NOTE: I’ve invoked the ire of some left-handed knitters with this one, and deserve the backlash — I guess my right-handed privilege is showing. I’m in no way meaning to suggest here that anyone who is knitting in the opposite direction is doing it wrong. My only intent was to send a message of encouragement to aspiring knitters who happen to be lefties that knitting is not off-limits to them; that there are a million ways to knit (no matter your dominant hand) and that you should give it a try and figure out what works for you. For those who have figured out what works for them is knitting in the opposite direction and managing all that comes with that, I doff my cap! Knit and let knit, I always say. UPDATE: Karen might have said it better than I did.
There’s a certain question I get asked all the time, and also see being asked of others on social media on a regular basis — left-handed people who would like to knit and want to know where or how they can learn to “knit left-handed.” I always say the same thing and feel increasingly like I should say it here (where Google can find it!) as something of a PSA: Knitting is a two-handed sport. When we knit, have a needle in each hand. We insert the right needle tip into the first stitch on the left needle, wrap the yarn around it, pull this new loop through the old stitch, and slide it off onto the right needle. Repeat. So we knit from right to left across the work, moving the stitches from the left needle to the right needle one (essentially) at a time. Those are the basic mechanics, but no two knitters do this in exactly the same way. Take a look at the #howiknit tag on Instagram if you don’t believe me!
The central variable, though, is how you hold your yarn. Some people hold it in their left hand, which is referred to as Continental-style knitting, or “picking.” Others hold it in their right hand, which is called English or “throwing.” (Portuguese knitters run the yarn around their neck, or through a pin on their chest, and use one thumb or the other to wrap it around the needle!) Many right-handed people knit Continental, and I’m sure there are left-handed throwers out there. It’s more a matter of how you’re taught or what you’re comfortable with than whether you’re right- or left-handed. And even within the picking and throwing camps, everyone holds and “tensions” the yarn differently [i.e., which finger(s) it might be wrapped around, and how many times]. But again, no matter which hand the yarn is in, the underlying operation is the same.
So as a new knitter, no matter your handedness, you should experiment with the different methods and do whatever is most comfortable for you. (I recommend the videos at knittinghelp.com as an excellent starting point.) But please don’t think that, as a lefty, you should have to knit in the opposite direction or anything like that! Knitting is knitting, and takes both hands.
FOR LOTS MORE ADVICE, see Beginning to Knit
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The biggest issue for me as a leftie is the various castings on. Any of the ones where one needle is held in one hand and yarn manipulated – I end up with a cast on that is ready to knit, right-handed people end up on the purl side. Also some of the stitches go on the needle backwards and have to be turned.
That’s a good point — when you’re casting on, do you hold the yarn in your right hand and the needle in your left? I’d love to hear more about that.
Most knitters don’t realize the long-tail cast-on actually leaves you with a purl-side row facing, and it generally works out ok!
I got to speak up here as a left handed knitter (knitting from the rh needle to the left). I hear the old (and I feel condescending) “knitting is a two handed” remark all the time as an argument to give in and knit right handed. True, both hands are involved in knitting but there is a “smart hand and a dumb hand” as the Yarn Harlot says in her speed knitting class. Another example of a two handed job is tying your shoe where one hand holds something and the dominate hand does all the work. So why dismiss left handed knitters by asking them to switch their natural dominance because “knitting is two handed”? There are many everyday tasks that left handers are asked to learn in a right handed dominated world (most scissors, door handles, can openers, etc.) why ask them to do something for pleasure by setting them back by asking them to knit with their non-dominate hand?
I’m absolutely not dismissing anyone, and am sorry you felt that way — my aim here is encouragement and an invitation in, not the opposite! And I’m not saying anyone should knit with their non-dominant hand, not at all. I’m saying you knit with both hands and can figure out what method of holding the yarn and needles will work best for you and with your dominance, but that it isn’t necessary to try to knit in the opposite direction and spend your life trying to reinterpret patterns and directions accordingly.
If you’re a left-handed knitter, I’d love to hear what’s working for you.
I am so lucky! I’m a strong lefty but was taught by righties at age 5, and I have now been knitting just about daily for 66 years. To me, this is very much a two-handed activity, and I have taught many people to knit. Rather than set up the lefties for future mental gymnastics that will likely make them not enjoy knitting as much as they could, I urge them to stick with it long enough that the motions become a habit, then see what really comes naturally and go with that. Do what you love the way that feels natural! PS, I throw but am now using that same lesson on myself to get going with Continental.
