On a recent episode of the VeryPink Knits podcast (Episode #317 – WWEZD?), Polly and Staci answered a listener question about what to consider when using knitting patterns for left-handed “mirror knitting.” Given that I’ve made creating patterns that work for both right- and left-handed knitters a priority in the past few years, I was intrigued by their response—and heartbroken at the questioner’s lament that there aren’t more resources for left-handed knitters.

I have to confess, as a righty myself, it broke my brain a bit when I started considering the implications of writing patterns that would work for either hand dominance. And I’m definitely still on a journey of figuring out the best way to make that happen. But after listening to that episode, I had a breakthrough about something that’s stumped me from the start: how to indicate directional increases in an efficient way that doesn’t rely on the directional terms left and right (e.g., M1L or M1R).

But before I get into my solution, let’s discuss the scope of the problem. In case you, like me and the majority of knitters, are right-handed and have never considered the impact that being left-handed might have on how you work up a pattern, let’s review what lefties have to deal with pretty much every time they download a new pattern—aka, “why my brain broke.”

Blog post title pin. — Better Patterns for Left-Handed Knitters. It’s time for more inclusive language for ALL knitters. Join the revolution!

The Right-Handedness of Knitting Patterns and Techniques

As already mentioned, knitting patterns are often rife with instructions that assume you are knitting right-handed. This includes not only directional stitches, but even the way most knitting techniques are described.

For instance, we often talk about right and left needles, stitches, and, of course, hands, not considering that to someone left-handed, they will have to transpose those directions in their mind to make them make sense.

If a pattern is symmetrical, a left-handed knitter could simply “mirror” every direction in the pattern with no dire consequences. For instance, if you’re knitting in the opposite direction of a righty, working a M1R every time a M1L is called for (which would use the same basic instruction as a righty would use for M1L, you’re just working the opposite way so it’s leaning right instead of left) would maybe mess with your head a little, but the result would be a knitted item that looks just like a righty would make. However, there is still the mental burden of transposition.

I’m a pianist and composer by training, and I can tell you that transposing musical keys on the fly can be less complicated than trying to transpose a knitting pattern, especially if the design is not symmetrical or relies heavily on directional stitches or techniques for surface textures or shaping.

If the pattern includes directional increases or cables (as many patterns do), before mirroring all those lefts and rights, the knitter has to think about how it will affect the overall structure and design of the item. Not every pattern can be mirrored equally.

“Before mirroring all those lefts and rights, the knitter has to think about how it will affect the overall structure and design of the item. Not every pattern can be mirrored equally.”

None of my current designs are asymmetrical (unless you count the offset thumbs on my gloves and mittens, but the designs are symmetrical between hands), so I haven’t had to figure out how to conquer that particular mountain of “asymmetrical design” just yet. But I use cables and directional stitches a lot.

The first design I worked on after I started considering the left-handed knitting experience was the Trailfinder Hat. It has so. many. directional stitches. And that’s when I realized I’d found a yarn snarl that would take some time to unravel.

That was several years ago. Over time, I’ve started to figure out ways to communicate knitting terms and stitches without using directional language.

For anyone who has downloaded one of my newer patterns (released or updated within the past two years), you’ll have seen me switch to terms like leading and trailing stitch, working and non-working needle, and dominant and non-dominant hand when explaining or describing knitting techniques such as stitch creation. (I explain these terms fully on my Glossary and Terms page and use these terms in all of my stitch tutorials.) However, I was still stumped by how to address those directional stitches within the pattern itself.

“It’s not fair to place an undue burden of understanding on the ten percent of knitters who are left-hand dominant. Wouldn’t it be better for all of us to find language that would allow each of us to easily work from any pattern we read?”

I’m going to be honest—as I was thinking about how to resolve this, I was already nervous about how my non-traditional technique descriptions may potentially be confusing to knitters. And I wasn’t so sure I wanted to upset the entire apple cart by inventing brand-new abbreviations and terms for the stitches themselves.

But, after listening to that left-handed knitter’s question, I realized that it was time to do it. After all, knitters as a whole are a smart, savvy group, and it’s not fair to place an undue burden of understanding on the ten percent of us who are left-hand dominant. Wouldn’t it be better for all of us to find language that would allow each of us to easily work from any pattern we read?

So, last week, I took the plunge.

Inventing Universal Knitting Terms

Here’s my simple, revolutionary solution: Replace all directional stitch language with terms that refer to dominant or non-dominant hands.

In practice, this looks like this:

Increases

M1L (Make One Left) becomes M1N (Make One Non-Dominant). For Righties, this will continue to lean left. For lefties, it will lean right, and they won’t have to think so hard about that transposition (and neither will designers trying to keep their experience in mind).

M1R (Make One Right) becomes M1D (Make One Dominant).

Other increases aren’t usually described in directional terms, but if they are, the same principle would apply. E.g., the lean on bar increases that are being described with the directional terms BincL and BincR (instead of kfb and whatever the other one is otherwise called) would become BincN and BincD.

Cables

The same concept would apply to cables. Instead of 2 / 2 LC for a two-over-two left-cross cable, you would use 2 / 2 NC for a two-over-two non-dominant cross, etc.

So, basically, anywhere L or R appear in traditional knitting abbreviations, I will be substituting N and D. These terms will be fully explained in my glossaries, as always.

Since most knitters are very used to checking glossaries to make sure the abbreviations used in the pattern have the definitions they’re familiar with, I’m confident this will be fairly easy for knitters of my patterns to interpret.

When Lefties Must Still Think Twice

While adopting these new terms will resolve a lot of the tension and obstacles for left-handed knitters for many knitting patterns, it won’t resolve every issue.

“For the vast majority of everyday knitting situations, the simple change of replacing ‘left’ and ‘right’ with ‘non-dominant’ and ‘dominant’ in knitting instructions will resolve the transposition issue for left-handed mirror knitters.”

Asymmetrical garments or stitch patterns will still require some thought to reverse construction if the knitter wants to duplicate the original exactly instead of creating a mirrored version. And, due to tradition, plackets and button bands overlap in different directions based on the gender of the person it’s being made for.

Both of these situations will still require the pattern to be modified to produce the desired results. I’ll continue to give these problems some thought.

However, for the vast majority of everyday knitting situations, this simple change of replacing left and right with non-dominant and dominant (as well as the other adaptations I’ve already made) in knitting instructions will resolve the transposition issue.

Small Changes Matter

Do I expect this to start a complete revolution in the knitting world? No. I’m not a well-known designer, and the knitting-verse is already a vast and varied patchwork of traditions and terms that have yet to receive universal adoption. However, if you or someone you know is a left-handed knitter who has struggled to find patterns that make sense to you, I hope you will find my small contribution to the canon helpful and refreshing.

At the moment, the only pattern I’ve updated to include this new concept is the Just Plain Gloves. However, I’ll be working through the rest of my catalogue (and any relevant stitch tutorials) as quickly as I can. (The Trailfinder Hat will be high on the priority list—I’m not so sure I did a great job with making it hand ambiguous when I first created it.)

I would love to hear your thoughts about this shift. Do you think it’s going to be too complicated to adapt to, or is this the solution you’ve been praying some designer would think of for years? Let me know in the comments.

And if there’s a particular struggle you’ve been trying to address for your situation, please comment below or send me a message through my contact form.