Every now and again I get to actually get on the computer for more then 5 minutes and I have come across some fantastic FREE knit patterns I wanted to share with you. Many of you have seen these wonderful 15 inch dolls Heart For Hearts Girls. I stumbled on this free pattern and had to share it for those of you who may be thinking ahead for the holidays as I have.
Click here for the link to abc-knitting-patterns. I know some of you amazing knitters out there could make this work for a 6 inch or an 18 inch doll as well.
If you are like me and beginner is more your style check out this wonderful doll scarf you can make for the doll lover in your life. Click here for the free pattern!
I also loved this Doll Dress and if you choose to make it in all one color it would be equally darling!
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| Lefty knitting tips, click here |
Knitting is something I have been in awe of for so long and this year I have really worked on becoming more comfortable in my basic abilities. If knitting is something you aspire to pick up or you have been knitting for years I would love to hear your thoughts on the fun and free patterns above and any tips you may have for this left handed knitter!
As with all my posts I would love to hear from you so please leave me a comment here or email me at karenmowen@gmail.com
My daughter is also left-handed, and I wasn't sure how best to teach her to knit. I showed her how I do it, both looking over my shoulder and in front of me (reversed). I was quite surprised that she settled on knitting pretty much right-handed because there has never been a doubt that she was completely and totally left-handed. I guess what I'm saying is, go with whatever feels natural to you. (My daughter is seven, so the fact that she's very young may make things a little easier for her to switch her dominant hand when knitting.)
ReplyDeleteI also love that red cape, BTW, and have had it in my queue in Ravelry for awhile now. I may just make it for Christmas this year.
I am also a left handed knitter. It took years of trial and error to finally learn how to knit which happened before the internet videos available now.
ReplyDeleteOne thing to keep in mind when following a pattern is remembering you are knitting the opposite direction from the written pattern. If you follow the instructions for the right front of a sweater you actually are making the left front and vise versa. That means the button band will be on the 'wrong' side if you don't make a note of that before you get to those instructions - I've made lots of 'backwards' button bands because I forgot to mark my pattern and then didn't want to rip out rows after remembering.
Also once you get confident with your knitting and want to do cables or a more complicated stitch you need to figure out which way the stitches should slant - to the right or to the left because when you follow the way the pattern is written you will have your stitches slant the 'wrong' way. It just takes some planning before knitting to mark where you want to adjust your choice of stitch so you get the correct slant. There is even a little tutorial on abc-knitting-patterns about making stitches under the round yoke dress pattern which shows the different slants of stitches depending on how you knit - look at it to understand what I am saying.
After 16 years of saying I can't do cables or complicated patterns I am finally making a cabled sweater - for my doll! It is a smaller project than making one for me but it has slants in both directions so I had to make notes beforehand and highlight areas where I need to 'change' things.
Keep knitting (and crocheting), don't get frustrated - take a tea break if things get 'tangled'. And please don't cop out and learn to 'knit the proper way' (ie righthanded) as I was told to do years ago when I asked for help - you can do it just as well as a lefty and when the project is finished there is no way to tell if it was knitted left or right handed.