Tag: cruise

I’m back!

I can’t believe it’s almost December! Or that my last post was in August!! What could have kept me away that long?!

Many things have been going on that have kept me busy. It started while I was still at Tatting Corner’s Tat Days in July, where I spoke to Lisa Adams about teaching a class on the tatting cruise, Knotical Adventures. I had already submitted one pattern and she told me I could submit another. On our way home from Tat Days, my husband and I brainstormed ideas about what I could try. By the time we got home, I had a good idea of another pattern.

Having an idea and making it real are two very different things! For the next several months I made and remade the same thing, changing a bit here, tweaking a bit there. After I thought I had it the way I wanted, I had to write out the pattern. This pattern wasn’t easy to translate to paper. After I wrote it down, I submitted it to a couple of wonderful test tatters, who pointed out all the places that didn’t work. Then I went back to writing out the corrections. I didn’t think I’d have it ready for the cruise, but I did! Thank you to Lora McClintock for testing it with a needle, and to Stephanie Wilson for testing it with a shuttle. Your suggestions and input were put to use and have been greatly appreciated! The result of all this hard work will be shared in another post.

What I will share today is the first item I submitted to teach on the cruise.

Compass Rose on wandasknottythoughts
Compass Rose

The patterns for the cruise were to be of a nautical theme. I thought of this Compass Rose soon after Lisa started asking for teachers. It came together quickly. The hardest part was finding beads with the correct letters for the four directions. I finally decided that it would be best to just write them on. This came out just as I envisioned it.

My sister and I on the Knotical Adventures cruise 2023 on wandasknottythoughts
My sister and I on the Knotical Adventures cruise 2023

Then there was the cruise! My sister went with me on Tatting Corner’s Knotical Adventure. We both had a blast! We didn’t tat ALL the time, we enjoyed a few shore excursions as well. Thanks, Lisa, for putting this cruise together! Can’t wait for the next one!

I have a lot of things to share, but now it’s the Christmas season. I have so many things to do, including tat, in the next few weeks. But I plan to post a few more times before the end of the year. Let’s see how well I do!

What has been keeping you busy?

Tatting Corner’s Tat Days part 2

I am so inspired by my experience at Tat Days that I have all kinds of ideas for new things to tat. I’m not sure when I’ll have the time to try them all! I did finish all of my projects from Tat Days except for Pearl, the mermaid.

Bugle mania project on wandasknottythoughts
3 Bugle Picot Motif

The 3 Bugle Picot motif is the only project I finished at Tat Days, except for sewing in the ends. It’s almost amazing that I finished it there, all the stops and starts I did. Marsha Bramson and K Boniface set up at one of the round dinner tables instead of at a long class table and I almost missed that they had started. Several people that hadn’t signed up for the class joined, they didn’t realize at first it was a class and not a tat-n-chat. Marsha and K brought all kinds of beads that we could use and there were lots of discussions going on about the class patterns and bead uses. I had trouble choosing what I wanted to do, then kept loading the beads wrong.

Bugle mania class on wandasknottythoughts
Bugle mania class with Marsha
Bugle mania with K on wandasknottythoughts
Bugle mania with K

The class time seemed to go very fast! As I don’t use beads often I learned a lot. Did you notice how those bugle beads are used in the motif? Both K and Marsha had good suggestions and helpful hints.

I enjoyed that class so much that this week while I was at JoAnn’s I noticed they had bugle beads on sale – 40% off *smile* – so I acquired some. Now I can try the other patterns from the class.

Bugle beads on wandasknottythoughts
Bugle beads

Lisa had tables set up for any show-and-tell items people brought. There wasn’t a lot, but those that brought items were very interesting to look at. I brought a few things myself to share.

Show and tell items at Tat Days on wandasknottythoughts
Show and tell items at Tat Days

I brought the flowers and butterflies decorated bangle I made and finished it off with a prism in the center. I also brought a decorated wishbone, done without the thimble holder. Interestingly, two of the classes I took were covering cabone rings, which is done the same way I covered the bangle bracelets and the wishbone that I brought. I’ll share those projects in another post.

Did you hear? Lisa is doing another Tatting Corner cruise! It’s “Knotical Adventures” on the Royal Caribbean ship ‘Harmony of the Seas’, leaving from Galveston in November of 2023. And I get to go!! Whoo hoo! Check it out on Tatting Corner’s website.

