{"id":11182,"date":"2014-04-09T09:01:11","date_gmt":"2014-04-09T13:01:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.planetjune.com\/blog\/?p=11182"},"modified":"2026-03-16T11:12:16","modified_gmt":"2026-03-16T15:12:16","slug":"finger-protector-for-crocheters-or-knitters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.planetjune.com\/blog\/finger-protector-for-crocheters-or-knitters\/","title":{"rendered":"finger protector for crocheters (or knitters)"},"content":{"rendered":"

When I was writing my new book<\/a>, I had a lot of project samples to crochet in a short period of time, and that’s pretty hard on the hands. <\/p>\n

\"my
\nThis is how I crochet (and this is my meerkat amigurumi, not a book project!)<\/em><\/p>\n

When I’ve been crocheting for a while, the yarn starts to wear a groove in my forefinger as it rubs over it, and, if I keep going, my finger gets red and sore, and my skin condition gets aggravated. A chafed finger really isn’t something you want to see in close-up book tutorial photos, so I needed a solution to protect my finger. <\/p>\n

\"chafed
\nGroovy (and not in a good way) – this is after just a few minutes of fast amigurumi crocheting<\/em><\/p>\n

First I tried crocheting a finger sleeve, which worked really well for comfort and maintaining tension, but it looked clunky, and after a few minutes of use it began to spin around on my finger and wouldn’t hold in place. I also tried using plastic and metal yarn guides (meant for stranding multiple colours of yarn) which stopped the rubbing, but I found they messed with my tension. <\/p>\n

Other suggestions from my ever-helpful Ravelry group<\/a> members included finger cots<\/a>, taping the finger, or wrapping paper towel around the finger and then taping over that.<\/p>\n

In the end I found a very simple solution that works for me: I sewed a very basic finger sleeve from a smooth, stretchy, spandex-blend fabric. This fabric doesn’t fray, so all I needed was one row of stitching to turn a small rectangle of fabric into a tube that fits tightly over my finger.<\/p>\n

\"finger
\nIt’s not pretty, but it works<\/em><\/p>\n

When I wear it, my yarn runs smoothly over the fabric and it doesn’t affect my crocheting tension. The tube did stretch a bit after a few days of hard use and became too loose to be effective, but I just stitched another seam slightly further in (thanks to Kris for that suggestion) and it hasn’t stretched further since. The best part is it only takes a tiny scrap of a smooth stretch fabric, and you can customise it to exactly fit whichever part of your finger gets rubbed or irritated by your yarn.<\/p>\n

I keep the seam on the outside so it doesn’t dig into my finger, but rotate the sleeve on my finger so the seam doesn’t touch the yarn. Sometimes a simple solution is best: this little tube took mere minutes to make but has already saved me a lot of discomfort as I worked on all my book projects. <\/p>\n

I still use my finger sleeve when I have a heavy crocheting session or use yarn that chafes, and I think I’ll whip up another half dozen or so – the biggest problem with finger sleeves is that they seem as prone as yarn needles to being mislaid! If I have a few handy, I’ll be able to keep one in every project bag. <\/p>\n

\"finger
\nProblem solved!<\/em><\/p>\n

If you’d like to try making a finger sleeve, look for a smooth fabric with spandex\/lycra so it’s nice and stretchy. Or, if you don’t want to spend money when you only need a tiny scrap of fabric, I bet a piece snipped from an old swimsuit would work perfectly…<\/p>\n

My starting fabric rectangle was 4cm long by 6cm around (about 1½ by 2⅜”) but I have small fingers, so you may want a longer and\/or wider tube. Just measure your finger and remember to add a little extra width for the seam allowance (but not too much, as you need a tight fit so it won’t slip). If it’s too loose, just sew another seam to make the tube slightly narrower, as I did. <\/p>\n

Do you have problems with yarn chafing your finger when you crochet or knit? Please share what works for you in the comments! <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When I was writing my new book, I had a lot of project samples to crochet in a short period of time, and that’s pretty hard on the hands. This is how I crochet (and this is my meerkat amigurumi, not a book project!) When I’ve been crocheting for a while, the yarn starts to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11182","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-crochet","category-sewing"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.planetjune.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11182","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.planetjune.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.planetjune.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.planetjune.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.planetjune.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11182"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.planetjune.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11182\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26814,"href":"https:\/\/www.planetjune.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11182\/revisions\/26814"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.planetjune.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11182"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.planetjune.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11182"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.planetjune.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11182"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}