Chapter 3 - All aboard!!

On my way...

Have I said in previous postings how I loved, loved the Cruise.  The Celebrity Solstice is a magnificent ship. Quite large - taking over 2,500 passengers plus crew.  But not once did you feel there was that many people.  It's not a 'party' ship.  Most of the passengers were older with a sprinkling of families with children.













We had a great stateroom - two very comfy beds, plenty of room, even a small lounge area with flat screen tv and double doors to the balcony.

The main foyer - 4 decks high

Of course, the pool area - with 4 spas.

Memories of New York

I have just recently completed this little quilt in honour of my two visits to New York City (in 1999 and this year).  One of my most favourite places in the world to visit (haven't been to many, but love New York...)  I wanted to put something on my lounge room wall to remember this vibrant city.  Don't know if I will ever get back there.  Maybe one day.

I called it 'Postcard from New York.

Meeting my favourite princesses...

As you know my family and I went to Disneyland and the US last month.  We had the most fabulous time.  It is a magical place to visit.  I would have enjoyed it even with my granddaughter.

She met all the princesses as well as Mickey and Minnie Mouse and Goofy, and a number of other Disney characters.

Two of her favourites are Aurora (Sleeping Beauty) and of course Snow White.  When she met Aurora, we were having lunch in Ariel's Grotto and she was wearing her 'Aurora' dress.

It was truly a magical happy 3 days.  The rest of the time we went to Chicago, Boston and New York.  I will post some snippets about this part of our trip over the next couple of weeks.

A small finish from Houston

 One of the highlights of my trip to the USA and Houston last year was meeting with Pokey Bolton of Quilting Arts fame and to be lucky enough to attend one of the Quilt-It Univeristy workshops.  The one I was able to get into was with Lesley Riley who developed the TAP product for using images in your quilts.
Here I am looking pleased with myself.

 It was  fascinating process and very easy.  The images come out so clear.  In our little kit we all received an image to use and some quotations along with the transfer paper, very clear instructions to use later, and iron-on webbing.

She had a humungous case of materials from which we could choose our background and any other bits we thought we might like to use.  In the workshop we managed to just finish doing the transfer and the iron-on bit.  The rest of the finishing was left to us to do later.  I had left mine as I wasn't sure as to how to finish it.  BUT I have been playing with a needle felting machine and having great time with it, that I want to needle felt anything that comes across my sewing table!!!

I got my little project out and did some free-motion stitching on the background thinking I might add some applique, but that felting machine was beckoning - so I searched my scraps of wool, found some I liked and felted some flowers onto the stitching. 

Did some round ones, long ones and a couple of leaves.  Rather like how it was looking, so rather than over do it I backed and edged my little quilt. For those interested it measures 10"x8.5".

Now onto more PHD's.  (I don't have UFOs!!!)

A New York purchase...

While in NY last year one of the many places we went to was the Garment District in downtown New York. A truly interesting and fabulous area of the city.  Not as many warehouses or designer studios as would have been there, say 20 years ago, but still lot of interesting little nooks and crannies.  In one building with a ride in an 'interesting' old lift, we ventured into a huge warehouse full of bolts and bolts of materials. 

 Most of the girls bought cottons and dressmaking stuff etc, but I went rumaging in a renmant bin and came across this absolutely beautiful piece of material.  It is two panels of black and white printed silk and yes, you can see the signature - it is by Ralph Lauren!!!! I paid $8 US for the piece.

My problem - what do I actually make with it? 

Originally when I purchased it I was going to make an outfit for my son's wedding in Palm Cove (Nth Qld), but when we got back I didn't have the time to make anything.  Summer has now gone and we are heading for winter - of course there is always next summer!  If anyone has a brilliant idea of what to do with this please put forward your suggestions. 

The actual size of this piece of stunning material is 2m x 2m with 2 square panels (one of which you see here and 3 smaller panels which go down one side.

From NY to Lancaster

We left New York on Tuesday morning and travelled by coach through the most beautiful, green and lush countryside on our way to Lancaster and the Amish and Mennomite communities.

