Any other mirror writers?

I've been working on making a new purse (when am I NOT working on something lol:09 and decided to do a "Scandinavian" needle-work design since it's a type of needlework I've never tried before (Read: has been time intensive).

Anyways, I am kind of a "freehand" person (i.e. do not really use a pattern, just kind of wing it off a picture of the design), and was picking out a lot of stitches because I was doing swirls and reversed parts of the design the wrong way. Then I remembered a long-forgotten nuisance I knew I had as a kid- mirror writing. I discovered that I could only write backwards with my left hand when I broke my right hand in grade school (and was unable to write for a while). I can write nearly as good with my left as my right, it's just reversed in a way you can read it in a mirror (and still better than my husbands handwriting on a good day HA! lololol:09. So after a little practice, I started working on the left hand side of the design with my left hand and VOILA! I can do needlework in perfect mirror using my left hand

It's kind of a neat "skill" (whatever you'd call it), but I've never really known anyone else who could do it. Wondering if any of you can do mirror writing? You can "test" yourself by drawing a line down the center of a piece of paper and holding a pen in each hand. Then write something like "Hello" or "My name is____" simultaneously with both hands and see what happens

Wow good job! I will need to try that! I don't know if I could because if I write with my left hand, it looks like a blind cat was trying to write my name!

Oh I'm super left handed. With my right hand I fail, a lot. I can however use a mouse really well with my right hand, so I use a mouse and write longhand at the same time at work and it freaks people out.

Well, I cannot say my left handed writing is excellent any more:52:. I am long out of practice, as it serves no good purpose to write backwards lol. But I can draw mirror and apparently embroider mirror, and I'm now kind of interested in the creative potential because even if "shaky" if I have a basic shape, I can correct it with my right hand in a design. Especially with the embroidery. If I'm having difficulty, I can just use a fabric pencil to get a round mirror with my left hand and do it properly with my right.

You can see it's not 100% perfect, and my left tends to write a tad smaller and at more of a slant than my right, but it's perfectly mirrored (as in, hold it in a mirror and it's written the right way in the reflection).


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I would guess more people can do this than they realize, but have just never tried

Wah! I can! I've never tried it before, but I just sat down and automatically did it! My left hand version is a little wonky, but when I focussed and went slowly, it improved a LOT. I reckon it will take barely any practice to get this skill really going. HOW useful for the sewists among us!

Thanks for this, April! I'm in the middle of doing a whole lot of designing for my quilts and I have a feeling this is going to come in very, very handy.

Psst! How 'bout some pictures of the purse??? Progress pictures would be great!

what the heck? I never even tried that. isn't that a Leonardo Da Vinci thing?

Ok, I just tried it. It was kind of fun actually. It looked like a first grader wrote it though. Weird writing 'backward' AND left handed.


BTW I can write left handed if I write up on a wall better than on a desk.

I can't write OR draw with my left hand. I've been drawing since I was old enough to hold a pencil, and I've tried on many occasions, but I just can't do it haha. (Though I've never tried writing backwards, that might work for some odd reason.)

However, I CAN do the following left handed:
Play pool(Can't play right handed)
bowling(I can right handed, I just practiced left handed.)
Play Piano (It sounds weird, but my left hand seems to be my 'main hand' and my right seems to be my 'offhand.)

And I don't knit or sew or embroider, so I can't tell ya there. I do like your little demonstration piece though! That's really cool to see the writing(and picture) mirrored like that.

Betrisher said:

Wah! I can! I've never tried it before, but I just sat down and automatically did it! My left hand version is a little wonky, but when I focussed and went slowly, it improved a LOT. I reckon it will take barely any practice to get this skill really going. HOW useful for the sewists among us!

Thanks for this, April! I'm in the middle of doing a whole lot of designing for my quilts and I have a feeling this is going to come in very, very handy.

Psst! How 'bout some pictures of the purse??? Progress pictures would be great!