I have tried right-handed knitting as my mother tried to teach me. I found out two things: my brain doesn’t understand how to do those things right-handed and my right hand cannot do what it’s supposed to in right-handed knitting. As such I got frustrated and taught myself how to crochet. I am 100% leftie and cannot change that (believe me they have tried and I have tried as being right-handed is so much easier). Now I finally found leftie tutorials and I cannot believe how easy knitting actually is! If I need to change patterns, well so be it, I have to do that in crochet already, but I imagine it’s a little more trying in knitting. Nothing better than mental gymnastics though! Keeps you smart and young of mind! (not that I’m old)
Knitting right to left I knit into the back leg (as if to purl) and wrap the yarn over the needle with my right. To purl, I again insert my left needle as if to purl and again wrap the yarn over the needle. Similar I believe to combination knitting. As far as knitting patterns, etc. I am aware when I follow the instructions for the right front, I am actually knitting the left. If the instructions say K2tog, I SSK, and vice versa. Knitting cables and lace I swatch to see if I match the pattern to double check. My cables are usually just mirror images and am I usually okay with that. If I want to match it exactly, I usually just have to reverse to holding the stitches to the front or back. None of this do I consider “mental gymnastics” it is just being aware of what you are making/doing. I didn’t learn all of this at once of course, all knitters I believe become more aware of their knitting and conquer new skills. I always considered it as part of learning to knit. There are some resources on the internet (oh, love the web!). I am sorry to come off as a little huffy but after 49 years of strangers, teachers, etc., telling you don’t do things right (don’t get me started on school desks!) I just get so tired of hearing the argument again that you should just learn to do it with your off hand to make it easier on yourself. Well I say try to learn something with your off hand and see how easy it is.
As a teenager, I was told it would be impossible to teach me to knit because I was left-handed. I was no less stubborn then than I am now, so I sat at the back of the class and taught myself to knit by mirroring ‘right-handed’ knitting. It was many years before I realised that knitting backwards was all so unnecessary. By then, mirrored knitting had stuck, and it is fine, despite requiring some mental acrobatics to follow complex instructions. So, yes, don’t let anyone tell you that what you are doing is the wrong way to get it done, unless you are doing yourself an injury!
“knitting backwards was all so unnecessary” is all I’m trying to say here! To spare anyone the years you spent discovering that. But whatever is working for you, bravo!!
There’s no way I could ever knit from right to left. N.o.w.a.y! But don’t worry, I’m still a very good knitter, as a matter of fact I would say I am a star considering I have to understand patterns and descriptions “my way”, aka the wrong way for typical right knitters. I’m a hardcore leftie and when I learned I tried both ways but yours was too confusing for me. But you can still learn how to knit. So please don’t say there’s only one direction to knit, because I’m living proof of the opposite. I knit in the “opposite direction”, and I do it damn good and I’m VERY proud of it! Thank you for reading and good day!
That’s awesome.
Oh, I would love to watch you knit. I’m familiar with Continental and English styles and have heard of Portuguese and Cottage so how a knitter tensions the yarn doesn’t faze me but I’m intrigued that you knit from left to right. I did teach a leftie friend how to crochet, having her sit across from me so our dominant hands were making the same motions and it worked. Her style is a bit unorthodox but the fabric she makes is beautiful so we both consider it a success. I’ve seen right-handed knitters make their stitches in such a way that they work them all in the back leg but I figure as long as you’re happy with what comes out and it looks kind of like you intended it to, people should just mind their own business.
I’m one of those knitters who knits and purls through the back leg–learned at nine years old from my Croatian grandmother, who learned how to knit in school in her village. Patty Lyons told me it’s called Western Continental style. I didn’t even realize until a few years ago that it was different for more reasons than carrying the yarn in my left hand. I cast on differently and have different challenges when it comes to creating left and right leaning decreases. I’ve learned brioche, but not how to do it “my way”. I know how to knit the conventional way, which is probably the only way I’ll ever knit brioche, but love the ease of the way I’ve knit for over fifty years that I don’t make the effort. I don’t mean to say I have near the challenges of a left-handed knitter, but just to support the idea that people can make beautiful knit objects doing it different ways. It really is all about knowing how to make the fabric you want to make by knitting. In fact, when I was in college, I realized I was purling wrong, creating a twisted stitch. When I asked my grandmother how to purl properly, she looked at me blankly. It was only when I asked her how to make the knitting smooth (stockinette stitch) that she was able to show me how to purl.