It was very strange leaving such a vibrant, busy city and only a couple of hours later to find ourselves in an entirely different environment.

Our first stop was Burkholders, just outside of Lancaster and of course we helped their economy! Here are some of us (Rosemary in front) lining up to pay for our purchases.

Burkholders is quite a large shop with a huge class room and a large display of quilts on the walls and around all areas of the shop and one wall complete with gadgets etc.

We stayed at the Marriott, a fairly new hotel in Lancaster city for 4 nights and travelled by coach during the day to various Amish communities - Intercourse (passing by Virgintown/Maidenville!!!) and Bird-In-Hand.

While in Lancaster we visited one of Lancaster's museums which has a large collection of quilts and also on display was a collection of Native Indian woven wool wallhangings. The colours in this collection were beautiful, strong reds and browns. This is just a small number.

Unfortunately the antique quilts were all encased in glass and when taking photos they show a lot of reflection and wont post very well.

So if you want to see what I took you will just have visit me!!!!!!

New York - Part 2 (b)

It had been arranged for us to visit an exhibition of quilts held in the Williams Club. This was partly organised in conjunction with The City Quilter which we had previously visited.

The quilts were all made by quilters living and/or working in the New York area and were displayed in various rooms of the club. Vary diverse works.

Quite a few versions of Dear Jane as you can see here. Some quite contemporary ones, large and small. It was quite exciting to see our first exhibition on our trip and the standard of work by 'every day quilters' not just the professional ones or award winning quilts. For me, I thought they were all deserving of an award - much different to my standard!!!!

After 4 days in New York, seeing the Statue of Liberty, Ellis Island, Ground Zero, and a couple of us even did an underground rail trip (Yvonne and myself tried our best to get back from Staten Island via train - caught the wrong one - ended up going through the Bronx area, but eventually got back) Sorry Yvonne, it was a long walk from Times Square back to the hotel!!!!! We then boarded the coach and headed to Lancaster - Amish country.

Stay turned for more.......

New York - part 2 (a)

After seeing Jersey Boys on Broadway we went to dinner at the Olive Grove, an Italian restaurant about 2 blocks away.


They serve the most delicious cocktails - this was called a 'Mango & Passionfruit' daiquiri.

Very potent, and as you can see by the comparison with the glass of water, not small!! (Note - I only had one)





After dinner we walked the length of Broadway (almost) - what a fantastic sight - so much to see - there were as you can guess so many lights and billboards, also many street vendors and entertainers.

Very, very vibrant atmosphere. Loved everything about it.

Unfortunately I had a photo of me with Elmo but it didn't come out very well - flash wasn't turned on (duh!!)





The next day we went on a walking tour of the 'garment district' of New York.

Fascinating stuff - there is this magnificent bronze sculpture of a man at an old treadle sewing machine and also along one footpath many plaques denoting the various designers that have worked in the area.

We were lucky to be able to go into some warehouses and purchase material off the shelves (mainly dressmaking stuff etc).

New York - part 1

We stayed at the Raddison on Lexington. Our first venture into a quilting shop was The City Quilter in New York.

A smallish shop going by the standards of others we went into later in the trip - but about the same size as some of ours in Oz. Heaps of fabric, books and notions that we don't see very much of here. They have their own range of specialist NY fabric - taxis, city skylines, etc and of course I had to buy some! I think just about everyone did.

I know what you're going to say - show us - I will as soon as I my visitors have gone and everyone has seen the goodies. I will then properly unpack the cases - note cases! Sue and myself had to purchase extra - we were very close to the weight limit of 23kgs. But one can have 2 cases with 23 kgs - so that is what we did! Cheaper than paying for excess baggage.......

This was the start of our mission to 'help the US economy situation'.

Our bus driver also took us for a tour of the city highlights. Love the traffic and the pedestrians - lost count of how many we missed!!!! They take no notice of traffic lights.



Getting back to our hotel I looked out our window (our room was on the 8th floor) and saw this very interesting sight. Don't know how it got there, but the car was gone the next day. If I didn't take this photo you would have said I dreamt it!