Today is International Left Handed Day, which caught me completely by surprise. I didn’t know that we got a special day to celebrate our left-handedness! I’m not sure what we’re supposed to do today to celebrate…<\/p>\n
I am a left handed stitcher. I am also a left handed embroidery teacher, which is reasonably unusual, I think. Whenever I begin an embroidery class, one of the first questions I ask for the day is “Are there any left handed people here?” There are usually one or two, and they are always so pleased to have a like-handed teacher! I encourage the left handers to sit together so that I can teach them both as left handers rather than them having to learn right handed and then flip it.<\/p>\n
When I teach to a general class or in my books, I teach right handed. In a class, that means that I have to visualise doing the stitch the left handed way, and then mentally flip it so that I can teach it the right handed way. I work my way around the room, demonstrating each stitch to groups of two or three people. This means that everyone<\/b> can see close up what is happening, and that everyone gets nearly one-on-one attention. It also means that I can teach the left handed people specifically with left handed instructions. Its wonderful, because I can just show them the same way that I would normally stitch!<\/p>\n
I have wondered whether there is a market for left handed embroidery lessons – lessons for left handed people only. Perhaps there’s not a large enough market? Leftie embroiderers, what do you think?<\/p>\n
Six top tips for left handed stitchers<\/b>
1. Left handed stitchers can stitch as beautifully as right handed stitchers, and sometimes we can do even better!
2. Learn to be adaptable. You probably already are, because left-handed people just have to be!
3. You don’t always have to flip right handed instructions. Sometimes, turning the work 90 degrees is enough. For example, if the right handed stitchers work from right to left, left handers can turn it 90 degrees so that they are instead stitching from bottom to top, or vice versa.
4. If you prefer to flip, and you need a book’s diagrams flipped so that you can follow them, photocopy the diagrams onto photocopy acetate and turn them over to the back. That way, the diagrams will be flipped so that you can use them. Use them in conjunction with the original written instructions, substituting right for left and vice versa.
5. When working with a light, have the light shining over your right shoulder, or from the front at the right. This way, your left hand won’t get in the way of the light as you stitch.
6. If you have to do a lot of cutting with dressmaking scissors, its probably worth investing in some left-handed dressmaking scissors. The finger\/thumb holes in regular dressmaking scissors are angled for right handers, and can cause left handers pain if they use them for too long. Fortunately, embroidery scissors are usually designed so that their holes can be used by left or right handed people.<\/p>\n
If you have other tips for left handers, please share them!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Today is International Left Handed Day, which caught me completely by surprise. I didn’t know that we got a special day to celebrate our left-handedness! I’m not sure what we’re supposed to do today to celebrate…<\/p>\n
I am a left handed stitcher. I am also a left handed embroidery teacher, which is reasonably unusual, I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-57","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-left-handed-embroidery","odd"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/vettycreations.com.au\/white-threads\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/vettycreations.com.au\/white-threads\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/vettycreations.com.au\/white-threads\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/vettycreations.com.au\/white-threads\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/vettycreations.com.au\/white-threads\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=57"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/vettycreations.com.au\/white-threads\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/vettycreations.com.au\/white-threads\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=57"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/vettycreations.com.au\/white-threads\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=57"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/vettycreations.com.au\/white-threads\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=57"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}