Swap Hooking

I hooked on my swap trivet until late last night. I had to quit when my wrists wouldn't stop hurting, even when I soaked them in hot water. I'm working on finding the kind of movements that will let me hook for long spells of time without using my wrists - so far, no luck. I have learned that using a longer strip on the bottom helps, that is, my fingers work further away from the backing so I don't have to bend my wrist when I pinch the loop onto the hook. I've never heard any other hookers complain about their lower hand or wrist hurting, but I bet I'm not the only one. Although, I suppose there aren't too many hookers who've had their wrists smashed by horses. I guess there are consequences for all the foolish things done when we were young and foolish.

Anyway, I was working on my trivet for the Yahookers swap. I had to work in almost darkness because my mother went to bed and I hook in the room next door. No matter which lights I turn off, she complains about the lights. I even tried hooking with my headlamp on, but it scared my mother because there was light moving around - so, anyway, I hook with one little light on, and I hook as close to it as I can get - and that proved to be a big mistake with this trivet. I'm hooking with some wool that I dyed with some bled color - I thought the original wool was not the right color, so I bled some of the color out - then I put some off-white wool into the dyepot and got a nice mottled piece of the color. It was a little brighter than I had planned, but I expected my dull background color would absorb some of the brightness. I used that mottled piece for my main motif, liked it in the dark, and I was really surprised how much I didn't like it the next morning in the sunlight. Yuk. The dull background didn't absorb the brightness, it caused a color shift - the color moved over a notch on the color wheel and stayed just as bright, or actually a little brighter. I'm thinking about pulling it all out and rehooking the main motif with a different color, but, while I'm thinking about it, I'm working on designing another pattern. I think now I'm not as fond of the first pattern as I was.