My “I never thought this would ever happen” Knitting Injury

Dec 27

My list of knitting injury “nevers” was fully checked off:

I never ever thought that I would ever develop a knitting injury
I never had even a hint or a suspicion of one developing
I never knit for more than an hour straight
I never focus on only one single project
I never expected anything even close to a knitting injury. Ever.

But here we are.

I thought that maybe I should document this just in case someone else finds themselves in the same or similar position. Maybe by writing about this and highlighting awareness, it might save someone else from developing a physical problem. Keep in mind though that I’m not a medical professional, so if you ever have a physical problem arise you should consult with someone qualified. Your cause or situation might be totally different.

I do knit a lot but not that much. And I certainly don’t knit for more than an hour at a time. And most days I will work on 3-5 different projects to help mix up the muscles and movements. Then on top of that, there’s daily life — I’m constantly having to get up and do other things every day and all day: make sure Basil gets out of bed (and Steve too if he sleeps through the alarm), make breakfast, lunch, and dinner for us, take Basil to school and pick him up, take our poochy Alfie out for a good long walk, do all the daily chores and cleaning, shovel snow out of the driveway (although now I can’t and I’m sad about it!), and all the oodles of other daily things that arise. Then on top of that, there are all the work things that don’t required knitting, like writing, calculating, sketching, email responding, pattern writing, etc. So I don’t get to sit and knit very much during the day, and some days extremely little knitting gets done — like maybe only 2 rows. I squeeze the knitting joy in whenever possible.

One of the fun things I was going to do for myself this autumn was take part in a Mystery Knit-A-Long (known as an MKAL) for pure fun on the side of all of my work knitting. It was a big cabled blanket/throw, made with worsted weight yarn. If you’re familiar with my own designs, you’ve probably noticed that I knit almost always with fingering weight and lace weight yarn. Once in a while, I’ll do a DK weight sweater, and even more infrequently a worsted or aran weight sweater. My forearms and tendons are used to light weight yarns. So as this MKAL blanket grew and grew, and all the cablework grew and grew, the twisting and turning of my tendons under the strain of the weight of the blanket that was taking shape was suddenly a giant problem. It was so sudden!

When I knit, I tend to hold my knitting up around chest level. While this isn’t a problem for me with lace and fingering weight, it was certainly a problem knitting and holding this worsted weight big cable blanket the same way. So I caution you, if you find yourself knitting something heavier and bigger than what you’re used to, be very mindful to hold it in a different way. There can be strain there that you don’t even know is there until it’s there!

This tendonitis happened suddenly in both of my elbows — but mostly in my right elbow — back at the end of September / beginning of October (this year, 2025). For the last several months I’ve been trying to maintain my elbows and at the same time maintain working on patterns. It is my work after all! Writing on paper, calculating things and sketching things, typing on the computer also has been affecting my elbows. And then in personal life, also cleaning and doing all the house things affects them too. I’m having to be cautious and careful, to take breaks and slow down when needed. My husband is banning me from shoveling snow (I love shoveling snow!!!) I’m being mindful to incorporate tons of bone broth (for collagen) into cooking and meals. Two pieces of equipment that have been game changers, are an elbow brace and a wrist brace. Using these when needed has been helping my muscles and tendons to heal. It will take time and care.

So the universe has this unexpected plan that I just have to roll with. I’ll post updates along the way if elbow things change. Take care of yourself and your precious loved ones, and have a wonderful 2026.

Happy knitting as always!

-xo Jennifer

December 27, 2025

PS. Here is a sneak peek of some finished Landed, Volume 2 designs, L’Anse-Au-Clair and Lab City:

(Now with my elbow issue, I’m going to need to pivot and get creative on its release schedule! :))