I learned how to operate a manual car transmission at the same time I learned how to drive. I’m thankful for this now——especially having lived in Maine for ten years, where driving stick is a winter survival skill——but at the time it was a pain in the butt. It was hard enough figuring out what to do about the fact that there were other cars on the road besides the one I was driving; having to wrestle with my own car added a layer of difficulty that almost made me swear eternal faith to my bicycle. I persevered, though, and now the only times I wish I drove automatic is when I’m stuck in traffic.

Knitting Continental is like driving stick. I wish I’d learned it at the same time that I learned to knit. Those of you who are skilled at Continental will probably disagree, but there’s no doubt in my mind that it’s more complicated than English. With Continental, the fingers of the hand that holds the yarn actually have separate, individual tasks (two to hold the yarn, one in between to keep the stitch in place), thus making a consistent gauge dependent on more factors than with English. Here’s a section of a sweater that I knit before I started making the switch to Continental:

And here’s a section from an uncompleted, post-switch sweater:

I know it’s all matter of practice, and with time my Continental knitting will be just as even as my English. The problem is that I didn’t have to practice for English. Consistent gauge was mystically bestowed upon me by the gods that watch over new knitters. Those gods have not been as generous towards my Continental. Maybe it’s a different set of gods altogether, and I just haven’t figured out how to appease them. Or maybe there are no gods for Continental at all, in which case I’m in for my first existential knitting crisis.

So tell me: did you learn Continental when you learned to knit? If not, how did it affect your gauge when you did learn?

The office where I spend twenty hours a week is in an alternate universe. I know this because the universe where I actually live doesn’t have cubicles, fluorescent lights, ugly carpeting, or Microsoft. My personal universe also has the same climate as the rest of the Bay Area. My office universe, on the other hand, is always freezing, even when it’s sunny and warm outside. Fortunately, items from the regular universe are able to exist in my office universe, so I when I came into work on Monday I was able to bring these:

These are a modified Cigar from a back issue of Knitty. They’re just the thing for the arctic atmosphere at my office; I can type, click my mouse, and flick people off answer the phone, all while keeping my hands nice and toasty warm. I didn’t knit them, of course. My shoulder-imposed moratorium on knitting is still in effect, so when Z asked me if there was anything I’d like her to knit for me, I asked for these gloves.

That moratorium is wearing on me, though. Other than thumb-twiddling, I don’t really have any other activities that I can do while listening to NPR or chatting with Z. That sweater that I started two weeks ago is calling to me from its canvas bag next to the couch; the latest round of wifely socks, half-finished, glare at me with reproach; even the Bay Area Mass Transit System is giving me grief:

But enough whining! For the next two weeks I’ll be away at the Wyoming Young Writers Camp where I’ll be too busy teaching creative writing to teenagers to worry about knitting. By the time I get back, I’ll be ready to pick up the needles again. Right? Right?

This summer I’ll be teaching not one poetry class, but two poetry classes at The Writing Salon. The first one is a five-week intro class (July 18th – August 22nd), the other is a one-day intensive (Saturday, August 5th). Click the links for more information!

Sorry for the non-knitting post, but relentless self-promotion is how these things get off the ground.