The correct use of knitting needles

Readers will, I'm sure, be pleased to know that The Moons of Destiny passed all tests while I was away on my recent nine-night caravan holiday in Suffolk. In fact such was their influence, I had a wonderful time. There were no issues whatever until I got home. Then, when wielding a hammer to tap something into place - why? Well, the reason may be explained in a post to come - I discovered that the Moons, now looser than they were on my wrist, had marked the skin. Actually, it wasn't the silver nuggets that had done the damage. It was the S-shaped clasp. Here it is, in one of my first shots of the bracelet:

But now it had done this to my skin. (Remember that when you get older, your skin gets more fragile!)

That S-shaped clasp was a handsome thing, a very nice feature of the bracelet, and I quite liked the little curly-wurly bits (finials?) on either side, which seemed to enhance the general elegance of the clasp. And yet they could dig into the skin and mark it, if I were engaged in something that would cause the bracelet to vigorously flop backwards and forwards. Such as hammering. I wouldn't be doing such a thing very often, but that wasn't the point. I wanted to wear The Moons all the time, and not take them off whenever I intended moving my right arm rapidly to and fro. There must be no likelihood of injury in any ordinary circumstances.

I'd grown very fond of my new 71st birthday bracelet while on holiday, and badly wanted to find a solution to this issue. So I went back to Pruden & Smith. Yes, I could easily have a different clasp. It would cost me nothing. What sort? The clear alternative was to fit a lobster clasp. I'd lose the full hallmark on the S-shaped clasp, but the new clasp would still bear a '925' to denote sterling silver. OK then!

I picked my bracelet up yesterday morning. It looked very good with the lobster clasp, which lay smooth and flat, with nothing sticking out that might gouge into my skin. Its shape and flatness would spread the load better, on the same principle as snowshoes. The S-shaped clasp was skeletal by comparison, with much more potential to press into the skin. The new clasp was decidedly dermo-friendly, and promised to be much kinder to my wrist. 

That said, it wasn't quite as elegant as the S-shaped clasp had been. But it was still sterling silver, and it went well with those chunky silver nuggets. I was amply satisfied.

Emily at Prudent & Smith had put The Moons back on for me. I now needed to work out a good way of putting them on by myself, in case I ever had to take them off again, and nobody was around to assist. 

I'd already given this some thought. There were for instance special gadgets you could buy on the Internet. These were like a small rod with a spring-loaded jaw. The jaw held one side of the clasp steady on the wrist while the other side of the clasp was attached with the other hand. As in this very cheap Chinese example on Amazon:

Or this more elaborate but still inexpensive version, also on Amazon: 

You can see how they work. It looks simple and quick. Actually, it's still rather a fiddle (I studied a couple of YouTube videos, to see what was involved), but if you were using one of these things often then practice would make perfect. All for less than a tenner, although postage might bump that up somewhat, and quite possibly one would have to wait for the next batch of 20,000-odd to be sent over from deepest China, where they all appear to be made. Still, an obvious source for something that would do the trick.

But I wondered whether I already had the answer at home. 

I'd taken The Moons off to weigh them. The different clasp had not altered the weight one bit: still 50g. Now to put my bracelet back on! Two weeks earlier, I'd thought of a way that involved looping a string through the rings on either side of the clasp, tying it into a slip knot, drawing it together, and then connecting the clasp. Time to try it out.

Well, it worked. But it was rather a struggle, because the string got in the way. (Incidentally, you can see why this kind of clasp is called a 'lobster'! It's so like a lobster's claw)

There must be a better method. Some of the bracelet-fasteners I'd seen on Amazon had simple hooks rather than spring-loaded jaws. What was the household equivalent? Crochet hooks?

Maybe...but it didn't work. There wasn't enough curl to the crochet hook, and it wouldn't lock onto the ring that I wanted to attach the lobster to. 

Then I thought of ordinary knitting needles. If I could poke a thin knitting needle through the ring, and press it onto my wrist to hold it steady, and then attach the lobster...? Aha...success!

Zooming out...

Now this did work, rather well. I used a short knitting needle - my Mum had a whole lot of knitting equipment, which I had inherited lock, stock and barrel - but really any knitting needle that could be held like that in the 'bracelet' hand, and could be pushed through that ring, would have done.

I don't know when I'll next need to remove The Moons of Destiny and put them on again, but at least I now have a sure-fire way of doing it! (Assuming I have a short knitting needle handy, naturally) 

Perceptive readers will have noticed that in one of the shots just above I show both hands in use. How then did I take the photo with my phone, without resorting to a tripod and a special phone clamp? 'Twas easy, me hearties. I just manoeuvred the phone - screen up and camera lens down - so that half was on the edge of a chest of drawers (it could just as well have been a table edge) and half overhanging. I then weighed down the half on the chest with a heavy slate coaster, then got my wrist and fingers into position with the needle through the ring, and with the lobster ready to connect to it, then gave a voice command to my phone to take the picture. Bob was my uncle, and Fanny was my aunt!

I have to admit, phones can be pretty good at hard-to-take closeups! It would have been harder to take that shot with my 'proper' camera, LXV, even if set up on a tripod.