Slow crafting

I've never really thought about how I go about crafting before, but I've spent quite a lot of the last couple of days meditating while knitting. Normally I knit in front of something I've seen before - usually my favourites of The 1940s House genre, or The Good Life or Little Women or No Impact Man. I'm kind of tuning in and kind of knitting.

Now I'm just knitting. Just knitting.

And it's slowing me down utterly. It's brill-i-ant.

Even more surprising, though, it's also focusing me. Rather than picking projects up and putting them down, it's making it easier to focus on one project at a time, and to resist the temptation to be a butterfly. The interim result is this:

Squee! Why do I ever stop knitting? How do I ever stop? It's addictive and relaxing and intriguing and this lovely woolly panel looks and feels and smells so woolly. I always thought knitting jumpers took months and months, but clearly when you keep picking your knitting up and stop wondering off to try another craft, it just keeps growing, and I'm savouring every minute instead of distracting myself with a screen.

This is the largest piece of work I've ever had on my knitting needles, and I'm finding it really quite heavy now. I have to hold it slightly differently than smaller projects - sort of propping up the knitting and then manouvreing the needles on a plane. It looks like Mrs Weasley knitting. I'm feeling very Mrs Weasley.

I am permitting myself one other project. I hit the fabric sales on Saturday to get me some new tablecloth fabric. Two for everyday and one white one for best was my brief. Check out my fabrics, aren't they cool? I love the sand-coloured plaid but oh my god I could not resist the gingham. I'm dreaming up a cross-stitch border for that one...

This may not sound like I'm focusing on one project at a time, but I was so tempted to buy fabric for future projects in the sales (cushion covers, more curtains?, perhaps gifts for birthdays) and resisted. No more crafty purchases* until tablecloths are clothing the table and the jumper is clothing me.

*Obviously this excludes thread, top-up yarn etc needed to complete these projects.