A step-by-step tutorial on how to knit backwards the continental way. Everything you need to know about reverse knitting to avoid purling & turning your work.
Do you want to learn how to knit in the opposite direction? Do you hate purling or turning your work around all the time? Then this tutorial is perfect for you because I’m going to show you everything you need to know about knitting backwards the continental way.
What is reverse knitting and when should you use it?
Backwards or reverse knitting (sometimes also mirror knitting) is an ingenious method that allows you to knit from left to right. Instead of using the right needle as the working needle, one knits from left to right using the left needle to create stitches. By combining this technique with regular knitting, a knitter can avoid turning around the work or purling while still creating the exact same fabric. This can be a vital and time-saving skill when knitting entrelac, bobble stitch, or short rows.
It should not be confused with reverse garter stitch or reverse stockinette stitch. While these knitting stitch patterns also make use of the fact that knit and purl stitches are mirror-inverted copies, they are NOT created by knitting in the opposite direction. Here’s a post that explores the differences between reverse garter stitch and stockinette stitch.
This tutorial is all about the continental way to knit backwards. I wasn’t all that satisfied with the methods I was taught years and years ago, so I kind of developed my own tweaks to make it much smoother (in my opinion).
Let’s dive right into it and show you how to do it!
Note: I earn a small commission for purchases made through links in this article.
How to knit backwards
When knitting backwards, you hold the needles and the yarn in the exact same way. You also enter the stitches in the same way. The only difference is that you work from the other side.
Instructions
- Hold the needles like you normally would. The yarn needs to be in the back.
- Insert your left needle into the back of the first stitch on the right needle from left to right.
- Use your right hand to wrap the working yarn around the left needle counter-clockwise.
- Pass the stitch over the working yarn wrapped around the needle using the right needle, and drop the stitch off the left needle.
- Slide the finished stitch to the middle of the needle making sure it's not too tight. You can also pull it out a bit if you are otherwise a loose knitter.
- Repeat steps 2-5 to knit backwards.
Notes
Instead of wrapping the yarn around with your right hand, you can also flick the left needle towards the middle and then do the wrapping with the index finger. This will take quite a lot more practice but can be a viable option.
Some tutorials will also show you how to knit backwards by wrapping the yarn around the needle clockwise.
And then, you can simply pull the extra yarn through instead off passing the stitch over. This will result in a twisted stitch but it can be easier to pull the yarn through. You have to knit all the stitches through the back loop in the next row, though.
How to purl backwards the continental way
You can also purl in the other direction. It’s actually almost as easy (and one could say even easier than the regular continental purl stitch). The only difference is the way you hold the yarn and the way you insert your needles into the stitch.
Step 1: Start with the yarn in front.
Step 2: Insert your left needle into the first stitch on the right needle coming from behind.
Step 3: Wrap the working yarn around the needle counter-clockwise using your right hand.
Step 4: Pass the stitch over the yarn using the right needle (so towards the front), and drop it off the left needle.
It’s really just as simple. If you combine these two techniques, you could even knit a 2×2 rib stitch backwards.
I have a more detailed tutorial on reverse purling here.
Reverse knitting more complicated stitches
Advanced crafters might also ask if you can increase or decrease while doing backwards knitting. Of course, you can! It’s a bit more difficult to handle as you will have to translate all stitches, though. So, if your pattern tells you to p2tog two stitches on the wrong side, you have to find the right-leaning knit equivalent for the right side. This would be a k2tog.
If you stick to the simple mantra: Just do everything with your left needle you would have done with your right needle, you should be able to reverse engineer most knitting increases as well.
Let’s show you k2tog for good measure.
Step 1: Insert your left needle into the first two stitches on the right needle from left to right with yarn held in back.
Step 2: Wrap the yarn around counter-clockwise.
Step 3: Pass the two stitches over the yarn at the same time and drop them off the left needle.
