Yarn crafts heal us in so many different ways.
I love finding different articles that explore this topic. Sometimes they are academic or research-based. More often, though, they are anecdotal.
The stories people share about their own experience of the benefits of yarn crafts always teach me something.
For example, my thoughts perked up when I saw this article by Stephanie Kuehnert of the Forest Park Review that touches on this topic. Kuehnert wrote about a yarn store that celebrates the contemplative benefits of the craft.
Kuehnert’s Benefits of Yarn Crafts
Kuehnert’s article is about her experience knitting in a particular yarn store. She identified five unique benefits of yarn crafts from her own experience.
1. Yarn crafts help you pace your drinking.
This is great if you get together for crafts and cocktails with your friends. With busy hands you imbibe less, taking in fewer calories and reducing the likelihood of drunkenness while still enjoying your girls’ night.
Although she doesn’t mention it, one of the benefits of yarn crafts is that crafting can be a replacement for drinking altogether. People with social anxiety, or those who simply get stressed meeting new people, benefit from having a focused activity when they’re in a group. Crafting together is a great activity.
2. Crafting gives you something to do while watching TV.
This one isn’t a new idea to me. In fact, when I was dealing with my own depression I used to just sit there and watch hours upon hours of crime drama TV shows. This increased my anxiety and made me feel like the laziest, least productive person in the world. At least if I was crocheting while I watched TV then I felt productive despite the long hours in front of the screen.
3. The ability to “relax while feeling creative and productive at the same time”.
Relaxation is a really important part of our every day lives. It is healthy to take time to be still and quiet, to give both mind and body some time to rest in our waking lives. So often we want to stay busy and be creative and productive; crochet lets us achieve that while simultaneously resting, which is an amazing paradox.
4. Yarn crafts offer a break from workaholism.
Kuehnert mentions that she’s prone to working too much. Crafting is something she can do to actively get away from constant work. I understand this one because as a self-employed individual I’m prone to overworking as well. Often I will turn to crochet as something that isn’t work but fuels my work in a way.
5. It is a zen solution to almost all of life’s problems.
There are many things in this lifetime that you have no control over. You have control over your hook and yarn. Sometimes immersing yourself into creating with yarn is all that you can do – and surprisingly, it is often enough! Of all of the points that the author made in her article, this is the one that she was really trying to drive home.
The Knit Nirvana Store
Kuehnert was inspired to write about her experience with yarn crafting in an article about a specific yarn store called Knit Nirvana. This Illinois-based yarn store is co-operated by two women who bring decades of knitting and crochet experience to the table. The store sounds lovely with its promise of:
“We strive to inspire and teach you to enjoy both your finished handmade object and the entire crafting experience.
We hope to impart the bliss of knitting and crocheting within a relaxed, friendly and fun environment; to enable you to create artistic, singular garments and objects.”
I love the idea of crafting being a path to bliss!
