Any left handed knitters on here?

[pourmeanotherglass]

Hi all, any left handed knitters out there? Do you knit the same way as a right handed knitter, or do you do something different?

Im teaching my DDs to knit. DD2 is fairly ambidextrous but does some things ( like play guitar) left handed. With knitting she said it feels " the wrong way round" the way i do it.

I am left handed but my mother taught me, 60 years ago, to knit right handed. Once you learn the technique it feels like it's the right way to do it.

My mum taught me too, so I knit right handed. I also crochet right handed, but that seemed more natural for some reason. I’m not sure how you would knit the other way round.

I am left-handed but not a knitter. My right-handed mum tried to teach me to knit when I was a child, but I just couldn’t grasp it. Then I had to knit in home economics, and we were only taught the right-handed method, and I still couldn’t manage it, which made for a miserable 6 weeks before we moved on to weaving.

Apparently, the continental method makes more sense to left-handers. There are lots of videos on this website:

www.knittinghelp.com/videos/knit-stitch

I’m a left handed, left-handed knitter. My mum taught me but she’s right-handed so had to reverse things for me.

I am left handed, and assume I knit ‘right handed’, in that I knit the same way others do. Not sure how else to do it tbh....

Yes. I never learned to knit properly as a child because my mum couldn't get her head around teaching a left hander. Taught myself when I was 40 and it turned out I actually to prefer to knit English lever style, the normal way around, just like she does. My left hand does all the fiddly flicky stuff and my right hand mostly supports the needles. Even using circular needles, my right hand isn't doing much.

Being able to knit the normal way makes pattern reading much simpler. When you analyse it, right handers have made knitting harder for themselves, the same as using a knife and fork.

I must be tired. I read the thread title as 'left handed kittens'

As you were...

I am left-handed but was taught to knit by my right-handed mum so I knit right-handed, although I think I hold the needles a bit awkwardly. If you sat opposite your daughter when teaching her how to knit, she could learn from a mirror image and would be doing L handed knitting. But as all patterns are written for R handed knitters it may be easier for her to try to learn R handed from the start (I don't really think about issues with the pattern too much but I suppose things like decreases would slant the wrong way if they were knitted left-handed from right-handed instructions)

I mean for paired decreases when you have a k2tovg on one side of the work and a ssk on the other

@DramaAlpaca me too 😂

Though, if english style feels alien to your dd, she could try continental style, which involves picking with movements more like crochet. She might find that feels more natural though pickers tend to groan about having to purl.

I'm right-handed, but an ambidextrous knitter (it makes short rows quicker). As long as you're confident with the in-round-through-off bit it's not too hard to translate. It might make reading complicated patterns harder though, as you're doing everything 'backwards'.

I am lefthanded. I write with my left hand but am pretty much ambidextrous with most things. I knit and crochet left handed but bowl and golf right handed.
If he wants to learn get him to sit facing you and copy you that way rather than side by side.

I’m left handed. My mum and grandmother taught me to knit right handed - Mum did try, but couldn’t work out how to teach me to knit left handed. I love knitting but I’m slow and my tension is terribly uneven unless I’m knitting on round needles. She might try crochet which feels less directional to me?

I'm left handed and learned to knit only a few years ago. I knit right handed, I never found any instructions for doing it any other way and right handed is fine. All the lefties in my knitting group also knit same as right handed.

Now crochet is different. That you do left handed for sure.

Another lefty who knits right handed here. Was taught by my left handed DM to knit right handed as she was taught by her DM, also left handed to knit right handed. My DGM was one of the unfortunate generation who had her left hand tied behind her back in school though, and remained confused in terms of hand preference for the rest of her life. Seems barbaric now, especially as I am very left handed and 3 of 4 siblings in my family are left handed so quite a strong genetic component I think.

I spent a whole afternoon recently trying to learn to knit left handed via YouTube using both methods and came to the conclusion that forty years of right handed knitting cannot be undone!! Was also a bit cross as although I knit right handed I seem to use my left hand more (IYSWIM) and think that if I'd been taught left handed from the outset I may have been quicker and neater.

If your DD is just learning I would think it better for her to learn left handed as she would probably find it more intuitive and natural. Are there any left handed knitters local to you who you could zoom or face time with, could you contact a knitting group and see if anyone there knits left handed?

Sadly our family tradition of left handers knitting right handed is on the way out I fear as my lefty DD shows no interest!!

I'm not left handed but my mum was born left handed and she knits continental (she writes with her RH due to teachers in the 1940s). It's easier all round I find - I've tried English as well.

How do right handed knitters knit ?
I have the empty needle in my left hand and the stitches on the one in my right hand

@freddosfrogs surely both have stiches on them most of the time?

[quote drspouse]@freddosfrogs surely both have stiches on them most of the time?[/quote]
Well yes, of course. But I start off by casting on onto the needle in my right hand. Sorry, I didn't explain it very well.

I use a long tail cast on so the needle isn't either side when I cast them on - it's up and down.

When I knit (continental) I hold the yarn in my left hand, and the old stitches are on the left needle and the new stitches then move onto the right needle.

I don't actually think you need to do differently for a LH knitter because you need to move both needles either way (as I discovered when I broke my left shoulder). Crochet you can keep one hand still though!

Surely the point is that it feels wrong to her

Plenty online lessons or do it facing each other.

I'm left handed but knit right handed. I tried to learn left handed (when I was first learning to knit) but it was too much bother reversing all the instructions in my knitting book, and patterns can't be read the same way. It did feel wrong as first but now feels almost natural.