Best Crochet Hooks for Left-Handed Crocheters

Start with what is not the problem

A crochet hook is a rod with a hook cut into one end. There is no bevel, no asymmetric handle and no directional grind. Rotate it and it is identical.

This matters because a lot of left-handed craft advice implies a special tool is needed and none is. Knitting needles are the same. Scissors genuinely are handed; hooks are not.

What is genuinely different

Direction of work

Right-handed crochet moves left to right across a row, holding the hook in the right hand. Left-handed crochet is the exact mirror: hook in the left hand, working right to left.

The stitches themselves are identical. What differs is which way the fabric grows and, for anything asymmetric, which way a shaping lean points.

Following a right-handed pattern

Most written patterns work unchanged, because a written pattern describes stitches rather than directions. Four things need attention.

1. Written patterns: work as written. Single crochet is single crochet in either hand.
2. Charts and symbol diagrams: read them mirrored - start at the opposite end of each row. Our crochet symbol charts page covers how charts are read.
3. Asymmetric shaping and cables: the lean reverses. On a garment that is usually invisible; on a deliberate directional motif you may want to mirror the chart.
4. Colorwork and text: anything with a right-way-round image or lettering needs the chart flipped, or it comes out reversed.

Video instruction, which is the actual purchase

This is the honest answer to the question. Watching a right-handed video and mentally mirroring it is a second cognitive task on top of learning the craft, and it is why left-handed beginners give up more often than the difficulty warrants.

Two workable approaches: find instruction filmed left-handed, or mirror a right-handed video with your device's screen-flip. The first is better. It is also the single feature worth checking before buying any beginner kit.

Head shape, where there is a real preference

This is not about handedness as such, but it comes up consistently enough to be worth stating.

Left-handed crocheters learning from mirrored instruction tend to be working slightly more deliberately, and an in-line head - flush with the shaft, consistent diameter - is more predictable about where it will enter a stitch than a tapered throat is. Our in-line vs tapered page explains the geometry.

It is a preference rather than a rule, and the cheapest way to settle it is to own one hook of each and crochet ten rows with both.

Yarn-hand tension is the same problem for everyone

The right hand does the tensioning for a left-handed crocheter, and vice versa. Uneven stitches almost always come from the yarn hand rather than the hook hand, in either configuration.

If your stitches vary in size for no obvious reason, work on how the yarn runs over your index finger before you change hooks. How to hold a crochet hook covers both hands.

Two things that are genuinely easier left-handed

• Learning from a right-handed teacher sitting opposite you. Facing someone right-handed puts their hands in mirror image - which for a left-handed learner is the correct orientation. It is the one situation where being left-handed is the advantage.
• Amigurumi and anything in the round. Worked in a spiral with no turning, direction barely registers - see best crochet hooks for amigurumi.

What we would buy

• A symmetrical grip: the Clover Amour set, which has no handed contour at all.
• To test head shape: one Susan Bates in-line hook, which costs very little.
• Learning from scratch: a kit with left-handed video rather than any particular hook.
• Alongside: locking stitch markers, which do more for a mirrored pattern than the hook does.

The short version: buy the same hook everyone else buys, and spend the effort on finding instruction filmed the right way round.