Knitting Left Handed
January 25th, 2007
I am left handed, and like most lefties I am proud of my sinister status. There’s this great moment of bonding when you meet a fellow lefty, and it will somehow invariably come up if you’re acquainted with a left handed person. You’ll either see them using their left hand to write or do something requiring dexterity, or they’ll see you do it.
In knitting one would think that there’s a left handed way to do things, and a right handed way to do things. Just like there is with anything else requiring manual dexterity (cutting with scissors, writing, etc). I’m finding out more and more that such is not the case. Just like there are many different methods of knitting and each knitter seems to have individualized their method to be even more unique to them, I think such is the same for left handed knitters.
When I taught myself to knit I started doing it the way the book showed: right handed. I will admitt they had some brief instructions about reversing your hands and knitting left-handed, but that just didn’t feel right in my hands. The reason this works for me is because I don’t insert the right needle into the stitch on the left needle. Using the left needle I drop the stitch over the right needle (if that makes sense). The hand motions I’m using are still more controlled on the left side than the right. I also hold the yarn in my right hand like most English right handed knitters, but it just sticks out there in a stiff position. I don’t wrap the yarn around the left needle, I sort of wrap the left needle around the yarn…kind of. It’s hard to explain, but uses my left hand more than my right.
I made a post a while back about a method that I had figured out that allows me to purl back in stockinette stitch without flipping my work. The neckwarmer that I’m doing is a lot of k2,p2 ribbing around and around and…well you get the point. I decided that it would be interesting to try continental knitting left handed while I was working on it. I had read some tutorials and watched some videos, and had tried doing it right handed to no avail. I turned my work around to “knit” two stitches in continental, which would have been two purl stitches in English on the other side. The yarn stayed on the same finger, and I realized that this was the exact same method that I used to “purl” backwards.
Have you ever thought you invented something, only to find out that is already being done and you didn’t know about it? I taught myself how to knit continental left handed without even knowing it! I can’t quite purl continental left handed as easily as I can purl English right handed.
Anyways, I’m really curious to know how other left handed knitters out there have learned or adapted to knit. Do you knit left handed or right handed? Do you knit continental or English? Do you knit right handed, but make the motions a bit different than right handed people as I do? I would love to read your comments!
If this post goes by days and months without many comments, I won’t be surprised. If you’re reading this post and it seems too old to bother commenting anymore, comment anyways! I’m still interested in reading what you have to say, as I’m very interested in how other lefties do things.
hi, just trying to find some instructions for increasing a stitch, im not too sure what way i knit, im left handed but every one tells me it loooks wrong when i knit, after quickly reading your tips i think i knit right handed with some strange adaptations!!!! i use my left hand all the time and hold the yarn in my right – its confusing – i really enjoy knitting but cant understand almost anything apart from knitting and purling, fed up with scarves!!! and at the moment got a pattern for making soft dolls but am at a loss as to how to increase a stitch!!! i just cant follow instructions for right handed my brain isnt making sense of it!!!
would love to chat as im getting frustrated
dawn x