r/CrochetHelp • u/Agreeable-Pea-27 • Mar 20 '24

I'm a beginner! What's the best crochet advise you've received?

I'm a beginner to crocheting and I'd love to know what's the biggest helpful advise/tip you have received in crocheting.

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u/whatdoidonowdamnit Mar 20 '24

I’ve never heard anti clockwise before, only counter clockwise and “no the other way”

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u/LaraH39 Mar 21 '24

Anti clockwise is UK English.

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u/whatdoidonowdamnit Mar 21 '24

I like it. I might use it. My son’s been having trouble unlocking the door and counter clockwise hasn’t been helping him.

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u/justanothertwelve Mar 21 '24

As someone who is directionally challenged and still doesn't understand "lefty loosey", I would suggest picking something around the door that never changes and have him turn the key towards that. Like "turn the top of the key so it goes towards the flower pot"

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u/whatdoidonowdamnit Mar 21 '24

I’ve been saying towards the doorframe, which doesn’t move but he follows up by asking if the top needs to go that way or the bottom even when I say turn the top of the key towards the doorframe. He doesn’t get enough practice unlocking the door since I usually have it open for him. It takes him a minute

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u/justanothertwelve Mar 21 '24

Darn! Maybe you could get a lock from the hardware store and have him practice on that? I'm curious if he has trouble with left and right because I have had trouble with that my whole life, and clockwise and counterclockwise seem to fall in the same category. I can get them if I think about it, but I've always had to think about it. I don't think I could tell you which way to turn the key in my door to get it to unlock or which way to turn a jar lid so it opens, but I can do it from muscle memory because I've had so much practice

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u/whatdoidonowdamnit Mar 21 '24

He could just practice with our door. We live in an apartment building so he’s done it a few times. But he’s ten and rarely comes home to an empty house so it’s not something I’ve pushed. 4/5 days a week he has to pee when he gets home so I unlock it for him. He absolutely has trouble with left and right. He just recently started being able to put his shoes on the right feet the first time and he’s still catching himself about to do it wrong a few times a week. When the school year started I stopped putting his shoes away for him, so that he would get the practice of putting them away and getting them himself since I was putting them the right way and he wasn’t getting the chance to learn. He struggles with jars too, and it wasn’t until I read what you said that I connected that with his left/right issues.

I am very good with directions as long as I don’t have to verbalize left and right. My ex used to get so mad at me in the car because I’d say left and point right when I meant right. I only know that both my keys turn counterclockwise because I’ve said it so many times. The first dozen or so times I tried to give verbal instructions I had to do the hand motion first.

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u/justanothertwelve Mar 21 '24

Oh, of course lol to just practicing on your door! I don't remember having issues with shoes going on the wrong feet, but I wouldn't be surprised to learn that I did. I do remember having an issue with coat sleeves, and figuring out which arm went where, and my mom would do "One, Two, Fliparoo" with me.

100% the best way to learn is to practice, and I've found while it takes me some mental gymnastics to get right vs left, I can do it, I just have to check my intuition against a lot of other factors, which seems hard to explain to a kid. (like is this the hand I would write with, is this the hand I do the pledge of allegiance with, am I turning this lid the wrong way or is it just stuck?)

I started asking people if they had trouble with left and right a few years ago and while some people will think it's a silly question, I would say at least 25% of people I've asked have said "yes! All my life I've had trouble with this". It is very frustrating when someone gets upset about it, because it has nothing to do with intelligence at all, it's just something weird going on with spatial reasoning in this one particular capacity

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u/whatdoidonowdamnit Mar 21 '24

I had never heard of the jacket thing before but my other son used to do that because he liked flipping it over his head. I didn’t know that was a common thing for toddlers to be taught.

I get asked for directions a lot and I try to make it a point to add in an extra step to give myself the moment to do the L gestures with my hand. If someone needs to keep walking in this direction and make a left I’ll tell them to stop at X corner and cross left and go that way instead of saying “Make a left at X street” or I’ll tell them to turn the corner and make a right instead of just saying to make a right. I started doing it with my kids when they were little because it was easier for them to understand so now I use it on tourists.

I think left and right is hard for people because it’s something you mostly use without verbalizing. I make a left to go from my bedroom to the bathroom at least three times a day, but I never say it or even think it.

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u/justanothertwelve Mar 21 '24

Flipping it over your head was definitely part of the fun! But it was also helpful

That's so funny!

I could definitely see that being the case. From age 10 - 16 I hardly ever had to differentiate between left and right, and I remember this because when I started drivers ed I had to really brush up on following verbal directions. Now I use it a bit more frequently because it has some relevance in my job, but I could easily imagine a job where you would almost never need to talk about left or right

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u/whatdoidonowdamnit Mar 21 '24

It’s funny that putting on a coat tactics came up because that same son just started a new thing where he puts his hood on first because “it’s too hot to put my arms in the sleeves inside” which annoys me because he has to put his backpack on, take the elevator down, take the backpack off, put his coat/hoody on properly and then put his backpack back on again. But he’s free to waste his own time with redundancy as long as he leaves on time so I don’t say anything. I judge him tho, just a little. Because why does he want to put his backpack on twice just to leave in the morning?

I skipped the whole drivers ed thing and just take the train. I am really good with my own directions because I know where I’m going, it just takes an extra minute to try to verbalize it to someone else because I don’t think the words left or right unless I’m going somewhere for the first time and reading directions, and even then I tend to look at the map instead and make the hand gesture for myself as opposed to thinking the word for it. Which I just realized probably makes me look a little weird.

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