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Yay! Hopefully you can refine your new-found talent and put it to good use You'll have to show off your quilts as you make them

Actually, the little "sample" is a wallet flap. I'm making a wallet first to refine the skill of the embroidery (I have never done this before ever) before I mess up a large piece of fabric for the front of a purse.

what the heck? I never even tried that. isn't that a Leonardo Da Vinci thing?

Ok, I just tried it. It was kind of fun actually. It looked like a first grader wrote it though. Weird writing 'backward' AND left handed.
BTW I can write left handed if I write up on a wall better than on a desk.
Today 12:56 PM

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Is that a second mirror writer we have?

I would have never known, but when I was a kid I broke pretty much every bone in my right hand and since it was out of commission for so long after being pieced back together, I was *suppose* to learn to write with my left hand for school. However, I just could not not write backwards. I forgot all about it actually until yesterday when I started this project and got to thinking about how I could do the spirals right

I can't write OR draw with my left hand. I've been drawing since I was old enough to hold a pencil, and I've tried on many occasions, but I just can't do it haha. (Though I've never tried writing backwards, that might work for some odd reason.)

However, I CAN do the following left handed:
Play pool(Can't play right handed)
bowling(I can right handed, I just practiced left handed.)
Play Piano (It sounds weird, but my left hand seems to be my 'main hand' and my right seems to be my 'offhand.)

And I don't knit or sew or embroider, so I can't tell ya there. I do like your little demonstration piece though! That's really cool to see the writing(and picture) mirrored like that.

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Interesting how the brain works in regards to coordination of the hands. It's like an innate thing to be able to do things backwards with my left, I don't think about it and can't write at all if I deliberately try it the right way. It's interesting that while you aren't ambidextrous with writing, you are with those other things.

Well, I just discovered that I'm SO extremely right handed when it comes to writing and drawing, that I can barely even hold a pen in my left hand! I just can't get it to sit in my hand the same way on the left. It's that bad.:02:

However, things that turn in a circular pattern such as opening a round combination lock, and turning a key, feels more natural left handed, though I'm actually ambidextrous with that.

No mirror writer here, that's for sure!

When my niece who is 7years old now was first learning how to write (preschool age so about 4) she is also extremely left handed and wrote EVERYTHING backwards as if in a "mirror" at first we were worried she might have a form of dyslectsia (sp?) because she would have me or my brother or another realitive write a word for her and she would "mirror" it directly below. We are releaved to know there is nothing wrong with her and after about a year or so she started writing the proper way.

I can use both hands depending on what I"m doing
With my right hand I can:
Write/draw/color
Cook
Open items

With my left hand I can:
Play sports
Open things
Drive

RavensGryf said:

Well, I just discovered that I'm SO extremely right handed when it comes to writing and drawing, that I can barely even hold a pen in my left hand! I just can't get it to sit in my hand the same way on the left. It's that bad.:02:

However, things that turn in a circular pattern such as opening a round combination lock, and turning a key, feels more natural left handed, though I'm actually ambidextrous with that.

No mirror writer here, that's for sure!

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I think it's interesting that you, Sterling and Colorguarder can't write with the left hand, but many other things you would think a right handed person would do with their right hand comes easier with the left. My left hand is essentially useless besides the mirror writing (unless holding a dish/article of clothing/decoration while I scrub it with my right hand counts!). I'm such a nerd, but stuff like this absolutely fascinates me! I wonder what other factors are shared by people who have certain traits and how that all correlates to brain function. Kind of like how "mathematically gifted" people tend not to be too creative whereas creative people tend to be "mathematically challenged". I can barely do +-/X but I can almost see an image in my head of something I want to make and make it. My husbands handwriting at it's best looks like some kind of primitive hieroglyphics and he can't draw a stick figure, but he can read mathematical equations like a language and can write computer code (and he never went to college or anything, it's insane to me how he can just pick these complex/impossible things up).

