Blood In The Water; Helpful Hints

(You might find this moderately gruesome, if you're prone to getting squicked out over blood.)

.

I cut my finger the other night doing dishes. I feel quite stupid over it, as a) I cut it on the Slap-Chop b) I just barely cut it - if I'd been wearing gloves like I usually do, I bet I wouldn't have & c) my first thought was "Oh noes! My knitting finger!"

.

Like most people, I actually use my hands (not just my finger) to knit. Any kind of injury on my hands is going to impact my knitting; but especially so on my left or right pointer fingers. I knit with the yarn in my left hand, so my left pointer is in charge of tensioning the yarn, sort of, and my right pointer scootches stitches. Still. When my first thought at being hurt is "Oh no, my knitting!", it seems a little ridiculous. (Incidentally, my knitting finger is my left pointer.)

.

Being wounded in the name of craft isn't new territory, oh no. I was once sewing a white top for display (back when I was an assistant manager at a fabric store in MJ), and it was so darn slippery. I ended up sewing through part of my left pointer, and my first reaction was to lift the presser foot, whip the white material out of the way, and inspect it for blood stains. Once I established that we were clear of blood on the sewing project, I then turned to my finger... which was still attached to the sewing machine. No stitches or hospital trip needed; but hand wounds seem to bleed almost as much as head wounds.*

.

Which brings me to my helpful hint: if you get blood on something, spit on it. Right away. But the spit has to belong to the person the blood belongs to. So, if you slice your finger & get blood on whatever, spit/suck on the bloodspot right away. There's some kind of enzyme in your saliva that will work to essentially dissolve your blood.

.

I haven't done exhaustive road testing on this; my experience is limited to establishing that MY spit will work on MY blood. I'm not likely to do a proper experiment, with multiple spit/blood donors, and some pseudo spit/blood controls. Let me know if you do, though.

.

And really, honestly, knitting just doesn't seem to cause as many flesh wounds as sewing, so this may never be useful information for you. But. Maybe it will be.

.

Good luck, & happy spitting. I'm off to the garden, to get rained on**.

.

(PS: This is the yard today - note the tulips blooming, trees budding out, and general growth of plants. Yay!)

.
.
.
*Why do I know these things? I grew up on a farm with two hammerhead brothers.
**I'm so much happier gardening when it's not windy & rainy.