You are right, Jaye, both knitting and crocheting keep hands and fingers nimble. I knit sweaters for the grand babies. By now we have almost six. The almost is a little sister from China for little Ping from China. They hope to pick her up in November. So I am getting the needles out and looking at yarns. I make my own patterns so I have double fun thinking up the shape as well as choosing colors, and I exercise my brain with all the basic math of measuring and counting stitches.
Cotton yarn is the thing now - not one of the grandchildren is willing to wear wool. I have vivid memories of my Mormor (mother's mother) knitting at top speed, with needles clacking, the itchy, scratchy woolen underwear I had to wear in winter when I was very young. I could almost say that I've worn a hair shirt.... In the 40's in Denmark new yarn was hard to come by, and all of it was hard and scratchy. But it did keep me very warm in the war winters when fuel was scarse.
Sorry, I digress. I guess I've hit memory age.

birte