In January, 2008, I am leaving on a 90 day world cruise on the QE2! Anytime I am on a ship I take some quilting with me -- it's a wonderful way to meet people on lazy afternoons at sea, and I have a lovely souvenir of my trip. Anyhow, WHAT TO TAKE is the dilemna. I do every stitch on every quilt by hand, so I can take piecing or whole-cloth, both of which I enjoy doing. For piecing, I always cut everything at once, apportion the pieces into envelopes, one for each block, and am ready to go. As each block is finished it is folded and put back into its envelope for final assembly and quiling at home later. For whole-cloth that is portable, I make large blocks I assemble later. Everything is cut, marked, made into sandwiches, and basted before I leave home. Whole cloth work takes up more room in packing, of course. Threads, needles, thimbles, scissors, etc. go into a small plastic box, and I can tuck the current piece of work and plastic box into a tote bag.
I am considering taking piecing to do, and going through the stacks and stacks of patterns I already own. As to pattern, what would you think of taking a photo of the ship (from a brochure), enlarging it to perhaps 6" by 14", and piecing the ship for the center of the quilt?. Then I might add the name of the ship and "World Cruise 2008" below the ship, and surround the entire thing with the pattern Storm at Sea in blues. I might even make individual blocks for the 35 or so stops and scatter them around the edges just before the final sashing and binding
-- choose something appropriate for each location (like a monolith for Easter Island), and then embroider the name and date on the block. At any rate, this is my current thinking, and I will appreciate opinions and suggestions!
Is this too ego-laden, or just a great souvenir? I have spent many happy weeks at sea, but this is my first, and very probably last, world cruise. I'm so excited I can hardly stand it!
By the way, I heartily recommend taking needlework of some sort on any ship. There are always some good "sit and sew and chat" areas on ships, and people are always stopping by to say hello and see what you're doing. (When you have your nose stuck in a book they leave you alone.) It's a great way to meet some interesting passengers and crew members, and makes for a lovely souvenir for home. On my last trip, one woman was so excited to see somebody sewing she could hardly stand it -- she desperately needed to do some evergency mending and didn't have a sewing kit with her. So she ran down to her cabin, brought up the garment, borrowed needle, thread, and thimble, and did her repair work while buying drinks for both of us. Very nice lady from England!