It has been a long time

Well I have not posted in a long time because of family issues and travel. Over the past three weeks I have driven over 2200 miles. I had the opportunity to go to one of my favorite retreats, Workt By Hand in Ohio, with Sue Spargo, Melissa Becker, and Alice and Sally of Kindred Spirits. It was bittersweet since my normal roomie moved to Germany and I was sleeping solo. Of course, since I have attended this retreat for the past 8 years and knew a great deal of people there. We worked on bolster pillows that are all going to be awesome. I particularly like what I am doing.

 Sue Spargo's design. I loved the butterfly motif.

Her pillow was just happy.

Melissa's pillow was soft and delicate.

Sally's pillow really inspired me. My name means the bee.

My sentiments exactly.

Ali used rug hooking and needle felting on her pillow and I really liked that.

Her pillow was just lush.

This is mine so far. All pinned, but not stitched yet. More on Bee attitudes to come.

I got home late Sunday after the retreat and left again on Tuesday morning in order to go and pack my mom up to move to an assisted living in Baton Rouge. She did not want to move to Memphis and I wanted her to be happy. I will post pics of her new apartment and the cleaning out process of her home of 53 years soon. It is going to probably take me all summer to clean out her house and put it on the market. In a few weeks I will make a huge push to get things ready. In the meantime I am having to replace my huge windows in my living room, because after 19 years of living here they are rotted. On my way to the window store to look at options and make decisions shortly. After the windows are in we will have to replace all of our hardwood floors that were damaged last month when we had in line winds of 80 mph that pushed water through the doors and lifted/ruined the floors. I told my DH that it is the year of doors and floors. Ouch!