As a leftie and a knitting instructor, I want to chime in here – I don’t believe that knitting stitches off the left needle onto the right is a ‘right-handed’ method of knitting. We lefties are so used to seeing the ‘usual’ way as not ours that we might end up overly sensitive to this. I always offer my students two things: the option to tension the yarn in their left or right hands, as they see fit, *and* a gentle reminder that any new manual skill you take on feels awkward at first, regardless of your handedness. (Again, we lefties are so used to running into things that are awkward for us because of our handedness that we are quicker to jump to that conclusion than that we’re just settling our hands into a new skill.)
For me the major issue is that of direction in pattern writing – all US, UK, and EU knitting patterns assume the beginning of the RS row is to the right of the work, and working L to R sets you up to have to reverse those instructions (or at least be aware that you are coming at things the other way). That’s more than I’d want a newbie knitter to have to think about while they’re learning.
Having said that, I have had students take to the L to R direction of knitting, and if that’s what they strongly prefer, they go off with a good understanding of what’s involved in reading patterns and shaping.
At Churchmouse, where I’ve taught for years, we try to be careful to say “there’s no wrong way to knit, just an understanding of how you’re making stitches – and how to change that up as needed to get the fabric you expect.” Same goes for twisted stitches, alternate wraps/untwists for ‘underside purls,’ etc. Understand what you’re making, how and why it ends up that way – and that understanding can lead to new discoveries, which is always good and empowering!
(Case in point: a student came in confused by the message that ‘the first row after a long-tail cast-on needs to be a purl row’ – she showed me how hers was set up for a knit row… because she held the needle in the left hand and the yarn tails in the right! Genius new tool for my toolbox.
That’s a really good point about knitting feeling wrong and awkward for everyone at first.
This is interesting to me, because I read once (wish I could find the link!) that the reason we mostly knit R to L has nothing to do with which hand is dominant. It is supposedly because knitting originated in Arabia, where reading (a pattern or anything else) is also R to L. So it just sort of made sense to knit the same way. Anyone know if this is true?
I’m a leftie who was taught by a right-handed grandmother who had no use for lefties. I could NOT get the hang of it, until I sat across from her, not next to her. Once I got the hang of the knitting, I worked on how to get comfortable with it. I do everything “properly” except that I wrap the yarn backwards on my purl (just discovered this is what I do LAST WEEK after 40 plus years of being told I do it wrong!) and so on the return row, I knit through the back leg to get it all to come out right. I have always had to think about lace work carefully to know when I need to reseat a stitch, or knit it through the front or back leg to get the effect the designer was looking for. I don’t hold my needles correctly, but I hold them, and I can knit and purl and that is what counts, is it not? But for years I have refused to teach anyone to knit, not wanting to perpetuate my poor style. I will help you all you want once you know how to knit and purl, though. :-) And we won’t talk about how many intarsia things I made that were mirror images of the charts because I did not understand that I cast on “backwards” so was always off one row when it came to starting the pattern.
Lots of knitters (lefties and righties alike) twist their stitches when working one direction and have to untwist by working through the back the opposite direction. It’s apparently a fairly common situation for people who knit continental and find purling difficult — they wind up wrapping the yarn the opposite direction, as you do. And I think this is what “combined” knitters do, and then accommodate for.
interesting… I wonder if I shift to continental, if I will sort myself out?
Yeah, I’m a “combination” knitter, and love it! After you get used to the knits and purls sitting different ways on the needle, it’s actually easier to keep track of what’s going on, at least for me, since I can feel a difference as well as see it.
In any case, I think the most important thing that you and Karen and everyone else said is, “There’s no wrong way to knit, just understand what you’re doing.” Hooray! I tell my students that too.
I just learned last week that I apparently purl the wrong way also! I had never noticed before, but I am just working on my first sweater now (I’ve just tended to knit hats and what not where I’m knitting on circs). The top of the sleeves have all my twisted purl stitches and then where I pick them up to knit the sleeves separate from the body are all nice and smooth because it’s just straight knitting. Sigh.
yes, knitting (and purling) in the round can be very different than back and forth. Do you know what it is you are doing to make them all twisted? I find I have two options – I can either adjust how I wrap the yarn or adjust which leg I knit through. Either way, it takes focus to not fall back into my old habit.
Yes, when I purl, I have been wrapping my yarn clockwise around the needle (bringing it up from under the needle), as opposed to counterclockwise or over the needle. I need to try some swatches of what it looks like to knit through the back leg and see if that is easier to remember than me retraining myself to wrap counterclockwise.
lol I think it is easier to remember to knit the back leg – but each of us is different!
