Wednesday 21 January 2015

Putting my hands in the drivers seat.

It's been harder than ever before to settle down to one thing after finishing a big project.  To be completely honest, there is a little midwinter slump personally too. A lot of people have that over winter so nothing new there, but it isn't something I have had to deal with before.    Winter has always been full of knitting and sewing and reading.  This winter all these things are hard or rather starting them is.

It's just that for the first time since my world changed so dramatically, I work.  I come home.  No worries about selling or moving or buying or finding a job.  Life is sorted and settled.  And that seems to have unsettled me.

In a lot of ways, this makes me smile.  I have been waiting for this calm for so long, and now that it is here I don't know what to do.  How odd.  How funny.  

I worked yesterday on my Viajante. It is my knitting while I am out knitting.  

Since I picked this up after Christmas (or was it just before?) I have added a foot in length.  It is now  3 keyboards long and is as wide as 1.     Keyboard.  New Unit of measurement!  

It is the perfect knitting when you are struggling to think.  It demands almost nothing at this point. You are long past the point where you need a pattern and counting rows isn't needed even for the most row and stitch counting knitter.  You know when you have to do stuff and then it is quiet in between.  You can focus on what your hands are doing, you can watch each stitch form, watch the needle tip weave its way through, in, around, under.  It's like listening to a metronome with eyes closed.  It is hypnotic and healing, I think.  

I am going to let my fingers do the talking.  This project seems to bring them joy so I will let it flower and bloom until my hands and my heart are ready for some sturdier stuff and feel like starting something new.

Here at home, Hun, the Icelandic sweater is sitting at my feet, waiting patiently.  I am surrounded by calm and peace.  The only thing here that is urgent, that is pushing and thrashing, that feels there is something more I should be doing, is me.  My hands are wiser than I so I will put them into the drivers seat.  


1 comment:

Sel and Poivre said...

As yes, I know those kinds of days well! Sound's like you've got yours well "in hand"!