It’s a bit like double-knitting. Once you understand what you are actually doing there, it’s very easy to adapt the technique to knit more complicated things as well. The key to backwards knitting really is realizing that everything you usually do with your right needle, you now have to do with your left needle.
Anyway, that’s how to knit backwards. Comment below, if you still have any questions!
I have no idea why this blew my mind… there are people teaching this technique as “left-handed” knitting. I still maintain knitting is ambidextrous as you use both needles, but I digress. I never thought to use it to knit backwards, and had never heard the term! I’d heard of tinking, but that just undoes your work. Thank you for always offering such great tutorials, Norman.
My grandmother, who taught me to knit when I was very small, had stopped knitting due to age and arthritis, and lived around 850 km away (before easy video chatting) by the time I decided to progress beyond basic stockinette or garter stitch potholders and scarves, so I never got to learn more from her. I’ve learned everything I know from either doing, or books, or some YouTube, but your content is like having a mentor there. You’ve created an outstanding resource for knitters of all abilities that is invaluable to people like me.
I hold my yarn in my left hand, and knit into the back of the stitches. It allows you to not use any right handling of the stitches, and the needle just goes under the yarn and the stitch is made. I am left handed and arthritic, I can knit faster and more error eliminating than any of my contemporaries.
I love this. I have tried backwards knitting and made a big mess of it. Do you think this would work for colorwork if you don’t want to steek?
I’m so happy I opened this post. I have trouble keeping gauge when I purl so this will be so much help. Thank you.
I’m knitting a blanket for the local charity and as I’ve been doing the edge trim I’ve hd to turn the work – and the blankets are big. So turning the work has been an effort and time consuming.
I was so excited to read this blog, since it means I no longer have to turn the blankets to change direction. Thank-you so much. I can hardly wait until this evening (my knit time) to try it out!!
do try it. But remember that it takes practise to get a consistent gauge with this!
Thank you so much for showing this!!! I cannot wait to try it 🙂
I’m just learning to knit with needles. I usually loom knit.
I thought this was the normal way to knit because this is how it’s done on looms. I didn’t understand why people would turn their work.
Hello: I knit backwards when making Christmas stockings. I can’t figure out the best way to slip a stitch at the beginning of a knit backward row. Can you please help? TIA! Marci
I am not quite sure where the problem is? you enter the needle and lift it over without knitting. That being said, if you are knitting flat and then you are seaming, I would actually recommend not using a selvage. The seam will look better, in my experience, without a selvage.
I’m using a pattern that calls for ‘Inverted Purl Stitch”, that I’m to do across the row, is this also called backwards or reverse knitting……
Confused, Dot
Well, it probably revers to knitting backwards. Look that up. You can knit in the other direction instead of purling. This might be easier and definitely means you don’t have to turn the work around. I typically don’t do that but some people enjoy it.
Salley
December 1, 2023 at 9:07 pm
Hey, Norman. thanks for your tutorials! I am left handed and consequently when learning to knit, it seemed natural to simply do a mirror image of what the instructor was doing as that is what I have had to do all my life in every endeavor. I wanted to do continental, so I do reverse continental, but not the type of “mirror knitting” that reverses direction every row.
Consequently, I really can’t usually follow patterns. This has caused me to have to create my own, which is fine as I’m something of an “artist” knitter and like being creative, but
sometimes I really would like to re-create a pattern. Years ago I saw an article by a woman who had translated all the conventional knitting stitches into their reverse– like
K2tog becomes SSK (or whatever). Unfortunately, I didn’t make a copy of this list and have never found it again. Have you ever heard of such a thing or know where to find it?
I appreciate your help! Salley in Atlanta
Hm..no sorry. Much to my shame, I am somewhat blind to the world of lefty knitting. I’m sure there is something like that!
When learning to knit, as a very young child with ADHD, I missed the part of my Grandma’s instructions that involved turning the work. As a result I taught myself to knit in this style, backwards and forwards, with the needles remaining in the same hand.