This is an excellent point! I am right handed. I was taught to knit Continental as a kid. At some point, I realized my stockinette wasn’t all that perfect looking. I realized that if I knitted English and purled Continental, I got much better looking Stockinette. This is a good reason to explore each way.
Also, when I really got into two-color knitting years ago, there was no great efficient way to manage two yarns at once. So I forced myself to learn how to knit and purl English, so I could knit with both yarns in two different hands at the same time. It was awkward at first, but it didn’t take long at all to learn and now I can knit both English and Continental with ease and it makes two color knitting a breeze. I even did a video on how I did it here: https://youtu.be/NZLpsRRm4cY
People should explore both ways – it would open up possibilities! Great post.
I didn’t realise I was knitting right handed until about 10 years after I’d learned how to knit 😂 I was taught to ‘throw’ but taught myself continental style later and find that easiest (read: quickest for this impatient knitter 😉). I don’t feel handedness is as important for knitting as it is for crochet. As for casting on and rows being the wrong way etc, I haven’t noticed… I just kind of wing it all anyway! I think the article was very much in the spirit of ‘just do what you do’ and that it wasn’t offensive in the slightest. I guess some people are a bit prickly!
My right handed grandmother taught me how to knit as a kid — she described it as right handed people knit English and lefties knit Continental– the way I knit is definitely close enough that the continental videos online make sense to me, however, I also “throw” the yarn around the needle which feels super inefficient, but it’s like I can’t retrain my muscle memory to do anything else!
That’s what I do too. I hold the yarn in my left hand but definitely throw. And I cannot get the hang of tensioning my yarn around my fingers, but figured that learning how to do that should not be undertaken at the same time as knitting my first sweater…
I am a very left-handed person, and do end up casting on “backwards,” but I simply knit or purl the first row through the back loop to straighten this out. I’m really glad I learned to knit from the left needle to the right, as I am really appreciate the availability of knitting help (videos, etc), and almost all of this info on special techniques is given from someone knitting in the traditional fashion, be it continental or english. I would certainly feel more isolated if I had to transcribe this info myself. I’m sure there are knitters out there who can handle that without issue, but I am not one of them. I encourage left handed people, wanting to learn to knit, to learn “right-handed” or traditionally as I think of it.
Although I am right-handed and I throw, when I teach someone to knit, I tell them it is a two-handed sport and not to think too much about it. I explain that when you do colorwork you will be using both hands anyway, so lets just go for it! I also emphasize no twisting of the stitches above all.
I am predominantly right-handed, and while I am not ambidextrous – I do a few things left-handed (shooting pool and playing guitar, for example). I also knit left-handed! I learned the English way, but COULD NOT work it out for the life of me. My stitches were so tight and dense, my little swatch felt like armor haha. A friend taught me the Continental way and it just clicked. I do have a former background in crochet, and you hold the yarn the same way as you do with left-handed knitting. I have taught several right-handed folks how to knit left-handed. Honestly, I had no idea there was a right or left way of knitting until recently – to me, it’s all about what feels most comfortable in your hands!
L, you just mean that you hold your yarn in your left hand, right? So you knit Continental, not “left-handed.” The work is traveling in the traditional direction (from left needle to right).
I’m right handed, but apparently I knit left handed because I was taught by someone who only barely knew how to knit herself! I like my method, it’s fast and makes sense to me, and the result is the same. Funny enough, my mom is left handed, but was taught to knit right handed by her mother. She hadn’t knit since she was a kid until I started, and we really struggled one Christmas trying to figure out the purl stitch from a diagram with our different styles! We’re both fairly proficient now–all’s well that ends well!
I always knitted Continental, but a couple of years ago learned Portuguese knitting because it is easier on my hands–I have developed arthritis and knitting was becoming painful. Rather than give up knitting (and sewing, and…and…) I found this method allows me to knit for hours. It was a bit of a leap at first–purling is basically the same as Continental, but knitting was something altogether different, requiring the knitting to be done at the front of the work. I’m still searching for more ways to make sewing easier though!
This is such an interesting topic. I am a rightie, but my mother is a leftie, and when she wanted to learn to knit I took some time to think about this very topic. In the end, I decided to teach her from a right handed point of view for two reasons 1.) she wasn’t really going to know the difference. If she knows only what she is being taught (in regards to what direction she knits), then that is what she knows. As for how she holds her yarn, we talked about the many options and then she fiddled with the varies ways until she felt most comfortable and that was that. 2.) Since I was going to be her main body of support, I needed to control the variables, by not having to learn a left hand version (if there is one) just to teach my mom how to knit. Interestingly enough, its never been an issue.
