Holidays…do you take your stitchery with you or do you prefer to have a complete break from it and come back fresh as a daisy?

I read many stories of ladies taking it all, even sewing machines in caravans/motorhomes, and it all sounds wonderfully relaxing.

This year we went on a celebration cruise as it’s our Golden wedding anniversary in August and decided I would have a complete break from all things sewing related….wrong!

I duly tidied the sewing room and had a mild panic…I’m not a great reader…no internet on ship (well, only if you’re prepared to pay silly prices, and I wasn’t)…what would I do at quiet moments relaxing? Balls! …the EPP patchwork balls made with pentagons, so quickly organised a little bag of fabric scraps, print outs of pentagon’s etc etc…no scissors allowed on ship, so quickly cut out the shapes in prep to be stitched on board…I was happy.

On the first night’s dinner table (we chose to sit on a table of eight), always a bit worrying who you’re going to be chatting to for the days to follow. Introductions all round, sat next to a lovely lady from Lancashire and so started the conversation in the usual Cilla Black form…”Hi, where do you come from? What do you do?”…I was not prepared for her reply…

“ I’m a PATCHER!!!”

Well, after I picked myself up from the floor, looked at hubby who now has his head in his hands (he thought he was having a break from patchwork too)…out of 1,000 passengers I was sitting next to a stitch sister…the cruise started well.

We chatted about U3A which she was involved in and how they meet up and stitch projects and of course showed me a few pics, this one was interesting, made from tea bags!

She didn’t do Facebook so I told her all about our lovely UKQU group and of course gave her the details of   https://ukqu.co.uk/    for her to check out on her return home. We half joked about finding fabric shops on our island stops…so a quick message to my knowledgeable friend to ask for shop stops in Guernsey…so I could give the info to my new friend .…sorted.

Beautiful morning as we set anchor in Guernsey and get tendered in, much to our relief as the previous times the weather was too rough to tender, so was abandoned.

Hubby went one way in St.Peter Port and I headed for ‘the’ shop…it was in a compartment store so a little limited on choice, but hey ho…found a few fqs and then some in the sale. When I asked the lovely young lady for a fq from the bolt, she replied she wasn’t allowed to do that, but she could cut half a meter and then let me cut the quarter, so I did, one for me and one for my ‘ship mate’.

I did manage to do a little ‘stitch fix’ to satisfy my cravings and will certainly make a little momento with my self cut fat quarter to remind us of a fabulous holiday.

As a footnote to this little story, I’ve just received an email from my new stitch friend with a photo of what she’s made with the gifted fat quarter…beautiful eh?

Made by Bernice 

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Lyn Butler
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Responses

  8. Lynne Cavill Ham

    Pfylis my Pfaff usually goes everywhere with me! But next holiday she will be at home, 10th wedding anniversary and 1st time away in our new caravan. I’m going to take some counted thread or cross stitch and hope to attract a stitchy friend too xxx