Hello, I'm back!

So, I haven't really been properly away much this year until December, when I ended up abroad twice in three weeks.

The first trip was to Denmark, as my friend Lisbeth was getting married. The second trip was to Austria, for Christmas without the stress of who's cooking / washing up and being cooped up whilst the UK weather and TV conspire against you. The rest of the time (in between wool shows), I've just been tired and not really up to writing anything coherent.

I've now had my last day in the office, and whilst I'll miss some of the lovely people that I've been working with, it is a huge relief to have reached the end of three years of trying to do my best at a job with an unpredictable workload whilst learning to cope with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (which really needs me to establish a routine and pace myself carefully). Now that I've got control of my schedule, I can rest when I need to and hopefully get more done overall - particularly Sparkleduck dyeing and web updates, but also knitting, spinning, patchwork, quilting, drawing, painting, photography and generally making a colourful mess :o)

Today has been a 'friends' day - meeting up in Cambridge, and hearing from someone who had vanished from the radar for a while. M has taken the chocolate brownies that we baked earlier to share at a New Year's Eve party. I'll have to catch on that tomorrow, as I need to rest if I want to stand a chance of coping with tomorrow in a smiley manner.

Happy New Year!

Friends

The last week has been a bit rough. I started to make a list of people who, whether they realised it or not, have helped me with hope, smiles, confidence and acceptance.

So, thank you, Ben, Dot, Eddy, Eva, Gerri, Jane, Joe, Kirsten, Liz, Marcus, Marie-Louise, Mark, Michael, Miri, Rosie, Steph and Susan for guiding me through. I've discovered that I'm not as isolated as I thought.

Unravel

Hello!
I can hardly believe that it's just over a week since Unravel (and two months since I last posted. Ooooops!)

If you've never been, Unravel is held at Farnham Maltings, and is very friendly and fun. The Maltings gets decorated yarnbombed (I loved the knitted moles in their molehills on the front lawn, keeping the live sheep company), and the festival of wool has been growing each year.



Last year, I admired Seren Stacey's "A Bumble of Bees" exhibit. This year, the sparkleduck stall was in that very spot!




We shared the Tannery with 6 other exhibitors - Eliza Conway, IT, Jeanette Sloan, Mary Kilvert (who designed the fabulous Unravel bags), Namolio, and the OneHandKnits and The Undercover Owl duo.





It was lovely to meet lots of new people and old friends over the weekend.
A little ducky parcel hatched into these two cuties:


The keyring-torch quacks, and I spent the remainder of the weekend wandering around lighting up and quacking... Thank you, EveE!

This little chap formed a cunning plan to keep me quiet on Sunday by kicking the skein of yarn that his mother was winding into a nice tangle on the floor.

As some of you may know, I quite like untangling things, so I spent the morning cheerfully chatting to visitors through a skein of yarn... then these appeared to say 'thank you!' (the fourth, a lemon tart, escaped with Wrigglefingers who helped me when I started flagging at lunchtime)

On the twelfth day of Christmas...

... the few decorations that we'd put up came back down ... including this little chap, who's one of the best Christmas cards I've ever had, I think!



I hope that you've had a merry christmas, and that 2012 will be a happy one for you.