I would agree with the comment above about left handed people generally seeing tasks from a right handed dominated world as not “being their way”, but with knitting I don’t think it necessarily should be viewed from that prospective. As our knitting experiences grow, we ALL tend to make style adjustments as we learn new things.
A workshop teacher jumped right in and taught me how to knit continental when she noticed that I write with my left hand. After years of awkward English knitting it was LIFE CHANGING.
I’m left-handed and I am a thrower – I hold the yarn in my right hand, and almost all of the work is done with the right hand. For me, the big differences between my knitting and a right-handed knitter is the cast on and picking up stitches: once I’ve picked up along an edge my next row is a knit row, not a purl row. After decades of knitting, I just instinctively make the changes in a pattern I need to adjust. I didn’t find anything objectionable in your comments, Karen. As I see it, you were just encouraging everyone to keep at it and find whatever works for them. There is not, nor should there be, a ‘knitting police’. I think the main thing that is needed is an ability to read your stitches; however you manage to knit the stitch, you need to be able to see how it “sits” on the needle and get it where it needs to be.
There’s value in learning to knit with both hands. As a teacher of stranded knitting (fair isle), the first step in my classes is to teach knitters how to knit with their opposite hand. Two-handed fair isle is much easier to do for most beginners than manipulating both strands in one hand, either right or left. I use both methods, depending on the project. The more tools in your knitting toolbox, the better prepared you are to make choices!
I’m left-handed but I knit right-handed. I learned when I was really young from my rightie mom and it feels completely natural to me. Learning to knit may feel completely awkward regardless of which hand is dominate so I suggest you might as well learn it right-handed. That way all (most) instructions and photographic how-tos will make sense and you won’t have to reverse them in your head.
I’m a lefty and I knit mirrored (and combined, but that’s a whole other story). I have to admit, I’m a bit contrarian so a lifetime of bumping elbows with people at dinner, having to look over the edge of my scissors and cutting wonky slices of bread made me really want to rock the left-handed knitting thing.
I definitely think being left-handed/mirror knitter actually helped my knitting though, if only because it made me research, think a lot about what I’m doing, and learn to read my knitting very really early on.
I’ve taught some righties to knit (right-handedly, of course) but no lefties yet, and if I ever have the chance, I’d definitely teach both directions just in case the right-handed way clicks. It might not though (for me it definitely didn’t), handedness isn’t the same for everyone. Who knows, maybe there’s a righty out there who gave up on knitting and might have just managed to stick with it if only they’d tried knitting left-handed ;)
I’m another strong leftie who was declared unteachable by my rightie mother. I learnt to knit two years ago ( right handed continental) mainly by using YouTube tutorials. I watch them multiple times to process what is happening and although my movements are usually quite different I end up with the same result. I’m wondering however, if my left handed ness is what makes the long tailed cast on a complete mystery to me, no matter how many times I try.
I have noticed, however, that in other areas of my life my right hand is becoming more useful to me. It’s less of a challenge to use right handed tools than it used to be and I’m pretty sure it’s connected to the knitting. Knitting and crochet has long been acknowledged as good occupational therapy but could it help build neural pathways? Perhaps righties should start knitting left handed to help protect their brains!
This discussion is so interesting — thanks! Funny: as a right handed person who knits Englishly, I’m always impressed by how much my left hand is doing to create and control stitches in the flow of a row. Maybe that’s why knitting is so important to me — it makes my body feel whole, and wholly connected. And sometimes I’m grateful to be reminded of how much effort goes into an act becoming effortless.
