I'm a lefty. My grandmother taught me to knit when I was very young. Being married to a lefty, she must have empathized for my future self and taught me to knit left-handed. She had the best intentions, but how wrong she was to teach me this way.
I'm an adaptable person. I could have learned to knit the normal way, but for some reason, I knit in reverse. Take everything you know about knitting and make it backwards -- that's me. So when a pattern tells you to take three stitches from the left needle and transfer them to a cable needle, I have to automatically switch it to read, "take three stitches from the right needle..."
Usually this isn't a big problem. The only obstacle I've come across is when I made my Norwegian snowflake mittens and I had to follow an intricate chart. Figuring out where the thumbhole went and whether to ssk or k2tog proved tricky.
Recently, I made a headband using a seed stitch. This stitch takes me forever to make and I expressed this to a local shop owner/knitter who was admiring my work. She balked and said it's because I'm throwing my yarn, not picking it. I'm knitting English method, not Continental. If I were picking my yarn it would go by so much faster! This irked me a little. I couldn't shake it.
This was about two weeks ago, and since then I've received dozens of comments on this headband. So I decided to look into the two methods and figure out exactly what I'm doing. Turns out I'm some sort of hybrid knitter. I knit Continental method, but I wrap the yarn instead of pick.
What I need to learn is how to actually knit Continental. Then I can churn out these headbands. I have no idea why I learned to knit this way, but it would have been a hell of a lot easier if Grandma just taught me how to knit her way.
Lefties have their rights too!
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