Interstitial knitting

Reading Ravelry, knitting blogs, and various knitting magazines, I envy those designers and knitters who have large chunks of time to devote to their craft. Hours to sit, uninterrupted, focusing on a complex pattern -- I know myself and my life well enough now to know that I will never get that kind of time for my knitting. But the truth is that large blocks of time aren't really necessary to accomplish some pretty great stuff. As British journalist, Oliver Burkeman, reminds us, our life is full of "interstitial time:" small chunks of time spent waiting.

Whether you're at the doctor's office or just waiting for the water to boil, you have a few minutes that seem wasted, but they needn't be. Burkman says that the poet William Carlos Williams wrote much of his work on the backs of prescription pads during gaps in his workday as a pediatrician.

I remember that I knit most of my Faith Jacket while waiting at the bus stop with my kids. Just a few minutes each day during a time that I would not ordinarily do anything at all, and the next thing you know, it's all done - like magic.

As I sit at the computer, pathetically glued to some social media or another, I realize that the time it takes the content to download is excellent interstitial time. Where am I going to go, anyway?  I can sit there and be impatient and frustrated, or I can work a few repeats of my Cavendish Throw and relax with my knitting.