Friends, Fun and Stitching Too!

This past weekend was the annual SAL at Dani's . I had been looking forward to this because it had been many months since I'd seen some of the ladies. I was unable to spend the entire weekend with everyone because we had a house guest. However I did mangage to spend most of the day on Saturday with everyone. We had great fun! I'll let the pictures speak for themselves. Our hostess Dani on the left and Kathy who is working on her Fairies on the right.

Bonnie was doing some serious stitching on Ink Circles Cirque des Cercles. I wish I'd got a picture of it. If you follow the link from her name you'll see a picture of it on her blog. She also had the most amazing beaded fobs with her which she made. Naturally, I forgot to get a picture of them as well. They're awesome Bonnie!
Rebecca was stitching on a lovely birth sampler for a friend.

Beatrice brought with her some gorgeous project bags she'd made. I've posted a picture of mine. She's used the lovliest shade of blue for this one and it's lined with a pretty print as well.
They're wonderful and I thank you very much Beatrice for sharing them with us. I love mine!

Christin is stitching Butternut Road's Earthdancer. It's a gorgeous design and I love watching her progress on it. Amy pulled out her current project which just happens to be the same design which Rebecca recently finished. I don't know the name or designer but it's of two cardinals sitting on a tree bough covered in snow. Very pretty!




Christin

Amy

The group surprised me with a cake to celebrate my retirement which took place on the previous Wednesday. Rebecca had heard that I like lemon and she brought the most delicious lemon treat! Thank you so much !! Sharing something as special as my retirement was made even more special when sharing it with all of you!

I spent most of my day at Dani's working on my Spring Quakers. I finished one large motif and started working on the next. Here's the one I finished off first.

It was when I returned home on Sunday that I discovered an error. This latter motif has two parts to it, each printed on a different page than the next. I had already stitched the bottom portion of the design and as I continued my stitching on the upper portion I discovered that the bottom was out by one line and would not match up with the upper. Curses!!! Kathy, those darn frogs followed me home from Dani's and I spent two hours Monday frogging out all of the bottom of the motif. Yesterday I restitched things and all is now well. I had considered a new start recently but I'm on a roll now with this one and the Wedding Sampler and I think I'll just let things be for now.
As I mentioned before, my retirement from work took place earlier this week. Although I'm not officially done until May 31, I'm now on vacation until that time and will not be returning to the bench. I've worked at the same hospital for just short of 34 years, mostly in the Chemistry lab, so it has been a big part of my life. As I said to my coworkers, I think I've spent more time with all of them than I did with my family. We've had our ups and downs, shared laughter and tears and they've been an amazing bunch of people to work with who I will miss dearly. On my final day, they presented me with an orchid corsage, balloon and a cake. A retirement dinner will be held in my honour in early June after my official date. My DH arrived at the lab on my final day which was also my birthday and took a few photos to mark the occasion including a group photo of those present. This is only about half of the actual staff. We'll get photos of the remainder during the upcoming dinner.

It's been bittersweet leaving but now I'm off to new adventures or at least I hope so!! I haven't had the time to respond to all your wonderful comments this week but I'd like to thank all of you . Please know that I may not always have the time to reply but I definitely love hearing from you and appreciate all your kind words.

Note: I've tried editing this numerous times so that this post lines up better but blogger is just not cooperating!