I'm the kind of person who tries my hardest to always look on the bright side of things, but the last few weeks have been rather challenging. I've dislocated my right shoulder, twice. I'm right handed. Thankfully I've been able to pop my shoulder back into place myself both times, so I've avoided a lot of trauma. But still, I've been keeping my right arm in a sling for the last few weeks. For those of you who are curious, I'm hypermobile, I managed to dislocate my shoulder by turning over in bed.
Not only do I need my right hand for work and life in general, obviously, I need it to bead! My best beading friend, the fabulous editor of Bead and Jewellery magazine, Vicky Roberts asks me to test-bead and proof read a lot of her patterns/tutorials, and when I told her I'd dislocated my shoulder, we agreed I should learn to bead left handed. I think she was actually joking, as she was rather stunned when later that day I sent her a picture of a bezelled cushion stone. I'm sorry I can't share that picture with you, but it's for a top-secret project.
Instead, here's a piece of modified right angle weave I've done left-handed. This will make up part of the chain part of a necklace designed by Heather Kingsley-Heath - the design is called Katia. I'll blog about it once I've finished it.
It has made me think though, about how easily I adapted to beading with my left hand. Obviously, I was slower, my tension wasn't quite as tight, but that's not necessarily a bad thing as my usual beading tension can only be designed as fierce! With my right arm in a sling, I can hold the beadwork just fine, so it's just like swapping everything over.
Usually (right handed), I like to bead in an anti-clockwise direction, but left handed, I seem to prefer clockwise. I also feel like I prefer a longer needle in my left hand, but a shorter one in my right, but it may be too soon to tell on that one really.
It definitely is much easier to bead left handed than it is to write left handed. I've just about got the hang of using a mouse left handed, and typing with just one hand is slow, and involves a lot of proof-reading (I tend to forget capital letters and apostrophes).
Months ago, I signed up to do a Zoom workshop with Sabine Lippert for her Fields of Gold necklace which is just beautiful. The workshop is tomorrow, and I still have to keep my right arm in a sling. Normally, I'm a speedy beader, but I I'm definitely going to be one of the slower ones tomorrow. At least I have a really good excuse!
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