My Left to Right Hand Creativeness

6/10/12

My Left to Right Hand Creativeness

 

I was born left-handed to a woman who was creative with all things that included a needle.  So my being left-handed was not something my mother was going to allow. This was probably in the era when it was considered appropriate to "teach" your child to use the hand of choice (in this case the right).   I don’t remember what "technique" she used to “discourage” my use of the left hand; but, whatever it was it eventually worked.  I became right handed and mother was elated.  Oh the things she was going to teach me how to do: knitting, crocheting, sewing, needlepoint, cross stitch and on and on.  What did I actually end up learning - nada.   I had years of instruction and I was not only a reluctant student; but, stitching of any kind was just not my thing.  Looking back  I’ve always thought that perhaps I just refused to learn sort of a passive payback.  Remember Home Economics classes - for girls?  My sewing projects were terrible and I struggled putting in zippers, button holes - oh heck I struggled with everything I was forced to make.  One project was to make a dress for yourself and a younger child (in my case my sister), I made the dresses and I'm pretty sure I remember them coming completely apart after one washing.  

As a young wife with little money I took it upon myself to make pajamas for one of my sons - big mistake.  I made the only pair of three legged pajamas ever!  I was undaunted.  I took the extra leg and cut it close to the crotch seam and then sewed the seam into place more or less.  It was one bulky pair of pajamas I can tell you. They ended up in the trash can and discount stores became my new best friend for clothes of any kind.

When one of my sons needed to bring a teddy bear to school dressed in clothes I went out and bought felt and cut out two sleeves and a front and back and literally stitched them onto the bear.  It's not surprising that the bear didn't win a prize, but is unfortunate that the bear was "forced" to wear his new little jacket for the remainder of his days.

The joke among Jeff’s coworkers and our friends when we were first married is that Jeff could never stand with his legs together because invariably one of the legs of his pants was shorter than the other!  That situation never improved until I found a tailor that could take care of these life essentials for me.  Jeff took the uneven pants in stride – I couldn’t sew – but I could cook!

Fast forward 60 years or so and I decided to learn to knit to help keep both my hands and head busy.  I went to the store and bought yarn (so many choices), two needles (again more choices) and bought a book titled “Even Morons Can Learn to Knit”  (actually it was probably something more like Anyone Can Learn to Knit)!  I went home and turned to page one and the instructions might as well have been in Greek!  I went out and bought more books, books written for children surely that would help me get started, and they did somewhat.

So I learned to make a slip knot, caste on 20 or so stitches and eventually had knitted my first row.   Cool.  This was going to be so easy, I don’t know why I didn’t start this earlier.  Somewhere in the fine print that I didn't read there was some mention of counting your stitches so that your rows would all be the same length.  Oh hooey who has time to count, I'm trying to watch reality shows on tv.  Several rows later my project (large strip of yarn), seemed to be getting bigger.  So while I started out with 20 stitches, by the time I became too frustrated to continue, my stitches were up to something like 35.  This makes for an ugly strip of yarn.

Then there was the holes.  How the heck did they get in there?  Apparently, we beginners drop stitches which creates a hole and you are supposed to go back and “pick” up that stitch, according to some procedure that I can't grasp and all will be good.  I generally didn’t notice the hole for several rows and then I would just grab the end of the hole and stick it back onto my needle as best as I could.  This little maneuver, highly illegal, also produced a rather unique and not very attractive look - but people the hole was gone, so I deemed it a success.  Besides you can't trust everything you read, we all know that.

I told Jeff that my strip would be finished when I ran out of yarn, which I eventually did.  My “strip” (shaped like a scarf, more or less) resembled an hourglass as my stitches increased and then decreased and so on.  There were so many holes in the scarf that they almost looked intentional!

I didn’t give up – I bought thicker yarn and bigger needles.  Oh that made a difference.  I still had the odd long and short rows and a few incidental holes but when my strip was finished, I even figured out how to add fringe to both ends. I was pretty impressed with myself.  I began knitting strips at a furious pace and have yet to create one with even-sized rows but the holes are becoming smaller and fewer.  I think it will be a while before I can accept orders for one of my very unique scarves.  But, if you ever get one there will never one like it  – I promise.