FEATURE: CROCHETING WITH A DISABILITY
A disability need not mean farewell to your favourite hobby – as these inspiring hooksters prove
Crochet is a hobby brimming with positivity and possibility, so it’s sobering to think that disability or illness might hold some would-be hooksters back from creating. However, as society – and concordantly, its evolving appliances – have become more inclusive, the doors are opening further, allowing more opportunity than ever for people to take part.
ABESPOKEAPPROACH
One way to widen inclusivity in crochet is to adapt the tools to suit the individual crocheter’s needs. Charities such as Remap provide bespoke products for those who may require additional help.
Remap commented: “We are a national charity that helps disabled people of all ages to live more independent lives by designing and making customised equipment free of charge. We provide solutions to everyday problems when there is nothing commercially available. We design and custom-make equipment for individuals because everyone’s needs are different. Our network of skilled volunteers respond to thousands of requests for our help every year and we provide our service free of charge.
“If a disabled person wants a gadget to help them overcome an impairment of some sort that stops them from knitting or crocheting, they simple contact us and we arrange for one of our skilled volunteers to visit them and hand-make them a piece of equipment. This ensures it entirely meets their needs.”
THEBEST MEDICINE?
It’s heartening to learn of schemes that enable those with a disability to engage with yarn craft. However, can crochet benefit those who have had a serious illness?
Marian Dye believes it can: “By late 198 I was getting headaches that were becoming very severe, and the mobility down my right hand side was slowly deteriorating. After being sent for different tests and scans I was diagnosed with a Meningioma – a benign brain tumour. After surgery, I had limited use of my right arm and leg and difficulty speaking. However, once all the bruises from the drips had faded, I picked up my hook and whilst it was slow going to start with, I persevered. The physiotherapist delighted with my progress, and both the occupational therapist and my physiotherapist believed that I had recovered 95% of the mobility in my right hand and arm through the crocheting that I’d done. As a result, I would personally recommend crochet to anybody with a hand issue.”
For those who need the use of a wheelchair, there are other difficulties to be overcome.
Anne Novis MBE, disability activist and campaigner and chair of Inclusion London, spoke about how she accommodates her craft around her hand impairments. “I have a nice little cushion I use when in my wheelchair, so any project is raised up on my lap. This allows me to keep my arms on the armrests, otherwise it becomes too painful. I also use a wrist support as I have droopy wrists, and partially paralysed hands. I find it better to hold the yarn and hook on the same
“I would recommend crochet to anyone with a hand issue”
side (right hand), as with knitting, due to my hand issues.”
Anne went on, “Due to my tremors, crochet is the only handcrafting I can do now. I used to do knitting, embroidery, tapestry and papercrafts, but now just enjoy crochet. So it’s important, with determination, to find a way to keep hooking. I found wooden hooks better for my grip than slippery ones, or those that are too bulky.”
Unfortunately, there are many ways one can experience mobility or vision issues, and with this in mind it can be advisable to meet a crochet tutor, who can offer tailored help.
Lindy Zubairy who teaches at Denman College, has a suggestion for those without complete mobility in both arms, based on her own unusual experiences. “Even though I’m left-handed, I crochet the standard way because I taught myself from a book. However, what has emerged is that I do carry out certain manoeuvres favouring my left hand. My right hand clutches the hook and little else. The left hand does almost all the work with my right forefinger sometimes pressing down on loops on the hook when they need ‘staying’. Sitting in an armchair, I can rest my right elbow on the arm of the chair. This method would work for anyone who has a problem with their right arm.”
Crochet educator Pauline Turner, who founded the International Diploma in Crochet, has successfully taught a huge spectrum of physically challenged crafters. She believes that crochet can be adapted to suit most abilities, “I can teach people how to crochet with one hand. In fact it does not need any specialist equipment, even by a disabled person, and just as a blind person can knit they can crochet. The specialist equipment would be the type of wheelchair, neck brace, etc that they may already use.”
And there are other crochet aids that can come to the rescue of the hookster struggling to count their stitches, as Lindy explains: “If being able to see is an issue, an embroidery magnifier with a built-in lamp can help. I’ve seen people using magnifiers like miners’ lamps attached to their heads, or around their necks, angled over the crochet.”
However, there are still problems to be solved before crochet can truly call itself universally inclusive. Thanna Miller is a self-employed partnered creative on Mixer who has been crafting for around 40 years. Now a wheelchair user, she still crochets but finds herself frustrated with the constraints of her wheelchair. “As someone with spondylosis, reaching the floor is just not possible for me. As a result, I can’t use yarn bags from the floor, and ‘wheelchair tables’ are too small to hold everything crafters need. Breaking yarn or getting it covered in oil from my chair ruins so many things, so I’m stuck hooking smaller, one-ball items.”
While such frustrations might fell some crafters, Thanna has been brainstorming schemes to allow her to continue the craft she loves. “What I’d love to see is a way to feed yarn from the arm of my chair, or, if I’m out when I use a backpack, so it feeds from behind me. My chair’s arm bags are not big enough to hold balls of yarn. We need to raise awareness as this would help other crafters too, not just wheelchair users but also the elderly, and people with arthritis who can’t grip as well as they used to.”
It’s fantastic that the value of crochet is being recognised by both charities and medical professionals. However, concurrently it seems there is still scope to broaden assistance for the many hooksters out there, and Thanna’s suggestion of working to raise awareness might have an immeasurably positive impact on generations of future hooksters.
Written by Mark Davidson