Updated June 4, 2023.
OK, you are probably thinking I’ve lost my mind, but often we need therapy to strengthen our wrists and hands. We might also need therapy to improve our fine motor control or our hand-eye coordination.
While it isn’t touted as the best thing since hydrotherapy for recovering from injuries, needlepoint does improve many of these aspects of your well-being.
The tiny, unconscious adjustments you make as you stitch to keep the tension even — that’s fine motor movement. Finding the right hole for the needle? Hand-eye coordination. Need to improve strength? Hold your stitching in the weak fingers.
Recently Janet Haigh (one of Ehrman’s designers) broke her wrist. Her experience is common: the cast came off and the doctor said she could resume ‘normal activity.’ But the weeks of enforced stillness have left the wrist weak. To recover, Janet went back to doing needlepoint. It helped.
She shares her experience, with lots of lovely pieces, in her blog post.
About Janet M Perry
Janet Perry is the Internet's leading authority on needlepoint. She designs, teaches and writes, getting raves from her fans for her innovative techniques, extensive knowledge and generous teaching style. A leading writer of stitch guides, she blogs here and lives on an island in the northeast corner of the SF Bay with her family
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