Well, a few years ago now I had the amazing opportunity to go, not only on my maiden cruise, but also on my maiden P & Q Tour. Double whammy! The cruise was a joint endeavour between Judi of P & Q Tours and James of Japan Journeys, also a maiden endeavour that proved so successful the experience was repeated a couple of years later, having ironed out a few of the wrinkles from the first trip.
On the first cruise to Spain and Portugal aboard Fred Olsen’s Braemar, we had four days at sea that enabled us to have workshops on-board led by Judi Mendelssohn and Barbara Chainey. The group was divided into two halves, spending a day with each tutor on the way out and again on the returning two days. We were lucky enough to have been provided with sixteen sewing machines by Brother, which created a bit of added logistical excitement when Judi and I arrived at the hotel in Dover with a car full of sewing machines, whilst our suitcases were stuck on the motorway in Jane Campbell’s car. Thankfully, we were reunited in time to be loaded on-board by exceptionally helpful port staff.
The sewing machines were put to great use in our bargello workshop with Judi, along with our graduated tile piece. Barbara Chainey’s workshop reminded some, and introduced others, to the joy of hand sewing. We created an amazing diversity of the Antique Rose Star block followed by smaller hexagon stars. The advantage of the hand sewing was that we could carry it with us anywhere on the ship and were often seen in small huddles in the lounge area of an evening working away on our pieces.
It caused such interest amongst our fellow travellers that we were persuaded to have an open viewing of all our work on the last day. Even the ship’s crew were enthralled, with many of them keen to buy one of the machines to take home for their families. A request unfortunately we couldn’t assuage. Having been allocated the card room for our workshops, we even managed to win over the displaced card players who’d been moved to the library.
This story is from the March 2018 edition of Patchwork and Quilting.
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This story is from the March 2018 edition of Patchwork and Quilting.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 8,500+ magazines and newspapers.
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