued? Good! I’ll explain all in my new Invisible Finish video tutorial 😉
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