I’m left-handed but I’m generally considered ambidextrous – I do more things right-handedly than left-handedly. I definitely believe that left-handed people can become very strong knitters, no matter where they fall on the spectrum, because we use a different part of the brain. As many have said, it can make for a stronger and more creative knitter – though all the knitting styles are equally amazing, IMO. I’ve never tried to knit left-handedly (and by that I mean “backwards” not Continental which is as 2-handed as any other form of “right dominant” knitting) because I don’t have enough time in the day! I just do what works (flicking – right handed knitting which isn’t done by throwing. It’s more ergonomic than throwing, and faster). Admittedly, I had to teach myself to flick – I was a thrower – and that was HARD. But it came to me with practice. I have a less dextrous left hand, even as my brain wants to do certain things left-handedly. So I could really improve how my brain works, and my dexterity, if I learned to knit in the opposite direction. I’m still trying to figure out how to do Continental without my stitches looking amateur! One thing at a time :-)
Hey Karen, interesting subject to tackle here (and I have to admit I haven’t read through all the comments), but I recently encountered a left-handed knitter working on one of my patterns in person. She was having trouble learning the stitch pattern. It was so wild watching over her shoulder, I had her hold up her knitting so that I could watch what she was doing facing her (like looking in a mirror). It was magical. It was like I was watching myself knitting. This is somewhat oversimplifying it, but perhaps a leftie knitter could watch a righty knitter in the same manner (looking directly at them rather than over their shoulder so to speak) to see how the motion of the needle and yarn would go. Granted, they would have to only be paying attention to the motions of the needle/yarn, not the fabric being created (since it’s facing opposite side of the work), but it could be worth trying. :)
I don’t think you realise how two handed knitting is until you teach it – then you have to think about what you’re doing and I discovered that my left hand was probably more active than my right (I’m right handed) – my right hand flicks the yarn but the left hand facilitates the stitch making. It occurs to me that if you could learn to knit left-handed-ly then you could do short lengths of straight knitting (bands, scarfs etc) without turning your work (& of course if you’re left handed, the same applies)
I’m a leftie to whom it never occurred that there might be a “handedness” to knitting (I knit as an English “thrower,” though I’d love to learn to get even tension as a continental knitter). My grandmother taught me to knit when I was small, and then I picked it up again in high school, and never at any juncture did my handedness even come up. For me, and for the women who taught and re-taught me, knitting was all about making something with your hands — both of them. Any awkwardness, clumsiness, or uneven results were never chalked up to my handedness, but rather being a newbie.
As a leftie, I’ll just say that I don’t think you’re showing your right-handed privilege here at all :) I throw yarn with my right hand, except when I’m doing stranded colorwork, when I hold one color in each hand (unless it’s Bohus, when I hold two in one hand – usually my left – and one in the other). I’ve always found throwing easier. Like a lot of lefties I know, I’m actually fairly ambidextrous (and I grew up playing piano – another two-handed endeavor), so it really didn’t ever seem to me like knitting was “handed” one way or the other…
Oh Karen, I just wanted to offer another comment of encouragement. I didn’t read your post as privileged or offensive. Some people are way too sensitive, I think. (Sorry guys, but I do think that.)
I’m left-handed and do pretty much everything left-handed, except for the tasks that don’t make sense. Scissors, because when I was a kid I wasn’t given left-handed scissors, so why on earth would I have learned to use them… most power tools, because the buttons are only ever on one side, making things like circular saws not particularly safe to use unless you’re right-handed…. most electronic kitchen tools, etc. It’s really not the end of the world and I’ve always felt that once you get over the perceived slight of not having products made in a way that makes them ambidextrous, you just learn to use them however works for you. If that happens to involve the right hand, that’s fine with me. (I do love the idea that someone else had about ambidexterity helping brain function!)
When I learned to knit, I just figured it out. I had no one to teach me in person, the internet was still young, I followed no knitting or crafting blogs and YouTube definitely wasn’t a tool that existed yet. I taught myself based on library books and logic, so I know that my technique is a little weird, though I’ve never given it much thought as to why. But who cares? I made 5 sweaters this winter and I’m proud of that!
Using this post, I finally realized that I do knit “right-handed,” though I definitely have both hands in motion while knitting… and apparently I do some kind of Continental-ish picking rather than throwing. It’s been noted at craft knight that I move my fingers a lot more than some knitters, but I haven’t been able to figure out exactly what it is that I do. The long and the short of it is I learned how to construct fabric in a way that made sense to me, which is kind of the whole point, right? (:
I am left-handed, and I’m not in the least sent into a tirade by your post. I agree with you as well as the lefties who have commented. We lefties often get stuck with the tough end of things, as the world is simply not designed for us (speaking as someone once wrongly accused by a university professor of cheating on an exam because I leaned awkwardly over the right-handed desks). However, we are an adaptable lot too. The woman who taught me to knit simply taught me to knit, and I think my desire to have a tantrum and throw the needles across the room was fairly normal for learning a new skill as an adult. Only months later did she see me writing a note and agonized that there was no way she would have taught me if she had known I was/am left-handed. I don’t think either-handedness should encourage or discourage anyone from trying anything they want to learn. Find a way that works for you, no?