I’m Mave, a self-taught leftie knitter, high on enthusiasm, but a bit low on technique at times. I find knitting a very right-handed world, so can struggle to interpret instructions, particularly as I constantly have to either reverse instructions (such as inc/dec) or think in reverse. I knitted an alphabet square yesterday, and as the letter wasn’t symmetrical, I had to work the rows backwards.
I’m always amazed at how a ball of yarn can be transformed into something lovely and creative . I tend to stick to making small items, so baby/toddler clothes, and I’ve really got into toy making.
I’d also love to learn how to crochet sometime. (but knitting has taken me long enough )
Interested to chat about leftie knitting stuff and interested in any tips or advice too x
Welcome to KnittingHelp!
I’m left handed too but I learned to knit right handed. I learned at about 10 years old and since the neighbor who taught me could only teach right handed, I learned that way.
Yes, translating patterns, especially lace or shaping is complicated. I’m glad you were able to figure out a way to work the alphabet square.
This site looks interesting. The recent posts require becoming a patron but the archive looks to be freely open.
Personally I think knitting is something you do with both hands. It is much easier to learn to knit the other way than to learn to write with the other hand. My ex was a left handed knitter. So I could help her I also learned to knit left handed, even thou I normally knitted right handed. Later she wanted to learn to knit right handed and switched. Thus both of use have used both left and right handed knitting.
Unless you have invested a lot of time into learning left handed knitting, you might want to consider to learn right handed knitting as it will make following instructions and videos easier.
hi , thanks for your reply! I’m also very left brained, an unusual combi’, as well as left handed, so I honestly can’t convert in many things to right handed methods, despite any effort.
Hi , thanks for your reply, as per above … I have honestly tried to knit right handed, it’s by far the easier option. But, I just can’t! I’m left brain wired too. I know some lefties can convert successfully My son, also left handed can, he plays tennis well with his right hand. It’s about the brain as well as the hand
As a right handed knitter I have a limited understanding of the difficulty left handed knitters encounter.
I thought everything would “just” be mirrored but having spent only 2 or 3 minutes looking at the link from salmonmac I realise I am even more ignorant than I thought I was. The back leg is the front leg and the front leg is the back leg??? I can’t even understand why. Why wouldn’t the stitches be mounted so the leading leg is in front so that it will be knitted in a mirror of the right handed way? If left handed knitters always knit into the back which is the leading leg then it must be a total confusion to need to work into the back stitch. Mind blowing.
I, just once, worked a swatch back and forth without turning, knitting right and then left handed, just to try it, but it didn’t involve making back legs front legs and front legs back legs… that’s a logic twist too many for me.
Knitting, or rather following patterns, already involves some mental and logical gymnastics. I can only admire anyone dealing with any kind of additional switcheroooing!
Thanks for your support, you definitely get it and have summed me up as a knitter perfectly !
I love the term 'switcherooing" , it’s basically what I do. Very exhausting, as it needs spot on concentration the whole time to interpret patterns. Leading leg, everyday decreases, M!'s etc all need converting.
I have made progress over the years though (I’m self taught also),and can knit quite well these days. I’ve kept at it and had many re-knit attempts, but love the craft, so just accept it as part of my deal. I’ve also learnt to spot patterns that won’t work for me, which has reduced my frustration levels. But, I’ve reached my skills limit, and would like to attempt other projects and techniques, so I’m hoping to connect with some more expert leftie knitters than me
When you knit do you knit into the front or back leg, as it’s mounted on the needle? I tried looking at the link salmonmac shared but kept getting the message I have to be a patron. I looked on youtube and the video I watched part of showed the leading leg on the front as is typical for most Western knitters. I get it that many lefties learn to knit right handed and it works for them. My niece is pretty much ambidextrous but writes left handed; she crochets right handed. I had a friend who told me she gave up on knitting and crochet because she is so profoundly left handed and couldn’t just learn the ‘right way’ of doing either. This was before the internet and she knew no lefties who knit or crocheted. I’m right handed but cannot get my right hand to manage the yarn so I knit Continental. I can ‘knit backwards’ and do purl rows in stockinette without turning the work and to do that I’m knitting left handed but then I’m not working Continental I’m doing a kind of throwing. I’ve tried to crochet left handed and so far it’s a fail. There are projects where it would very useful to just crochet back without turning. The ability to easily learn the other way varies greatly.
Sometimes I want to use a chart that I flip. I copy it into a document and rotate it. Decreases and cables then show as mirror images and I can have mirrored patterning on my project. I wonder if that might be useful to you.
I’ll add that learning to knit backwards was not easy. It involved some queasiness and feeling like my brain would burst. I can manage an occasional purl (on the side facing) but it’s very hard for me to do because I have to think through the process. I wonder if Ravelry has a group for left handed knitters. If there is such a group I’ve no idea how to find it.
Thanks for your reply, very interesting and helpful. Here goes, I’m a bit of a hotch-potch knitter. If I’m knitting garter stitch I knit into the front of the stitch. If I’m knitting stocking stitch the knit rows I knit into the back of the stitch and purl rows into the front of the stitch. I’ve learnt to cast on longtail/thumb method, or I use Cambridge method too. I’m a little foggy on the term leading leg.
I too have a friend who’s given up because she was finding leftie knitting too challenging. I just so love knitting, and I’m doing okay generally, so want to continue and get a handle on techniques more. Also hopefully learn to crochet one day soon.
