A Back-Handed Explanation

In considering what to include in this journal, I've been thinking back to the times when I learned new needlecraft skills. If you do an internet search, you can find a lot of material out there on learning left-handed. However, while the basics are there for us lefties, there's no information on what to actually do when we progress past our first potholder or scarf. You could take a class, but, unless you luck out, you're going to have a right-handed instructor. I remember trying to learn to crochet from my right-handed grandmother--an experience even more exasperating than teaching my right-handed son how to tie his shoes. In the end, many "How To" books and websites advise you to "simply learn right-handed" if you can't figure out how to do it left-handed. Hmmm...I wonder how those right-handed people would like it if their left-handed instructor told them, "Oh, just learn left-handed. It doesn't really matter anyway"?

So, now that my children are old enough to leave me in peace, and the kitten has learned that messing with yarn in motion is not the way to win my heart, I'm going to start reexploring the art of knitting; venture into some more difficult crochet projects (asymetry, here I come!!); and may even get out those tatting supplies that I just had to have NOW NOT LATER--three years ago. As I do, I'll revisit my own learning process, and discuss problems I run up against.

Starting Somewhere

Well, you have to, don't you? I've been wondering about the craze of journaling, so I decided that I'd give it a try. I recently started knitting again, and, as a left-handed person, I thought that a journal of my left-handed attempts at various needlecrafts might be an interesting foray. I know that, in the past, it's been an adventure of sorts. Well, at least keeping the yarn away from the cats has been a challenge.

I've been crocheting since 1996 or so. I crochet left-handed. Since my main products tend to be blankets and potholders, this has only ever one caused a problem (a pair of slippers for my son, where I had to reverse the instructions, after swearing like a Sailor didn't fix the mess that had formed). That said, when I taught myself how to knit many moons ago, I learned right-handed. It works for me, and it's a little less confusing. I recently got back into knitting (after a 16-year hiatus), and picked up Sally Melville's The Knit Stitch. So, while I'm still knitting right-handed, I'm exploring various ways of carrying the yarn.
And, for the rest of the run-down:

Cross-stitch/Crewel: Left-handed
Tatting: Left-handed
Let the games begin. :)