Unfortunately I WAS following Grandma’s instructions for stockinette stitch: knit for one row, purl for the next. This led to great confusion when I later asked how to tell the difference between the “right side” and the “wrong side”. (My solution was to write an ‘R’ and an ‘L’ on the right and left needles, respectively, which did solve the problem.) My poor Grandma did not understand how I could possibly be following her instructions properly since my knitting resulted in garter stitch! 🤣
Eventually I realised the issue (at least 10 years after Grandma first taught me!!) while watching a tutorial online! Whilst this ‘mistake’ of mine did come in hand when trying to teach a stubborn left handed 8 year old to Knit Left Handed (which my Grandma thought was a ridiculous request as, to her mind, knitting is ambidextrous), I since spent the last 10 years thinking that I was in the wrong!
Now I learn that it IS a Thing! Hooray!! I will have to choose a planned project to re-teach myself backwards knitting!! 🎉
AMAZING – perfect! Continental is easier on my shoulder but I haye the purling –
THANK YOU!
this was very useful and cool! i hate purling and avoid it as much as possible
a little thing i noticed:
i found that the last stitch on the wrong side row (if that term makes sense in this specific context – the last stitch on the right side) got even more elongated than it usually does.
so instead of knitting it backwards, i began slipping it from the right to the left needle, then did a yarn-over on the left needle, and then i pulled the slipped stitch over the yarn-over.
done! and simply continue knitting the right side row normally.
I use this a lot when knitting cardigans. I also have the yarn on my right hand finger to really mirror and speed up the reverse knitting. It’s just a practice thing to do this if someone wants to try.
The one thing that I really struggle with while reverse knitting is how to increase correctly. What would the different increases be like in reverse knitting? Especially the LLI and the LRI ones.
I don’t really understand your question. you knit them in the exact same way? i mean, you lift the strands back to the knitting needle and then you knit them accordingly – the direction won’t change that.
Thank you! I tried it last night and had no idea how easy it was to knit backwards – it was perfect for making the flap of an afterthought pocket so I didn’t have to keep flipping a finished sweater back and forth in my lap. I was giddy with excitement – seriously! Thank you for such an easy to understand tutorial.
Isn’t this just basically switching to a form of left handed throwing? I guess, if you really can’t manage to wrap your head around steering the yarn tension with your left hand, it is a solution, but the straightforward way to work with the same side of the work in front of you is to teach yourself righthanded and lefthanded knitting, both. It’s not actually that hard – also easier the less you’ve gotten used to the first way you do it but even later in life it’s not much harder than sorting out the mirroring in the brain of making a reef knot. For colourwork the master protip is to learn both a picked and throwing method both ways.
Mind you, it’s also a really really useful lesson to hunker down and learn how do purled stranded work so learning advanced skills just to avoid purling rather than practicing ’till you get good is a quick fix that will limit the kind of knitting you csn do in the long run. You’ll want it once you really get into intarsia at the latest because it’s much easier to make sure floats and locks lie perfect at the right tension when you can actually see them form. There might even come a day if you’re among the wildly adventurous where the only solution for the day is to wrap your head around the lefthanded purling both ways too and I can tell you, it’s a really freeing feeling when you can just go in either direction freely as needed with colours in both hands no matter what side you have facing you.
H Norman,
I’ve been learning to mirror knit (English flick, but your explanations are still very helpful!) and I see you mention this can be applied for short rows.
Usually in a pattern for short rows there is some instruction along the lines of a slip stitch/wrap/turn. Because you don’t turn the work for mirror knitting, how is best to create clean short rows? Do you just skip the stitch and change knitting direction? Is there something else needed to keep the work clean?
Thanks!!
that entirely depends on the kind of short rows you are knitting. but in the case of German short rows, yes you just change knitting direction but you will have to pull down in the other direction to create your double stitch.
For Wrap and turn, you still slip and wrap…but again, in the other direction. But essentially, you are following the exact same steps (just fom the right side)