ok gals, so its late at night and im finishing making a necklace for a freind of mine and i just f***ing pinched myself SO hard with the needlenose pliers....i HATE that!!!!! so, whats YOUR worst crafty injury?

once i was tryin to get a needle through some REALLY tough denim and i jammed myself behind my thumbnail. ow. and then another time i was cuttin some fabric with these huge shears and imy figer was bent really closetto the fabric and since the shears were so long they chopped of a chunk of skin right where u bend u finger. it was nasty. i also cut my thumb with a paper cutter.....

i've jabbed needles wayyy too far into my fingers. i'm not very coordinated at all. yesterday i ended up cutting myself with my exacto-knife.
the worst, though, is burning myself with the hot glue gun. sometimes it hurts sooooo much, and the hot glue sticks to your fingers, so you can't get it off to alleviate the pain. ouch.
-erin.

multitudes of scars from hot glue guns. I try to avoid that thing as much as possible. I just can't seem to use it without considerable burnage. I once dropped an exact-o knife into my foot BEFORE the first cut after changing the blade. It was so sharp and clean that it went right it -- didn't feel a thing, just *knew* where it was. When I pulled it out, then it started to hurt. Everytime I cook, I find little cuts in my fingertips. I can't imagine the central nervous damage from all the different paints, glues, solvents etc that I use without adequate ventilation.

i am the queen of crafting injuries. i worked at a showroom doing displays for a while and i cut or burned myself (hot glue) so often that people used to talk to my boyfriend and ask him if i was self-mutilating.
i also staple gunned my hand once.
my mother sewed through her hand with a sewing machine, so apparently it runs in the family.

I ALWAYS injure myself somehow, so I hold to the saying that:
"No project is complete until blood has been drawn"

Makes me feel like I'm not clumsy, it's just the way of the universe ;)

*Beth*

-punctured my fingers through with more needles than I care to count... and with a couple of them, it was the EYE end, not the pointed end, that went into my finger! OW!

-stepped on an X-acto knife

-stapled my thumb

-glued all my fingers together with both hot glue and super glue (separate occasions)

-while not injurious, I did accidentally quilt half of a pillow to my pants leg. that was pretty silly.

i'm so stupid about glue guns. i love them so, and i like to play with the glue while it's liquid, but sometimes i get burned. and i also have had horrible incidents with exacto knives, and lots of needle stabbings. and linolium block, the kind you cut with those gougers to make prints have gotten me a few times. crafting is a danerous profession

hahah, first of all, kickarse, that you quilted the pillow to your pants leg is so funny - and can we count burns? hot melted beeswax, BOILING soap(AAAHH!), and my personal fave, peeling 2 layers of skin off whilst trying to remove marble magnet cementy stuff:)

One Time I was using vise-grips to clamp on a project. I was holding the clamps very close to my body because it was really hard to do. The handle end of the tool squished my nipple. Ouch

My mom also sewed her hand to her sewing machine years ago and, yes, apparently this gracefulness runs in the family. when I wasin junior high art class we were learning how to carve lino-blocks to make prints and eventually the teacher just took the carving tool away from me - I think she had run out of bandages. To echo previous posts, I've stuck myself with sewing needles and pins who knows how many times including getting jabbed up under a fingernail with the eye end of a needle. I am notorious for getting little cuts but the worst part of that is I am a fainter when I see blood (I'm cool under pressure when it's somebody else's blood but freak when it's mine). And how many times have I burned myself on the hot glue gun, the hot glue, the embosser hot air thingie... I like the notion that my art isn't truly done or "me" until I've bled a bit for it! I liked that post - works for me! Hey - I guess we'll know each other if we ever meet by all the crafty scars, bandages, memory deficit from poor ventilation, etc..... hmm?

--Libby

edit: Oh, yeah - I also glued my fingers to a tube of crazy glue and managed to attach myself right where the directions are that included what to do if you accidentally glue your skin (FYI - nail polish remover will usually unglue you in the event of a crazy glue accident - the nice guys at the fire department told me that over the phone - as they laughed hysterically in the background!)

Back when I used to work with a hot glue gun a lot, I used to joke with my friends that I ought to start each crafting session by putting hot glue on my hand, and just get it over with! Because they weren't crafty types, they didn't know what I was talking about.

Once, in college, I was working--barefoot--on a project with a glue gun that ended up under some papers. The phone rang and as I was stepping to get it, I stepped square on the hottest glue gun (it had been on for hours) and since I was already mid-step I had to finish my step before I could get off it.

