I have to admit that I live a little bit in fear of a debilitating injury that would make it impossible for me to knit. My RSI is bad enough, occasionally keeping me away from the needles for a day or two at a stretch, but I just can't imagine what I'd do with myself if, say, I broke one of my hands.

Catherine Hollingsworth, a knitter and writer in Alaska, knows this fear firsthand. She fell on the ice in March and badly injured her right hand, sidelining her not only from knitting but from her many other creative pursuits. I understand what she's saying when she talks about coordinating knitting time and television time and how strange it feels to just sit and not knit.

She also talks about being diagnosed with arthritis and how aging takes its toll, but says that she hopes to keep knitting through it all. It turns out knitting may in fact keep our brains sharper than folks who don't do something to engage their minds as they age. A study of long-lived nuns found that precise activities like knitting and writing helped the women stay sharp in their old age, and that one nun was still knitting and having involved conversations at age 104. Sounds pretty good to me. Maybe I'll actually use up my stash if I live that long.

Finally, one more story about knitting and health. Nancy Seven VanDerPuy found herself enchanted by beaded and knit purses but she stopped learning how to make them after she was diagnosed with breast cancer. She finally decided that she couldn't wait around to see if she was going to live, and she got so good at making the tiny bags (on size 0000 needles!) that she's now written a book and is teaching others about her passion.