Office Yoga: Simple Stretches for Busy People book review

Office Yoga: Simple Stretches for Busy People
by Darrin Zeer

Office Yoga: Simple Stretches for Busy People is a collection of simple yoga stretches designed for those who are desk-bound the majority of the day. The stretches, as asanas as they are known in Sanskrit, will help not only physically, but will also help bring more calmness, ease, and focus into your daily work life.

Office Yoga provides asanas for your morning routine (”Morning Eye Openers”), through your return home (”Evening Balancers”). The section at “At-the-Desk Relaxation” provides helpful tips for keeping your hands and wrists relaxed through Keyboard Calisthenics, as well as self-massage techniques and other relaxation methods. The “Afternoon Invgorations” chapter gives some tips on perking up about the time that you are ready for that 3 p.m. coffee or chocolate!

Scattered throughout the book are helpful tips on diet and other tips on decreasing stress and increasing happiness. Best of all, the contents include a Quick Help Guide for common workplace ailments like stiff neck and shoulders; eye strain; low energy; and sore lower backs so you can quickly find the stretches to help with your pain.

Find Office Yoga on Chronicle Books’ website, or your favorite bookshop.

As a knitter, I love a good sheep motif, so let’s take a look at some cute sheep cross stitch patterns.

If you want to stitch a little sheep, this mini square from Good Dog Needleworks is a nice choice. It uses just three colors and measures 32 by 32 stitches. That’s 2.2 inches or about 5.5 cm square if you stitch it on 14 count fabric.

I also love these two little sheep, which you can stitch together or in individual hoops and shown. The designs are form Threadbound Art and use six colors. They are slightly different in size, with one being 21 by 17 stitches and the other 21 by 20. They fit in four inch frames if you work them on 14 count fabric.

You can stitch a sweet sheep bookmark with this design from Kits by SA Stitch. This is not for the person who doesn’t like back stitch, because there’s a lot of that here, but it is really cute. It measures 30 by 91 stitches and uses 10 colors. That will make your bookmark about 2.4 by 6.5 inches, or 6 by 16.5 cm on 14 count fabric.

Stitch a pretty scene of sheep in a meadow with this design from Motok Nytok. It uses 21 colors and the design is 99 by 73 stitches. On 14 count fabric that makes it about 7.07 by 5.21 inches, or 17.96 by 13.24 cm.

This yarn full of cross stitch sheep has a bit of a knitting twist because the sheep all look like they have sweaters on. The design is from Soda Stitch Design and it measures 179 by 216 stitches. The full design uses 27 colors. On 14 count fabric it will work out to 12.78 by 15.42 inches, or 32.48 by 39.19 cm.

Another great one with a knitting theme is this one where the wool is coming off the sheep and straight onto the needles. This one is from Happy Cross Stitchers and uses 12 colors. The pattern is 137 by 137 stitches, which comes out to 9.7 inches or 24.86 cm square on 14 count fabric. This would be a fun one to stitch for the knitter in your life (even if that is you).

Or you can stitch the field of sheep of a knitter’s dreams with the Happy Sheep chart from Charts and Stuff. These per-colored sheep can be stitched as shown or worked in any colors you like. The eyes are French knots but you can just stitch them in white if you’d rather.

Have you read?