Damn that hurt.

two recent ones (i hurt myself ALL the time):

-i was using my sharp little ginger thread snips while sewing, and they fell through the sewing table (there's a crack where things sometimes slip and fall through), and it landed on my foot, points down, right on a vein. it didn't hurt much, so i ignored it, until i felt wetness, and looked down to see blood dripping off my bare foot and onto the pedal of the sewing machine. yummy.

-during the semester, i was working on this stupid popsicle stick sculpture thing for 3-d, and was hot gluing it together. i was trying to pry off some of the hot glue with an x-acto. dumb me had the knife facing the pad of my thumb, and it slipped, jamming the sharp long edge into my thumb, making a huge long cut.

both were school related. should i sue? :) j/k

-tricia>http://www.dollieclothing.com

I also have sewn my hand through a sewing machine, an industrial one. The needle went through my finngernail and out my finger. I was sewing white satin and managed not to get any blood on the fabric though. My boss had to pull the needle out with tweezers. Yea me!

Also, have had a glue glun explode on my hand. Nice

My sewing machine needle fbroke and cut me veyr deeply under my eye :(
You guys have had some awful injuries!

i once set my xacto knife down next to me and started to do something else. after a while i noticed the side of my hand was hurting and realized that i had set the knife down with the blade facing me and had managed to drag the side of my hand against the blade. i had a cut running from the middle of my pinkie to midway down my palm.
i have a friend who managed to cut herself with a hole punch...that takes talent i think.
edited to say that although not crafty, i once decided to clean up a broken bottle with my bare hands...clever, no? i realized a bit later that my hand was covered in tiny cuts.
-meg

I'm famous for slipping with scissors. I have a few scars on my fingers from deep cuts that probably needed a stitch or two. :(

Poke holes with proper tools, kids!

Kerri

*Ouch* to the sewing through the thumb!!!

-I have a problem of dropping pins and needles on the floor near my sewing machine and also walking around barefoot. I'm so bright. :)

-Also been cut by many xacto knives.

-Once got a paper cut in my eye (don't ask)

-Glue guns attack me, I gave up on them

-For some reason I also tend to leave my black scissors on my black bedspread. I also tend to run and jump on my bed! One deep cut and many close calls!

lissa

I burned myself badly with a soldering iron, and didn't really realise until I looked down and saw that my finger was sort of ash coloured. Ick. I'm still not sure if having a high heat-pain tolerance is a good thing or not.

I try not to be competitive, but I think my tale of woe can kick your tales' asses.

While filing a pair of earrings, I managed to give myself tendonitis (an RSI, kinda like carpal tunnel,) in BOTH wrists so bad that I could barely dress myself for THREE MONTHS. Several years later, I still have to be careful with them or it comes back.

Top that!

wow i didnt realize this topic would get so many responses! im so glad im not the only retard out there! haha...also, i work at a gift wrap store in the mall over xmas time...the other day i was snipping strands of ribbon and wasnt looking and snipped the piece of skin between my thumb and forefinger, that hurt SOOOOOO bad, damn....

i have this image of all the glitterati in a class pic...we all have at least one crutch and three bandaged fingers, plus a headwrap.

I am a serious clutz (just the other day, I adjusted my desk chair, came back up and clocked my head on the desk), so I'm usually extra careful when crafting.

But I did do some repetitive motion thing while carving my pumpkin. I got really involved with an elaborate carving, and at the end of it, I realized my right hand was numb and tingling. Bad, bad, bad.

For a few days, I could not do -anything- that involved making a pinching motion with my thumb and first finger. (It is amazing how many common activities require this motion.) It interfered with driving, getting dressed, eating, writing with a pen, using a mouse, etc.

After that, I could use that hand, but only if I didn't put any weight on it. No lifting boxes, tugging (for example, to pull up a pair of pants), or pulling on the steering wheel to make a sharp turn.

wow, in retrospect i feel rather lucky. i have had many glue gun burns, have stabbed myself with more needls than i can remember and what can only be the inability to perceve depth has caused many cutting accidents. most recently, i have had major hand issues from spending too much time beading elaborate ornaments, bending wire and cutting out detailed images (3 sperate projects that were done for christmas) and have punctured both my finger and hand with wire (once it was memory wire - wow that hurt!!) while trying to make beads with poorly drilled holes fit onto the wire. not fun, but what was worse was that i was stupid enough to do it two times in one week!!