Sunset at Sea

I slotted in on my calendar some time at home this month to catch up on some things. Now, keep in mind, this slotting began about 3 years ago so at the time, I had no idea what I would be catching up on, but knew I needed some time at home to catch up.

Well catch up I have…I have had some ideas for some new workshops so I was able to design the Sunset At Sea Workshop and prepare the supply list and handout for this class designed around the foundations in Simply Sensational 9-Patch Stars.

Not Your Grandmother's Feathered Star

Now I do love that book and have wanted to develop a workshop based upon the feathered star type points, but take a new look at the color and design options. The result is the “Not Your Grandmother’s Feathered Star” Workshop.

Scrap Quilts With Attitude

Another book that has lots of creative options is the 300 Paper-Pieced Quilt Blocks Book. I have wanted to play around with the options using a really simple foundation pieced block and scraps for fabric choices. The result is the Scrap Quilts with Attitude workshop. This simple block can be placed in many different ways to produce completely different quilt designs.

Three in a Row - Bingo!

With the holidays just around the corner, sometimes you just want to make a quickie and the various block designs in this book gives you the opportunity to make little quilts feature three blocks in a row horizontally or vertically. Another workshop was birthed!

Sunrise made on The Quilt Show

Another thing that has been on my “to do” list is to finish the quilt that I started as the demo when I did the taping in March for The Quilt Show. My show will air in February and now I have this item checked off!

Stripe from Floral Affair fabric by Northcott fabrics.

Now, with Quilt Market just behind us, my new fabric line, Floral Affair, by Northcott Fabrics was presented. The fabric will not ship until January, but you can get a sneak peak at this fabric collection at this link:

http://www.northcott.net/?sid=2&layout=2col&content=fabric_details&colid=348&colorid=579

Royal Windsor Fabric Collection

Knowing, more fabric is coming my way, I decided to upload for sale in my web store, some fabrics from my previous collections. The first collection I am selling is the Royal Windsor Collection. I will sell this fabric and once it is gone, I will put up another collection.

Asian Vest

Not having any new workshops to develop, having finished my only UFO, I thought I would whip up a new vest to wear when I begin traveling later this week. I found the fabric on the right side of the vest and just fell in love with it. It was perfect for a conservative style vest yet offered the opportunity to include a variety of colors on the patchwork side. I played off the horizontal and vertical lines on the right side to create the patchwork on the left side.

Tweed Vest

Now, I have had this “tweed” fabric on the right side since March. I purchased it in Texas while I was there teaching. It is a really soft cotton fabric that looks like tweed fabric. It is Robert Kaufman’s Quilter’s Tweed. When I purchased it, I knew I wanted to make a vest for the winter. Well, it snow big white snowflakes here yesterday, so I got the fabric out and made my new vest.

When I look back at all that I have accomplished in the past three weeks, even I am amazed. I won’t even go into the replacement of my computer and dealing with the transition and compatibility issues and the fact that my laptop crashed. That meant reinstalling all the programs and operating system upgrades and then putting back all the documents…oh my…computers can be a trial. But, I am almost at the end of my time at home and I am so looking forward to next weekend when I will travel to lecture and teach…I need a rest.

All the best,

Carol

Royal Caribbean Voyager Ship

I am sooooo excited to announce my next cruise which will be March 6-13, 2011 to Honduras/Beliz/Cozumel on the Royal Caribbean Voyager Ship leaving out of Galveston, TX. I will not be traveling to teach during the 2011 year, but this offer was just too wonderful to pass up.

Although I announced this trip in my latest newsletter and to my Carol Doak Yahoo Group, I thought it would be fun to discuss what it is like to go on a quilting cruise. I am often asked about what it is like to go on a quilting cruise when I travel to teach.  I have done several and although the exact format depends upon the group organizing the cruise there are common aspects.

The entire ship is not full of quilting cruisers. The number of quilters in the group range from approximately 50 to 250. Sometimes, it is the quilter and a friend, or a husband or a family member. The classes are typically held only on the days at sea, so the days in port and the evenings are always available to be spent with your traveling companion. Quilters also come on the trip without companions and the organizers can often match you up with another single traveler to share a room.

What makes the quilting cruises fun is that you will be part of a group. Typically there is some sort of a meet and greet event and depending up the ship and group the dinner meal has the group all eating in one area of the dining area. So although you may go your separate ways on the days in port, you will meet up again at dinner time. This can be pretty flexible. The dinner clothing often scares people away from cruising. This has really relaxed quite a bit over the years. Most nights it is “smart casual” which just means show up in something respectable such as slacks and a blouse. On the formal nights (typically 2 nights), that means a cocktail dress or something a little dressier than smart casual. If you wore a black skirt and shell, that would be fine. As I wrote before, it has really relaxed in recent years.

As for the classes, there are conference style rooms on the larger ships and this is typically where classes are held. On some cruises, handwork classes with fewer students might be held in a stateroom.

Some of the cruises do supply sewing machines (typically supplied by a shop) for the cruise. This cruise will supply sewing machines. This eliminates you having to bring a machine. This has been the case on all the cruises that I have taught on. Some have kits available for purchase. This cruise will have a kit available for the classes.

On your down time on ship you can take advantage of all the ship has to offer such as the evening entertainment, the spa, the pool, the library, the casino, the shops, and the list goes on and on.

I had actually never been on a cruise prior to teaching on my first Caribbean Cruise and I discovered I loved it! First, the ships are large and you really don’t feel like you are on a ship. Except, having your morning cup of coffee on the a chair sitting out on the deck looking at the beautiful blue water and the sun rising is so relaxing. The food is fabulous…trust me…the food is fabulous…And you become part of a wonderful group of quilters that gets to play together for a full week! How much you connect with the others in the group is purely up to you. I found that I loved getting to know the others on the cruise and sometimes we made plans to go together on shore excursions.

The route

Deciding where the ship is going and when is also a factor. I live in NH so going on a March cruise where the weather will be warm is a real plus for me. Also, as soon as I heard this cruise was going to Belize, I was in! I have wanted to travel there for several years. Leaving out of Galveston makes it an easy port to get to and that is another plus.

If you want to read more about the details of this particular cruise, just click on this link and tell them Carol sent you…we will leave the light on.

http://www.stitchinheaven.com/stitchin_heaven_pages/cruise_mar2011.asp

If you have a specific question that I have not answered, please feel free to email me at qcarol@comcast.net or post a comment here.

Hope to meet some of you on the high seas!

Carol