I’ve used YouTube videos which have been super helpful to me, being left brained I need to see knitting techniques being worked leftie way, as it’s hard to transpose the images. There’s a great guy Bill Souza, in the US, who I’ve used quite a bit for techniques such as M1 L or R.
Your suggestion for mirroring charts is helpful thank you. And Ravelry may well be a great place to check out also.
There should be a group for left handed knitters where you can share experiences and how you’ve learned to do things, where you can learn from others. Maybe you could start a group on Ravelry if there isn’t one. Like I said, I don’t know how to find it if it’s there and I tried again. I’m a knitter of very little brain and have to figure things out in roundabout ways. I just don’t do math well. I’ve spent the last hour, maybe, counting stitches and working out where to start in a chart I managed to knock together to center mistake stitch rib in the different parts of my project. I want to say when you see k2tog, use ssk and vice versa and cross cables the opposite to the instructions but when you get into more complicated increases, decreases, cable crosses, whatever, that gets harder. While I can’t help you because trying to think about things mirrored is so very hard you do have my sympathy. My challenges are other than yours but I understand that yours are very real.
I just realized you said something about leading leg. The leading leg is the one that if you knit or purl using it, the stitch doesn’t get twisted. From reading what you wrote I’m thinking you might knit combination - purls wrapped clockwise and knits wrapped counterclockwise. Or maybe I’ve got that reversed. Many knitters use combination. It doesn’t work well for me but that’s just me.
I’m interested in knowing how things work for you and how you progress. I might learn a thing or two along with you.
The older stuff is free, I went to the oldest one I could see on the list and that is where I became crazily confused by info about knitting into the leading leg which is in the back. Not the front.
I’ve been thinking on and off all day, why would the leading leg be behind? And I think it must be as you said a kind of combination knitting.
Eastern European knitters wrap the yarn clockwise so they work into the back leg which is the leading leg. I didn’t see enough on the site to know which, if either, she’s doing. Honestly, trying to see how it works left handed makes my head ache. I feel for the lefties who have to see how it works when a right hander shows them how to do something.
ETA I’m a picker. I don’t technically wrap the yarn I grab it with the needle tip. Even knitting right handed I have to stop and think which way the yarn is going around the needle.
There are such a range of styles of knitting, it sounds like you have your own combination of what works for you, but perhaps not what is the easiest to reconfigure from right handed videos/patterns to left handed.
This is in no way a judgement of how you knit, I think everyone’s own style and way is the correct way for them so long as they get the result they want.
If you are not getting the result you want maybe it’s time to try it out a different way? Or maybe not, only you can decide that.
I am right handed and hold my yarn in my right hand, often called English style, but I chose to learn how to hold in my left hand, the continental style. It was a great experiment and as a result I can work 2 or more colours at the same time quite comfortably. I enjoyed the learning the challenge, and the result. But if you suggested I learn to knit left handed I’d just say no thanks, it’s not on my bucket list. Same with socks, no thanks, I won’t be knitting those. Some things we want to learn and will enjoy and others we just don’t.
I just watched this video for left handed knitting and this is exactly what I would have expected from left handed knitting, in that the stitches are mounted with the leading leg in front and on the left, the knits and purls are created exactly as I see them created in my right handed videos, but mirrored.
I was going to ask if you used video mirroring to help you learn from the vast resources available for right handed knitters as, to me, that would be my preferred method of widening access to resources. However with a combination style of kniting I’m not sure it would help???
I can imagine flipping horizontally lace charts could be an option.
Colour work charts wouldn’t need flipping because it doesn’t matter which end you work from.
I can certainly imagine it is hard to get help. Here we talk about left needle and right needle a lot when describing something to help someone and that would be very frustrating to have to switch around if it was more than a sentence or two.
Can you explain further what you mean when you said you had to work the rows backwards when you knitted an alphabet square? I’m intruiged and also thinking that perhaps we have more chance of suggesting some tips if we understood more what was happening with that square. What was the pattern? Was it a written pattern or a chart? Do you have a link to it?
The recommendation is usually to face a right handed knitter and mirror their actions. I’ve never tried this but the very idea is enough to make me grateful I learned right handed.
I agree that knitting takes two hands although I do admire those who can make left handed knitting work for them.
You go to the video you want to watch, copy the link address (I click “share”, then “copy link” to do this) and paste it into your Web browser, then edit the link address by removing the YouTube and replacing with mirrorthevideo
Here’s an example, a knitted cast on for right handed knitters but mirrored. The audio won’t help of course, it will still say right and left the wrong way.
Absolutely agree, as long as what your knitting turns out well, personal style works And, I can honestly say most things I knit do. I’ve worked at it for 8 years now.
I also knit English style, yarn in left hand. Yes, left or right needle instructions always have to be reversed when I’m knitting. Actually most instructions have to be. L or R leaning decreases for example.
The video is great thank you x
So, I was knitting a capital E into a little face cloth for a baby to personalise it. If I knit the instructions from left to right in the sentence, it will knit up reversed. I start at the end of the instruction sentence and read right to left, ending at the beginning it works (but my sound a little crazy)
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. I tend to stick to making small items, so baby/toddler clothes, and I’ve really got into toy making. 
)
My son, also left handed can, he plays tennis well with his right hand. It’s about the brain as well as the hand 
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, it’s basically what I do. Very exhausting, as it needs spot on concentration the whole time to interpret patterns. Leading leg, everyday decreases, M!'s etc all need converting.
I’ve worked at it for 8 years now.
! I’ve made one Christmas stocking does that count 