Hand Pain From Crocheting? Make a Cheap Hook Grip

Someone in r/crochet saw a video about buying a pack of beauty blenders at the dollar store, poking a hole in each one and pushing a hook through. They tried it, and their post is a thank-you to whoever made the video. The hook is much more comfortable to hold, and their wrist cramps far less than it did.

In the threads that followed, a dozen or more crocheters say they do the same. If your hand hurts after an hour of crochet, this is the fix they pass around, and a bag of teardrop makeup sponges is a few dollars.

How to make a crochet hook grip

Poke a hole through the sponge and push the hook in. That's all of it, and the one thing to get right is the size of the hole.

The thread starter's husband pierced the sponge with a needle, opened the hole a little with scissors, and shoved the hook in. It came out snug, so getting the sponge down the hook takes some effort, which is what keeps it on while you work. When somebody else asked, the answer was shorter: a needle and scissors, and it was easy.

In a later thread, somebody asked how you keep the hook from slipping out. Make a really small hole, said one reply, because the foam expands in all directions and closes round the hook. The person who'd started that thread says theirs mostly stays in place and gets the odd readjustment.

One sponge may not cover enough hook. A crocheter using the standard teardrop shape needed a second one to cover the whole handle, and another likes two on a plain metal hook.

Which sponge?

The plain teardrop is what most of these threads mean by a beauty blender. One crocheter buys bags of cheap ones at the dollar store and shoves their hooks through. Another gets the bulk multicolour pack from Walmart when it's on sale.

Shape is down to your hand. One crocheter pushed a mushroom-shaped sponge on and says it works amazingly, because it fits their hand better than a regular egg. The crocheter with psoriatic arthritis who started that later thread went the other way, to a giant one.

I tried the tennis ball hack but hated it, so I tried a bigass beauty blender instead. It's greatly reduced the fatigue in my hands, and feels much more ergonomic to me than the other hook hacks.

u/cheeznapplez, in r/crochet

If you hold the hook like a pencil, the full-size sponge might be too much. One crocheter with small hands found it didn't work that well for their pencil grip, and a pack of mini sponges did. The first thread's starter took up a pencil grip after adding the sponges and finds them comfortable, so try the big one first and go small if it's in the way.

The thin steel hooks are where two crocheters say it earns its keep. One did it for every hook too small to have a letter. Another couldn't find their favourite steel doily hook in an ergonomic version, so a sponge is what they ended up doing. They were surprised how comfortable it is.

What goes wrong

Your fingernails, mostly. The Walmart crocheter has changed their sponges once in two years of crochet, and that was because an unclipped thumbnail shredded the foam. The same comment says they pick up yarn dye and look grubby after a while, with a guess that grey ones would hide it longer.

Check the pack for oils. The shop in their town switched to sponges infused with tea tree and mint oil, which smelled and didn't wash off their hands. That's when they moved to the bulk pack. The packaging did say so. They just hadn't noticed.

A foam pencil-style grip from the dollar store is a different thing, and that one does tear. Someone who loved how soft and squishy theirs felt came to ask for a sturdier one because the foam was already falling apart. The replies sent them to makeup sponges.

One owner crocheted a cotton cover for theirs to make it feel nicer. Not required, but it does solve the grubby look.

What else crocheters push onto a hook

These aren't ranked.

• Foam egg pencil grips. The top answer in a 2023 thread about the same hack is a pack of egg pencil grips. For a thin hook, that crocheter winds a few layers of electrical tape round it first so the grip stays put. Somebody in r/Thritis has them on crochet hooks and cat wand toys. A reply in the first thread uses them too but still takes plenty of breaks and stretches.
• Medical tape. One crocheter wraps their hooks in it and says everyone tells them it looks ridiculous. It's super cheap and gives a lot of structure while staying a little squishy. Painters wrap brush handles the same way, with a first-aid roll. A reply elsewhere names self-adhesive wrap for the same job.
• A tennis ball. Two people tried it. It was too big for one, and the crocheter quoted above hated it.
• Polymer clay. The same person who tried the tennis ball formed a clay handle to the comfiest position for their hand and baked it. Their warning is that the clay gets expensive across a set of hooks.
• Grips made for the job. One crocheter with years of arthritis had bought occupational therapy grips before, and found them more money and harder to wrap onto the hooks. Another tried a chunky silicone handle and found the added weight tired their hands faster.

Nothing here is new, either. One commenter's grandmother jabbed her hooks through a foam hair roller.

What a grip doesn't fix

The person who went looking for a sturdier grip said their fingers hurt even on ergonomic hooks. One reply wondered whether it was a tension problem rather than a hook problem. Very small stitches mean forcing the hook in, and that commenter can't work on amigurumi for nearly as long as on a blanket.

Ergonomic hooks cut both ways in these threads. The mini-sponge crocheter went looking for a DIY grip because their Boye ergonomic hooks had started to hurt. Someone in that 2023 thread found the white plastic Dritz ones made a noticeable improvement on tension-heavy work.

One commenter did this on the suggestion of a physio they'd seen about hand pain.

If it's your shoulders or elbows rather than your hand, a fatter hook won't reach them. Knitters and crocheters rest their arms on a nursing pillow for that.

The forum's own rule for pain that persists is to see a doctor. Its moderators pin a note to every pain thread: seek expert medical advice, because internet advice isn't. One crocheter who did it on a larger hook says it saved their hand, and recommends compression gloves alongside.

Order the twenty-pack, poke the smallest hole you can with a needle, and push one onto whichever hook you're using tonight. A hook that twists in the sponge means the hole was too big, and there are nineteen more in the bag. Pencil-grip crocheters with small hands, start with the minis.