I can't come up with a witty title so...

I will just jump in. This post is just a log of what I have been doing since that last post.

My sister Beth, who has not been in the hospital since the early 70's got appendicitis. She is fine... thank God/Jehovah/Allah/Buddha/the Creator/et al....with apologies to whatever deity I missed. So part of my time has been spent thinking/worrying about her and at her house trying to be a bit of help. It was actually very nice to feel that I was able to give her some loving care because she always does so much for me.

It was also the week before the August guild meeting which was taking place in Vermont.  That meant I had to do some things to get ready. I needed to make an art card for the swap but since I had so many small felt pieces already made I just had to pick one and get it mounted on some card stock. Here is the one I choose to give.

I also had to pack extra stuff for this meeting since

1.I had the makings for the flower vine that we are doing as a guild project,

2. I was delivering a felting machine to Dianne Stott as a favor for my new friend Sharon Janda (who I meet in person at Shakerag),

3. I was going to be tenting as I LOVE sleeping outdoors and it would give me a quiet place to go since I often get overwhelmed with all the doings at these meetings. It can be tiring to have lots of people around since I am used to staying home with just my Dad. Linda Veilleux was one of the hostesses for the meeting and she has a gorgeous backyard to put a tent in....here it is in November.

The sun came up over those mountains and at night I got to see stars (we don't see many here due to light pollution). I even saw some 'shooting stars' (Perseids) and the Milky Way!!

Joei and I traveled to Vermont together. We had so much stuff to bring that we had to borrow my Dad's minivan at the last minute. We took the scenic route on the way up on Friday and stopped to see Moss Glen Falls in Granville. (Slalom driver Joei loves those curvy mountain roads!)

The weekend was great. We laughed, ate, drank,and talked, talked, talked (as any group of women are quite good at) about felting, dyeing, and all kinds of fibery things....as well as some general life stuff. We had a workshop by Jennifer Hoag of the Northeast Fiber Arts Center on using a drum carder.

She must have spent a lot of time getting the carders set up as this is just some of them.

We then had a slide lecture "Have Yurt Will Travel-Felt Journey from Mongolia to Australia" by Dutch feltmaker and anthropologist, Martien Van Zuilen. We also got to see some of her work in person.

She will be coming back to the States next year to teach the techniques used to create some of  these pieces.

Then it was on to the usual meeting stuff, Potluck dinner, Show and Tell (one of the most inspiring things),

art card swap...(not many this time, many got forgotten or arrived too late)

and then the business meeting. The only bad part of the weekend was that I lost my glasses, (they were found after we left in the driveway, I don't know how THAT happened but I am grateful to Superhostess Linda for finding them and mailing them to me!).

Joei had Monday off and since she had to drive as I could not see too well, I convinced her to stay over with a bribe of gathering some dyestuff from the fields around my house. You would think she would have been sick of me by then but she stayed. My "cool" dad (her words)  found and cut her a length of iron pipe to use in her dyepots so now she has lots of things to play with if only she can get some time too. A commodity none of us creative types get enough of as the ideas are almost always flowing.

I have spent the rest of this week starting and finishing some pieces and making little (hopefully saleable) things for my two up coming shows. 

P. S. I am not sure why I use so many parenthesis...or ellipsis. Especially since I get annoyed by writers that over use punctuation such as! exclamation! points! Maybe that is just the way I think.

...for all the unfinished thoughts and ( ) to try to make clearer all those thoughts. It can be a mess in my brain for sure (insert exclamation point here).