Trish Stuart’s Blog

Let me begin by saying that I am sorry you have not heard from me in so long!! Holidays and getting ready to leave on this teaching vacation was amazing. Sorry I lost touch with all of you.

This is a picture of my mom and I in the terminal. We were waiting for the fog to lift so the ship could pull in and we could board.

I’m back from the cruise I taught on. We went to Jamaica, Montego Bay, and Cozumel. What a wonderful time!

Champagne and dessert greeted us when we arrived in our stateroom.

I met a great bunch of quilters. I taught this group first.

This is the second classroom… and the class that was in the dining room…

There are more photos and I am thinking I should put a separate page on the website for them. If anyone on the cruise wants to send photos to share, email them to me and I will add them to mine.
Debbie Luttrell, the owner of Stitchin’ Heaven was the instigator and I have to say, she did a marvelous job. It takes a lot of organizational skill along with a positive attitude to do something of this magnitude.

We had 2 rooms for the classes. One room housed two classes. The two classes were separated by fabric panels (what else?) and although it was a bit crowded we all had fun. The second room was actually a dining room where a portion of it was turned into a sewing area during the day. It was just around the corner from the main classroom so we were never far from each other.

There were three of us teaching: Myself, Debby Maddie, and Sarah Moe/Miller. We rotated so each class got a different teacher for the three days of classes at sea. WE moved so they didn’t have to. Sewing machines were supplied so no one had to lug their own. That was also a benefit as we were sailing into international waters. I don’t know how that would have been with customs questions and all…

We had early seating in the dining room and boy, were the waiters/waitresses ever professional. Not to mention being entertaining. They sang to us, danced for us, and brought us some of the best food you have ever tasted. Of course, there were lots of things to do onboard so you had no opportunity to be bored. Pat and I attended a comedy show one evening but truly, I was so tired out from all of the options that I didn’t take advantage of near enough of the opportunities on board.

Debbie had lots of games for our quilters and a TON of giveaways for the students. You could earn tickets according to different tasks you were to complete. Of course, the more tasks you did, the more tickets you had and the better your chances of winning a prize.

Every day Deb gave away a quilt! You all know how long it takes to make one of those so we all were very excited to see them and have the chance at winning one (well, my mom and Pat could win… it would be pretty bad if one of the staff won a prize!). We even had a fat quarter toss. Watch out, we were all throwing fat quarters at the students as fast as we could go and people were wild! The fat quarters were to give everyone a chance to play the game LCR. Never played it? Me either, but it sounded like fun.

My mom came all of the way down from Fairbanks, AK, graced me with her presence and put up with me in our room. My dad kept my husband, Tom, busy while we gallivanted around the open seas. Oh My GOD! Our room steward was fabulous! I wanted to bring him home with me but my husband might have objected. And every day we found a new little creature made from towels. So cute.

My friend, Pat Edmunds, from Anchorage also joined us.

I couldn’t believe she was able to skip town long enough to do this….We did excursions at the ports together and I will never forget our time together.

It’s really a once in a lifetime experience that I definitely want to repeat. We climbed a waterfall, took the bobsled down a mountain, swam with the dolphins, and Mom and Pat went snorkeling.

I stayed on board the ship while we were in Cozumel to help any people that wanted to sew while we were in port.

I didn’t realize how short everyone was until I saw all of these pictures!
Some people just prayed they’d finish their quilt on the cruise!

And then, of course, there was Alice…
BTW, I have just finished putting together a few videos for the Jamaica Vanilla quilt we sewed on board. That should help all of those that got started on the quilt but did not have time to finish it. It was an ambitious project that was too time consuming to complete on the ship but these videos should be a big help in remembering how to do the techniques that I taught in the class. Watch the videos here. Make sure you see them in order.

At the end of the cruise Deb gifted me with a marvelous massage. I must have looked a little tense, but believe me, by the time my massage was done I was as relaxed as a cooked noodle. Thanks, Deb, for treating us all so well.

I’m campaigning to teach on a cruise to Alaska in fall 2011. Up the inland passage. Mmmmm. If I get to go, I want to bring my mom, my dad, my husband, my son and his fiance. No, I won’t come close to break even but who cares? I’m going to start saving now for the trip in hopes that I am asked to teach. Even though I lived my whole life in Alaska and have visited Southeast (as well as other areas in that huge state) I miss it! It will be good to see it from a tourist’s standpoint, too. I have been developing a whole slew of new patterns for Alaska that should be ready to go up there for this summer season. I’ll show you a preview of some of them in the next post or so.