Work in Progress

Oddly, given my title, this is a finished object, not a work in progress.  It is a little table, made by my husband to serve as a little tea-table in our cottage.  I can imagine it in use: we will have come home from a strenuous walk, and be enjoying the afternoon sunshine in our front room, mugs of tea to hand.

This little table and its drawer were made from recycled oak.  Many years ago, my husband made the bed we use now with both head and footboards.  More recently, he decided to update it and removed the footboards.  The wood was in good condition, and here it is, put to good use..

This is where I have got to with my swatch for the new Fair Isle waistcoat.  One of the issues in making up a colour scheme from an actual scene - woodlands in autumn - is that it becomes rather literally pictorial.  Yet these skeletal trees are there in Sheila McGregor's "Traditional Fair Isle Knitting,"  pictured there as the first motif on a scarf in yellow and scarlet.

I am trying to use up some of my Shetland Jumper-weight, rather than ordering more.  I happen to have some of this purple to hand, alongside a pile of green oddments.

I will lose the brown band altogether, but am liking the effect of the purples, which suggest shadowy twilight in deep woodland.  I'm thinking perhaps I will try a more decorative band instead of peerie patterns between the two conifer stripes.  It will probably look completely different in its next version.

Recycling

I'm taking my time planning my next Fair Isle waistcoat.  In Cumbria recently, for the literary festival, we noticed how the mixed woodland along the shore of Loweswater  featured a very pale lemon against a dull purple, a lovely combination.  But would it work as part of a colour scheme?

Against the rich dark green of the back, I can see a mixture of rusts and mustards.  But would it take the very bright yellow which I have actually got in stock?

As I said in an earlier post, my eye was caught by this jumper in a charity shop.  It might even have been wearable, except for those sleeves.  First, I ravelled it out, winding it on to the niddy-noddy which my husband produced some years ago, to skein it.  A soak and then a gentle spin - to try to relax some of the crimp.

Before washing...

And after...

By now, I am almost to the armholes on the back, but no further forward on the colours to be used for the fronts.  At some point, I would like to make use of a batch of mixed green oddments bought from a factory on Shetland in 2000.  Perhaps their moment has arrived?

Work

Today I started a new job.  While I was working full-time I used to  dream about what retirement would be like. Whole empty days to devote to hobby projects - time to tackle long-distance footpaths, learn a language, cook more adventurous food... Sundays without the drudgery of sets of exercise books to mark, a chore which nothing made bearable.  Mondays without the inevitable battle through rush-hour traffic...

And, to some extent, this turns out to be true.  I certainly don't envy those women just slightly younger than me who are still waiting to qualify for their state pension in order to be able to retire at all.  Most of all, I enjoy being able to be outdoors when the weather is fine, making the most of the daylight in these short December days.

And yet, I find myself drawn to volunteering opportunities for what can only be called work.

The other day I was at the National Trust property in my village for a winter cleaning day, along with a small team of others.  My colleague, a retired banker, was hoovering the floor of the Great Hall so that I could apply polish to it in the old-fashioned way, on my hands and knees.

"I don't do this at home," he said, wonderingly.  "I pay a cleaner who comes in to do it for me."

"Yes," I replied, "that's because that is housework, whereas this is a leisure activity."  Now this is true, but it is also still hoovering.

A week ago we were at the local nature reserve having a cup of tea in the visitor centre.  Through the open door of the kitchen I could see a volunteer loading a  dish washer.  "I could do that, " I thought.

So today, I drove across country in blazing sunshine to spend the day clearing tables and loading the dishwasher at that same centre.  From the kitchen, as from the café, a panoramic view of the reservoir teeming with birdlife:  lapwings, cormorants, Brent geese... As a view from a workplace it can have few equals.

I drove home through the dusk, feeling tired but pleased to have been of some use.  Not such an easy feeling to come by in retirement.