I started my first project on double-sided needles the other night, and I was hooked after about the third row. There's just something about wrestling with four or five sharp bamboo sticks, trying to purl and avoid sticking yourself in the eye that lends knitting an air of danger that it otherwise lacks, unless you count the danger of knitting in public, where people will come up to you, exclaim "you're doing it wrong!" and rip your work out of your hands.

Knitting in public has opened up a whole new world to me, a world that is sort of how I imagine the tension between two opposing yet equally sound philosophies. See, there are two kinds of knitting: Continental, which is left handed and often called "picking," and English, which is right handed and called "throwing." Basically you hold the yarn in a different hand for each. Continental, if you can get the hang of controlling your left hand very precisely, can be faster. English lends itself to slowness in some cases but is good if you want to be able to jump up in the middle of what you're doing and get some tea, or in my case, catch the percolator which you have forgotten on the stove and is boiling over, spreading coffee all over your off-white tiled floor and down the front of your stove.
I was knitting at lunch the other day, and one of the women in my department came over and started yelling "faster! Do it faster! You should do it left-handed!" That kind of pissed me off. Number one, do we knit because it's fast? No! We knit because it's relaxing, and because when you spend a lot of time on something you're more apt to be proud of it, regardless of whether it's tacky and lumpy or not.

Still, I felt a kind of shame. Was my "throwing" technique really slow and outmoded? Was I knitting like a young child? I forced myself to learn the left-handed technique, and I realized I hated it.

I was finishing Debbie's chunky ribbed pocket scarf on huge needles, and trying to squeeze the needle, hold the yarn and switch my finger back and forth to knit and purl was making my hand cramp. I am prone to hand cramps due to the prednisone I take in order to keep my brother's kidney ("Skippy II") functioning in my abdomen. I decided that yes, while I could see in theory that it would be faster, technically it wasn't for me. It was slower for me because I had to stop and rub Icy-Hot into my fingers, and then I had to wait till it dried so Debbie's scarf wouldn't smell like Pepto Bismal. I'm not sure WHY Icy-Hot smells like Pepto Bismal, but there you have it.

My knitting philosophy became "I knit for comfort, not for speed."

Well. As with all philosophies, things change. For while I was working on my new project, wool socks on double-pointed needles knit in the round, I realized it was actually EASIER for me to knit Continental style. My needles weren't as slick and they were a better size for my small hands, so my fingers didn't want to cramp, and because double-pointed needles tend to crowd a small place, the expansive hand movements I love in the English style are unnecessary and can cause yarn tangles and even injury. I can't imagine using English style on this project. I realized that I DIDN'T hate Continental style, it was just that for some things, it wasn't appropriate.

Now my knitting philosophy is much like my philosophy towards life, in that you do what you have to do, and that can change depending on the situation.

I'm glad I took the time out to learn both, even if I'm salty that someone chose to belittle my personal preference. I suppose I should get used to it, seeing as how people like to belittle each other on a daily basis, but still!

If you're a knitter, don't criticize your fellow English knitters, for they may have good reasons for what they do. And sometimes it's BETTER. So take THAT, Continental snobs. If you're an English knitter, try Continental for a few rounds on each project you try. There may be a good fit in there somewhere.

And that's my nerdy story. I'll post pictures of the Socks of Enlightenment when I can find the camera.