Left Handed Needlepoint

Practical tips on how to adapt easily to right-handed diagrams; tools and instructional materials; and how to hand sew, hand stitch, and deal with hooks and eyes, snaps, and hand-rolled hems; darn; and sew on feathers, sequins, and beads. The final section introduces basic tailoring hand stitches such as the buttonhole, chainstitch, and French tack. Nearly 100 illustrations.

Now in paperback, The Needlepoint Book is the only needlework guide you’ll ever need—now including 436 stitches and 1,680 illustrations. Since its original publication in 1976, The Needlepoint Book has become known as the bible for all stitching enthusiasts—the one resource for every needlepoint aficionado. Whether you’re new to the craft or have been practicing for years, this guide covers your sewing journey from inspiration to achievement with specific guidelines on how to make the painted canvas yours. Featuring all-new projects and stitch patterns for every level of expertise, you will learn practical skills, such as how to: -Choose your project with purpose -Tell its story with stitches and fibers -Create mood with color and texture -Fill that blank background -Select and use embellishments such as beads and sequins Included in this revised and expanded edition is a crash course on how to use new fibers; updated information on materials, as well as how to work with and care for them; dozens of new stitches; and diagrams and stitch guides for select projects included in the book. Also featured are thirty-two pages of color photographs with all-new projects; dozens of new stitches explained with photos and drawings; and a new ribbon stitch chapter. The Needlepoint Book is the one book to own on the topic. In one comprehensive volume, it has everything you'll need to create your own artistic, high-quality heirloom.

A compendium of history, folklore, science, and speculation about the advantages and disadvantages of being left-handed in a right-handed world.

Nine out of every ten human beings are naturally right-handed. Those who were not right-handed were feared, shunned, or forcibly retrained in many periods and cultures. Indeed, some members of fundamentalist sects still regard left-handers as in league with the devil, and prejudices against left-handers are reflected in the multiple associations of right with good and left with bad that have become enshrined in everyday language and folklore. A “left-handed compliment” is actually an insult, and the dictionary definition of left-handed includes the terms “awkward,” “clumsy,” “ill-omened,” and “Illegitimate.” In his summary of scientific research into sidedness, Stanley Coren rapidly dismisses the notion of the southpaw as somehow tainted. Increasingly we are coming to understand, however, that left-handedness does have social, educational, medical, and psychological implications. Coren uses entertaining examples to illuminate the paths of research he has followed, and answers vitally important questions such as: What are the neuropsychological and behavioral implications of differences for left-handers themselves, as well as for their parents, teachers, spouses, children, counselors, and physicians? How can we determine our own patterns of sidedness? Are they encoded in our genes? And, very importantly, how can we make the world more comfortable and safer for left-handers? Coren persuasively argues that left-handers are an invisible minority who must define themselves and organize for self-protections in the same way that more visible minorities have done. Much (though not all) of the risk to which left-handers are exposed derives from the fact that the tools they use and the machines they operate are designed for right-handers, a flaw that given heightened public awareness would be easy to correct. Coren advocates a change in the way the right-handed majority treats its left-handed minority to eliminate the risks left-handers face.