I know right brain/left brain ties in with all of that so I wonder what that says about people who innately write backwards with their non-dominant hand vs. people who can't (but still use their non-dominate hand for other things)? This is SO far off topic, but so very interesting to contemplate how the mind works:32:

When my niece who is 7years old now was first learning how to write (preschool age so about 4) she is also extremely left handed and wrote EVERYTHING backwards as if in a "mirror" at first we were worried she might have a form of dyslectsia (sp?) because she would have me or my brother or another realitive write a word for her and she would "mirror" it directly below. We are releaved to know there is nothing wrong with her and after about a year or so she started writing the proper way.

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My younger cousin had pretty bad dyslexia as a child. From my understanding, it affected her in the way she perceived things, like the spelling of a word would be jumbled in her perception, so she would "spell" it the same way because that's what she saw. I don't know much else about how it worked, but I know she eventually got held back and put into some kind of special classes in elementary school and whatever therapy they did helped her to be able to read normally. It no longer affects her at all (she's got a 3.8GPA in college right now!).

Kiwibird said:

I think it's interesting that you, Sterling and Colorguarder can't write with the left hand, but many other things you would think a right handed person would do with their right hand comes easier with the left. My left hand is essentially useless besides the mirror writing (unless holding a dish/article of clothing/decoration while I scrub it with my right hand counts!). I'm such a nerd, but stuff like this absolutely fascinates me! I wonder what other factors are shared by people who have certain traits and how that all correlates to brain function. Kind of like how "mathematically gifted" people tend not to be too creative whereas creative people tend to be "mathematically challenged". I can barely do +-/X but I can almost see an image in my head of something I want to make and make it. My husbands handwriting at it's best looks like some kind of primitive hieroglyphics and he can't draw a stick figure, but he can read mathematical equations like a language and can write computer code (and he never went to college or anything, it's insane to me how he can just pick these complex/impossible things up).

I know right brain/left brain ties in with all of that so I wonder what that says about people who innately write backwards with their non-dominant hand vs. people who can't (but still use their non-dominate hand for other things)? This is SO far off topic, but so very interesting to contemplate how the mind works:32:

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It's interesting to me also... I have a cousin who is a mechanical engineer for NASA so obviously he's great at math, but he's also a really gifted artist too! I'd say both sides of his brain are working pretty well lol.

Wow, your husband really sounds mathematically gifted.

Dyslexia normally does effect perception which is why dyslexic children have a hard time with reading and spelling usually. I think the reason as to my being able to use my left hand so well is because I was left handed up until around age 5 when I suddenly went right handed.

Interesting. I am left handed so tried to write normal with my right hand and backwards with my left... And I could do both! My father was ambidextrous, and I am pretty close. I have always absolutely written left, and cut left. But, I use a fork and knife right. When I first learned to golf and swing a bat, I was right dominant. Then I had lessons coaches who taught me left. I ten key better with my right, but at one point could ten key with both hands equally. When I had my left shoulder reconstruction I could do almost nothing with my left. I thought nothing of it until I went to work one day and was startled when I realized I was signing in not noticing I was writing with my right hand. I have always been able to write shakily with my right, but never just naturally picked up a pen and gone about my business. I thought that was pretty cool.

My Grandmother can do that. Me not so much lol. Back when writing letters and mailing was how you talked to people (other than phone calls of course) we would write letters back and forth. Sometimes hers would written backwards. I'm not sure if she did it with her non-dominant hand or her dominant one. I remember getting those and excitedly running to the bathroom to read it lol. When my oldest brother was a baby I would read to him. The book would be facing him so he could see the pictures and I would read essentially upside down. When my youngest brother started learning how to write (they're a year and 3 weeks apart from each other), he became left handed. It was said that he learned to write like that because my brothers would sit across from each other at the table and he wanted to Zackary wanted to match everything Christopher did. He was too young to get the concept of right and left, it just looked to him like he was using the same hand Christopher was.