piecing on cruise suggestions?

Have you ever played with Grandmother's Flower Garden? I keep the assorted parts ready for trips. Polly

"Mary" <

The Baltimore blocks would engage your attention. but if you want something entirely mindless and quick to cut out, I recommend bowties. To make a 2.5" square, you need 4 1.5" squares with a corner cut off (I made a little template to get the missing corner right) plus one

1.25" square for the center. Of the 4 squares, 2 need to be background and 2 match the center to make the bowtie. These are a good way to use up smallish scraps. I did enough over a couple of years to make a queen-size quilt. Roberta >I have booked a 24 day cruise for next March, and am looking for

Mary, Have you ever checked out Inklingo??? Lots of really neat collections are available. With Inklingo you print the cutting/stitching lines on fabric with your ink jet printer. Then cut and sew. Wonderful way to make lots of different types of quilts. There is even a free collection that you can download to try it out. I really like to have Inklingo projects for hand work, although you can also put them together with the machine if you wish.

NAYY, But a very satisfied customer who wants some of the recent collections....(Perhaps for my birthday tomorrow I will order some?? )

Have fun, Pati, in Phx

No, I havent, but it's always seemed to be "on the list". Great idea! Thanks!

If you do want something along the Baltimore Album way, you could look at A Baltimore Album by Marsha Radtke. There are 25 blocks and with her pattern, if you choose the right fabrics you would only need three or four spools of different color thread.

It is the next item on my travel list.

Steven Alaska

Ask our Polly- by doing appliqué with silk thread just one color of silk thread will work for nearly any color fabric. A BAQ is something you mentioned you might like to do and a few blocks could keep you busy for the entire cruise of they are detailed enough. I particularly like the ones with an Art Deco/Nouveau spin to them. They aren't quite traditional but very lovely. I'm a big fan of Suzanne Marshall's quilts-

Leslie & The Furbabies in MO.

Have you considered getting one of the battery operated SMs to take along? Just wondering. Barbara in hot muggy SC

Just to piggy back a second "happy customer" on this...they even have a free download or two to try before you buy ...very portable and lets you hand piece more complicated stuff

Karen

NAYY, But a very satisfied customer who wants some of the recent collections....(Perhaps for my birthday tomorrow I will order some?? )

Have fun, Pati, in Phx

I am not a fan of sewing machines, although I have two of them and do seem to use the Featherweight rather often. I wouldn't take even a small battery-powered one with me on a trip, though. First, I am going with only a carry-on bag, so space is a very big issue. Second, when I stitch on board a ship I am generally in a lounge with a bar and afternoon activities going on -- bingo, trivia, etc -- and that is a great time to chat with folks who wander by and stay a bit. (There are even folks once in a while who chat, and then go fetch their needlework, too!) I have found that on a ship, if you want to be left alone, read a book. If you enjoy meeting people, get out some sort of needlework.

Oh my, wow, Yes. Leslie gave me some silk thread when my appliqué stitches were really primitive. The silk took me from 'not good enough' to 'quite nice, thank you'. There's just no way to put eyes on sheep without some handstitching. However . . . somebody mentioned that Oxy-clean stuff would dissolve silk. I've been thinking I need to do some stitching with silk on a scrap and run it through the Oxy-clean detergent myself and see what happens. Maybe even give it a brutal hot water soak first. We need to know. Polly

Lately I've been doing english paper piecing. Hexagons are probably what people most often think of, but there are lots of other shapes and patterns. You can buy pre-cut shapes here if you like (or certainly make your own) but they also have lots of free patterns to get your creativity going.

If you want to do applique but worry about hauling all that thread, there are options! I love, love, love my thread set in a bobbin holder. Superior threads makes it in both cotton (Masterpiece thread) and poly (SewFine). Here's one place to see it, though it's available many, many places so check your favorite on-line store.

Another way to do applique with just one color of thread is to do a Hawaiian one. It doesn't have to be huge. Even an 18" block can keep you busy for quite a while. Elizabeth Root has some nice patterns and even a few freebie block patterns on her site - For a little more detail and bigger options (like 42 inches) try Nancy Lee Chong - marcella

how about some wool applique blocks to use in pillows, tablerunners, bags, et al.. never been on a big cruise liner myself but there might be that little bit of rock and roll. wook applique with no seams to tuck under and the pieces are cut to size all ready to blanket stitch down seems appropriate for those conditions. the design possibilitys are endless. lots of colours to use tho might need a few different threads too. easy to add some on bobbins with a short chopstick or similar keeping them together i'd think. google images on 'wool applique' has quite a few different styles of design to ponder. some even look rather like Baltimore applique. just another thot to add to your list of possibilitys. :) j.

"Mary" wrote ... I have booked a 24 day cruise for next March, and am looking for suggestions for blocks to stitch during quiet afternoons on board. I would like to take some whole-cloth work, but that takes up far too much room in a suitcase -- I am going carry-on only as I did for 27 days earlier this year. So -- that means piecing or applique. I am not fond of embroidery. I'm beginning to go through the web sites with patterns, and nothing has grabbed me yet. Lots of little pieces are just fine -- the last hand-piecing I took with me has 72 pieces in each 12" block -- but I do not enjoy fiddling with stars with more than 8 points. What would you think of working on a lot of blocks with houses, all different? Or perhaps some Baltimore applique blocks? The way I arrange stitching for travel is that all the pieces for each block are all cut, and put together in a sandwich bag -- one baggie for each block, and an extra baggie of "extra bits" in case I mis-count. I carry a sketch on paper in my sewing kit. My sewing kit is one with the essentials, all in a quilted "box" that zips shut and squishes to take up very little space. My only hesitation with Baltimore blocks is that I would need several colors of threads. So

-- I am open to suggestions!

On Mon, 28 Jun 2010 10:20:37 -0500, Mary wrote (in article ):

You might need fewer colors of thread than you think, especially if you are doing red and green and using silk thread. That silk thread just sinks into the fabric and disappears.

Maureen

If you use a neutral color 100wt. silk thread, you need only one spool of thread. I've done lots of appliqué in all colors with my one spool of tan silk thread.

Julia > If you do want something along the Baltimore Album way, you could look at A