The only thing wrong with my New Years is that it isn’t involving dancing. I’m thinking Charleston.
I want to be happier than this couple though. More like this:
That’s the spirit! Happy New Years!
I hope you all had a truly wonderful 2011.
This is my vintage needle collection.
First, my favourites, the Flora MacDonalds:
I’ve yet to figure out what Flora Macdonald has to do with handwork, but I’m a big Flora fan, and a big needle fan, so it works for me.
Besides, how cute is she? The back of the packets are lovely too:
And the trademark is adorable:
I also have some not-quite-as-exciting needles:
The colours are all lovely though: orange, red, teal
And another great trademark:
The colours and graphic layouts of these two are very striking:
Redditch must have been an important needle making centre.
Not my favourite, but possibly the most fantastic, is this one:
I crack up every time I see it. Everything is so dramatic!
The Naiad and I, along with Shell, the Sewphist, and another friend, are all going camping.
Camping is good exercise. Even if you don’t do anything but lounge around the campsite and roast marshmallows, you still have to wrangle all your gear into place, pack your bag, and figure out how to put up your tent. And boy, do those things take energy.
First, there are the sleeping bags. This is mine:
When I bought it it came all nicely wrapped in its own personal little bag. Once freed from that bag, no amount of effort on the part of Mr D and myself (working together) could ever convince it to return to those confines.
It has all sorts of weird drawstrings and pockets. Is it supposed to wrap into itself and fasten with those? Ack!
After wrestling with it for an hour on my own in an attempt to get it in a bag twice the size of the one it came in for this trip, I gave up and got creative.
Courtesy of my spare elastic stash, I managed to secure it into a reasonably handle-able bundle.
Now I just have to get it in the backpack!
Backpacks, if anything, are worse than sleeping bags. They have so many zips and buckles and straps and pockets. I swear, you need a specialised degree in ‘tramping pack packing’ just to figure out how to load the darn things.
Mine is ugly and lumpy, but everything is in it. Good enough for me!
Part of the reason for the lumps is the amount of protection I need:
Sun and sandflies are not my friends.
With all this complaining, I have to fess up that I actually do love tramping and camping. Just not prepping for it.