I am forming a knitting circle in our area and a lefty has asked to teach her to knit. Any help or advice?

Thanks,
Penny
chattypenny@yahoo.com

I think a person who is left-handed could either knit continental (holding the yarn in the left hand) or else knit the opposite of a right-handed knitter. In other words, the person learning could sit across from you, giving her a mirror-image, and she could mimic you. Or, she could always learn to hold the yarn in the right hand; it'd be like a right-handed person learning to knit continental. At least, that's the way I see it.

Like a lot of knitters, when I knit Fair Isle, I knit left- and right-handed at the same time. Do you? If not, give it a try and I think you'll find it comes easily. Then you'll know how to teach your friend!

Incidentally, I have a right-handed friend who thought she knitted continental. One day another acquaintance who does knit continental-style observed her knitting and asked what she called the style she was using. The question confused her, as you can imagine, so she asked me to watch her knit and explain what she was doing. Turns out she knits left-handed English style.:-)

I found that learning to knit off the right hand needle, thus knitting left handed, myself helped a lot. I've started a couple of lefties with knitting in the past year. I do a modified continental style and find that it was really awkward for a short time but I picked it up pretty quickly. I was used to using both hands for fair isle as Peggy says. It's really a convenient skill to know for doing such things as bobbles and entrelac. I'm still not very good at purling that way, but on the other hand I haven't done it very much.

I have successfully taught 'lefties' to knit 'righty'. The biggest problem they've had, after the fear of totally screwing up, is wrapping the yarn the wrong way. Good luck!

The answer is very simple. You need a large mirror. I have taught raw beginners who felt they needed to work left handed, and indeed a left-handed knitting friend of mine taught right-handers in the same way. Sit with your back to the mirror and hold your work slightly to one side so they can look over your shoulder to copy the action in the normal way, but mirror version. Just take care when you pick up their work for the inevitable dropped stitch procedure.

I am now going to search back through my pre-digital prints to find the photograph of my left-handed knitting friend successfully teaching a right-handed 9-year-old boy in cub-scout uniform in front of the mirror.

Best wishes, John