Help. PLEASE!:guyknitting: :?? :???:
I need to learn how to knit left handed.
I saw the continental knitting vid here, and didn’t get much from that.
How do I teach a lefty how to hold the needles, cast on, knit, and purl?
Do they mirror me?
I need to know how to do left handed knitting, myself, in order to teach them.
My grandmother was left handed and she taught me to knit when I was very young. I forgot most of it and am re-learning now, but she did not do it like the continental video. She held the yarn in her left hand but she worked the stitches from the right needle to the left one. So, I’d guess it’s basically mirroring what you would do. I’m sure there are other methods also, though.
I recently taught at a workshop at my job, and though several people were left handed, I taught them ‘right handed’ knitting. I also taught another lefty to knit a while back.
The lefties all made a point that they couldn’t knit ‘my’ way because of their left-handedness, but they all learned quite well.:shrug:
Yes many lefthanded people were taught by righties, either English or continental. Show her how you knit and see how she does with it.
I’ve taught many left-handed people how to knit… (children included) and I just teach them the right handed way. I can help them better… and both hands are working together and have important roles in knitting.
It’s a little awkward for both left and right handed people… but, it’s an easy skill… it’s not one that requires STRENGTH…
I just taught a left handed friend how to knit a couple of months ago and I even asked her if she wanted to ‘try’ to figure out what I was doing ‘right-handed’ and reversing it left-handed… and she totally wanted to learn how my way… she’s a teacher (school) too and she agreed with me… that both hands are working together and she said that it’s not a difficult skill to learn to poke a stick in a hole and wrap yarn around it. 
She has already learned how to do many, many different skills as a knitter… she’s done a lace scarf, a basketweave scarf, working on a cabled scarf right now, and several other knitting skills. She will be moving soon and is learning as much as she can while we are in the same location.
This comes up all the time. I’ve taught two left handed people how to knit and I just had them do it the same way I do. And they actually do better than most. You have to use both hands when knitting. It doesnt’ matter what the persons prominant hand is.
I am a lefty and I knit right-handed. I did not have any trouble learning. No more than you usually have learning something new. 
I tried knitting left-handed, i.e. mirror of right-handed, but it was so much trouble having to transpose all the patterns that I gave it up very quickly! The Continental method and the English method are both right-handed knitting, the difference is in how you hold the yarn.
There is a tip on how to learn left-handed or mirror knitting at the bottom of the knit video page.
While many left handed knitters do just fine knitting right handed there are some resources out there.
http://learn-to-knit.com/
http://leftoutknitter.com/
The biggest problem I’ve seen with actual left hand knitters is that they are hard to teach unless they can find someone else who knits left handed. There is a woman at our LYS social knitting group who knits left handed and we were learning some new techniques and she struggled trying to figure it out in reverse. :shrug:
My daughter is a lefty and when learning to do a chord on her guitar she sits opposite her Dad and simply mirrors him. She likes to go with her strengths adn that is left-handedness. Works for her beautifully.
Exactly how I learned! I’m a lefty and mirrored a righty. Sure, my process looks a little odd to right-handed people, but theirs looks odd to me. The only things I’ve had to really work on a bit are SSK vs. K2tog and kitchnering. Other than that, no big deal. I can knit righty, but it’s extremely awkward and clumsy and the gauge is inconsistent. I do disagree that knitting righty is just as easy for a lefty to learn as knitting lefty, but I understand that there just aren’t too many lefty teachers out there either.
This web site has a pattern for socks knitted left-handed and includes instructions and a diagram for left-handed kitchnering that is just wonderful. I finally could do it correctly! http://knittingleft.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=1&zenid=306950cd130fd768a39e0d8dc64496c8
That’s the comments I got, but, I’m thinking of just showing them right handed knitting, anyways.
That’s what I was thinking, you use both hands, and it’s not a big coordination skill thing, really.
I am a self taught lefty who crochets left handed but knits right handed English. I am used to holding the yarn in my right hand to crochet and it just made it easier to continue that with my knitting.
I found reading some patterns with shaping to be a little confusing when crocheting because I work “against the grain” but by knitting right handed I don’t have to compensate at all and that makes life so much easier for me.
I would ask the person how they feel about right or left handed knitting and go from there.
The thing I like best about knitting is that there is no “left-handed” or “right-handed” way. It uses both hands equally. I am left-handed, and find the English method works best for me. Continental style is actually the opposite of how leftys crochet (hook in left hand, yarn in right hand), so actually Continental was a bit uncomfortable for me.
What people call “Left-handed” knitting is using a mirror to basically reverse the whole pattern. It’s time consuming and really, like I said, there is no “right-handed”/“left-handed” knitting.
[B]For me…[/B]I don’t think it matters what hand you write with because you’re starting something new. You adapt to the way of knitting. You actually use both hands equally. You really don’t use 1 hand more than another.
I’m left handed and it makes no difference. At first I [U][B]was[/B][/U] worried Crossed Fingers but when I learned it I was perfectly fine with it. :woohoo:
good luck!!