How do I teach crochet to a left handed person?
In knitting, it helped me to learn how to do it left handed because it means never having to “turn” my work. In other words, my work is always facing right side out, and I never have to worry about twisting my yarn because I never flip it around. This is especially helpful for the more complicated patterns that read better right side out. In crochet, most patterns don’t seem get easier when you don’t have to turn them, but then again, it’s always the edges and the beginnings and ends of new rows that seem to be the easiest to make the worst mistakes on. I would try to learn how to work left handed on behalf of the left handed student, possibly outside of class, just to see if it’s possible or makes things easier. You never know. It’s nice to know if you’re ambidextrous, anyway.
I’m left handed and can crochet. I hold the hook in my right hand. (Some hold it in the left, there are degrees of left handedness.)The thing to do with a left hander is this: just show them the way you do it and let them watch. They may try in the way that doesn’t suit them first, but leave them alone for a bit and they’ll work it out for themselves! The mistake people make with us ‘lefties’ is that you need to go to a lot of trouble to teach us anything practical. Not so. The left handed brain has a different way of processing information than right handers and is perfectly capable of doing a mirror image thing to make it all simple. I learned to play the guitar left handed, but I did it with charts meant for a right handed player. I worked out which bits related to which finger etc and my brain ever after can do it from an unfamilar chart and I’m not aware of it. Its like reading something upside down (We’re good at that as well!) Same with knitting and crochet. Don’t worry, just sh
