Quilters often ask me what makes a cruise a quilting cruise. Well it certainly isn’t that all 2500 people on the ship are making a quilt. But our group (which numbered 43 this trip) had fun with fabric, even if we didn’t do any stitching. The main focus of the trip is for people with a common interest to see wonderful sites, enjoy delicious food, socialize, shop and do some things with fabric too. We try to spend at least 1½ hours each day in class, working around shore excursions, meals, and on-board entertainment.
We began our most recent trip with a “prior to the cruise” project by inviting everyone to participate in a friendship exchange. We asked quilters to find a leaf shape of their choice either in their yard, in a book or on-line. I chose a maple leaf because this year is Canada’s Sesquicentennial,
but participants could pick any leaf they wanted. We had 32 quilters in the exchange, thus each of us chose an Autumn color batik and cut out 32 leaves with paper backed fusible web attached. Only 6 of us wanted them signed, so we asked everyone to do this to six of their leaves while on the ship and then we exchanged them. Here mine are laid out in a wreath.
Beautiful! I’m not sure if this is what they will become. The project option I came up with prior to the trip was to scatter leaves across a windswept background with tulle shadows to add depth.
The next quilt related portion of our trip took place the first night on board. I shared a new lecture I call “Travel Memory Quilts”. I’m very excited about this new idea the Lord blessed me with. In essence, I distill each trip down to a favorite picture and create a single block to represent it using a variety of techniques. Each block is quilted and bound separately and they are attached to each other with a simple system of my own creation. In this way the “quilt” can be added to or rearranged with very little effort!
I’m working on other memory quilts using this technique and I’m pretty sure this is going to grow into something even more exciting. More information to follow!
During the trip Wendy gave two presentations. One on her method for making “batiked” scarves and another in which we each created a quilt label. Mine will go on my leaf quilt – whenever I get it done 😀 .
The main project on the trip was a fused block of the Bass Harbor Head Lighthouse.
I created the pattern from a picture and made up kits for the 33 travelers who chose to participate. I finished mine as a small wall quilt and added a few of the pins I collected while traveling. Here are pictures of class time aboard the Norwegian Dawn.
Mary and Jane were the first to finish theirs
And everyone got a block made. I can’t wait to see them all together at our post-trip gathering.
We combined traveling and quilting – it doesn’t get much better than that!
Karen says
I would love to make the bass light house wall hanging. How do I go about getting a kit?