Inside and out in the middle of March

I do love a good project and living somewhere like this means there are always things on the go. Inside there is usually something on the needles or on the sewing machine, especially in winter.

Outside is ignored when it is cold and wet but it begins to call about now and I have spent a couple of days working in the garden.  So just for the record before inside gets abandoned for the spring and summer, here are this winter's projects plus a new one cast on yesterday.

Here are some curtains made from dinosaur material for grandson number two, aged five.  The material comes from textile express, a great business based in Oswestry with a really good website and web presence.  I make lined curtains about once a year and every time I have to go back to square one in terms of reminding myself about the order of events.  Last time I did it I made three pairs in one marathon effort for the holiday cottage so I took the time to write down all the things that were at the forefront of my mind as I was finishing them in this blog.  I was really pleased I had done that as I saved myself loads of time by referring back to it when I would normally have been wondering whether to do the hems before the header tape!  Joseph had been waiting for these very patiently but I was distracted from finishing them off by another request from him.   When asked whether he would like me to knit anything for him he thought carefully - he is a thinking sort of a child - and said eventually "Could you make me a flying pig?"  I had been thinking more in terms of a jumper but I can quite see that a flying pig is a lot more useful.

So here he is.  Ian suggested that his wings, as befits a Welsh flying pig, should be dragon wings so I invented what I hope are the wings of a baby dragon.  He has flown off to South Wales now and I hope is settling in nicely.

There was also this jacket for grandson number three which I really enjoyed making.  It comes from a Debbie Bliss pattern book.  I love her patterns and her yarns and the way you can produce something from them which is just a little different.

Then there was the window seat cushion which I slipped in sometime in February.  Both of these last two have already appeared in the blog but I include them again for completeness.  I thought I would shelve inside projects for now as the days lengthen and things start to grow in the garden but, as is often the case, somehow I decided to fit just one more thing in.  After all although it was sunny and mild on Tuesday, today it is pouring with rain and an inside project seems just the thing.

My daughter in law gave me a ball of the darker green wool as part of my Christmas present and I have been wondering what to make with it.  I contemplated another cowl or more fingerless gloves but I do have quite a number of both.  Then I found myself thinking about cushions.  A couple of years ago I had a bit of a run on cushions and made three for the sofa:

I really like them and am planning another go on the sewing machine for cushions for the holiday cottage but the cushion that has given me most pleasure is the one I made with wool I bought in the Outer Hebrides on our holiday there in 2013.

I wanted to catch the colour of the sea and the sky and the process of designing and making it and the finished product gave me a lot of satisfaction.  I am not an artist.  I am not even a craftsperson.  I am simply a knitter and sewer again, after years of no time when the job and the family filled every minute of every day and absorbed all of my time and energy.  Part of the drive in leaving my job was to spend time on things and people and places and parts of myself which had been neglected in the whirl of work.  For some reason knitting has filled the place which for others might have been used for art or music. Having worked with my brain all my life I find real pleasure in doing things with my hands. Throughout the frantic years cooking was the only way I held on to my interest in making things. Knitting needs time and a calm head.  Sewing needs space which is not full of teenagers and televisions.

So I bought some other muted greens and neutrals to try to have a go at a cushion which would echo the colours of our hills just now.  I am not sure I quite have it yet.  I need a more vivid green and a brown for the lines of hedges and bare trees.  I don't intend to produce anything which is pictorial and it is quite likely that no one but me will look at the finished cushion and see anything but stripes but for me it will have meaning and that is enough.

I was going to move on to outside projects but I will keep that for another day.  The big project is Ian's and the construction of a new henhouse but I will leave the detail of that for him to share.  In the meantime I leave you with a picture of the work in progress.

Where are you at the moment?  Inside or out?  How do you find your pleasure in creating things?