There Is No Wrong Way To Knit! - Teacher Tips

As a knitting instructor, I can tell you that I love watching people knit. I'm fascinated by the way each person holds the yarn on their fingers. I look to see if they knit into the back of their stitches or into the front. How do they hold their needles? Do they always look at their knitting or sometimes do it by feel?

Many students come into my shop saying that they just couldn't get knitting when they were a child. In a lot of cases I find students that are left-handed had a right-handed instructor. Or, there's the right handed person that first learned to crochet, so they couldn't understand how to hold yarn in their right hand.

If you are a knitting instructor, I suggest that you learn both the Continental/picking and American/throwing methods. This way, you can let the new knitter take you where they need to go, holding the yarn in whichever hand feels most comfortable to them.

What about the combined knitter? In some countries, mostly Eastern countries, the knitter first twists the stitch and then twists it back the next row. Yes, this is correct as well. Most knitting patterns are written for Western knitters. Each pattern can be "converted" to suit the needs of any knitter.

What about the left handed knitter that knits into the stitches on the right needle? They are correct as well. They have to reverse patterns, but they do knit correctly.

So, I'm here to tell you that there is no wrong way to knit. As Amy, one of our instructors said the other day,"If you like how you knit and it makes the fabric that you want and somehow your stitching is holding together, it's knitting."

Now stop worrying about how you're knitting, grab a cup of tea and a project and get to it.

Love, Nicholette