“You don’t learn to walk by following rules. You learn by doing, and by falling over.” Richard Branson

A little delay

We had a little delay on our way home from our cruise.  Our flight had a stop over in Denver that was only supposed to be a few hours.  It turned into more than 24 hours due to no flight crew for our plane.  They said the crew was delayed due to some issue on the east coast.  Great!  The airline did put us up at a really nice hotel and gave us some vouchers for food.  I would have preferred staying at a Comfort in or something instead.  Absolutely nothing was free – neither the wi-fi nor the breakfast.  And the vouchers they gave us only covered not quite two meals and we needed three.
They did have lovely lounge areas, which was nice as we had to check out of our room by 11:00 a.m. and we didn’t want to take the shuttle back to the airport until 1:00 p.m.
Tatting in Denver on wandasknottythoughts.com
Hotel tatting
During the wait at both the hotel and the airport I was able to get a lot of tatting done (surprise, right?)
Hotel tatting, bookmark made while delayed in Denver on wandasknottythoughts.com
Lattice bookmark © Wanda Salmans 2015
This one I mostly like though I’m not too sure of the tail end.  I didn’t get a picture of this until just before I gave it away to our church organist for her retirement.
Hotel tatted bookmark version 2 on wandasknottythoughts.com
Lattice bookmark © Wanda Salmans 2015
I made it again with both ends the same and no tail.  I think I like this better.  I think this pattern in a plain thread will really show the pattern better than the Lizbeth Caribbean I made it in, but this was the thread I had with me.
The delay was a good thing in that I got a lot of tatting done.  I would rather have been home and tatting.
“You may delay, but time will not.”
Benjamin Franklin

A lot of knitters!

We sailed on the Norwegian Pearl from Seattle, WA for our cruise of the Inside Passage of Alaska.  Something we noticed as we were going through the boarding process (which is similar to going through security at an airport for almost 3000 passengers) was a boarding line with a small sign saying “Welcome knitting group.”   We wondered what that was all about.  It didn’t take long after boarding for us to see why there was a special line just for them – they were everywhere!  They all wore purple lanyards and some had canvas bags and/or sweatshirts with “Stitch and Sail” on the them.  Found out they were all part of the group from “Stitch and Sail to Alaska with Debbie Macomber“.  All 300+ of them. I’m not sure if that number included the non-knitting spouses or not, though there were couples where both were knitters or at least worked with fiber.
And yes, Debbie Macomber was on board, though I don’t think I ever saw her.
Stitch and Sail on the cruise wandasknottythoughts.com

Throughout the cruise you would see individuals as well as groups of knitters in all areas of the ship.  They had classes going on in different locations during the cruise, and, I understand, special events just for them.  Like me some would bring their work with them while they waited for a show to start or while listening to some of the live entertainment that was available, as well as just relaxing around the ship.  For some reason a lot of people thought I was with the group, I suppose because the uneducated couldn’t tell what I was doing other than something with “yarn”.

Crafting on the Alaska cruise wandasknottythoughts.com
Having breakfast in the Garden Cafe. Check out the lady behind me.
Knitters on the Alaska cruise wandasknottythoughts.com
I met Priscilla and Linda, both from the state of Washington (different cities), and asked about the many knitters aboard. We had a nice chat out on the deck about knitting, the cruise, and tatting. Both ladies do many of the fiber arts.  Priscilla’s mother taught her knitting, embroidery and crochet, then she learned needle tatting later when she had her own yarn shop so she would to be able to answer questions about it.  Linda’s grandmother taught her to knit when she was a child.  She has made items from fiber she’s carded, spun and knitted (pretty much doing everything right from the sheep’s back except to actually sheer it).  She also knits very fast.  A special yarn and shawl pattern were made just for the cruise, and only a few days out Linda was already done with her shawl and was now on to other things.
Knitter working on baby afghan on Alaska cruise wandasknottythoughts.com
I met Andy one evening in the Atrium.  Both he and his wife knit and came on the cruise together.
Knitter with baby afghan on Alaska cruise wandasknottythoughts.com


He was working on a baby blanket for a grandson due in a few months. He and his wife are owners of “All Strung Out,” a yarn shop in Ontario, Canada.

Tatting in the Atrium on Alaska cruise wandasknottythoughts.com

The Atrium was a nice place to relax and people watch.  There was usually some kind of entertainment going on at one end, customer services had desks at the other end, and a lot of people going through from one place to another.  I think I spent some time there almost every day, usually with tatting in hand and usually not the only one working with fiber of some kind.  I really enjoyed having all those knitters on board and felt a kinship with them, even if I don’t knit.

“When people see me knitting, I tell them I’m a knitter.  Not the sort of knitter they may have run into before, but a passionate, constant, deliberate knitter.  I knit everyday, all the time, everywhere I go.”
Stephanie Pearl-McPhee
brainyquote.com

Cruising

My husband and I tried something new last week – we went on a cruise to Alaska.
This trip was taken with several of my husband’s family, making us a group of eleven.  My sister-in-law and her husband are the only ones to have been on cruises before in the Gulf of Mexico, and none of us have ever been to Alaska.  It was a week of new experiences all around.
My husband and I flew out to Seattle a day early so we could see some of the city before we sailed.  We spent Saturday doing a lot of walking, trying to see as much as possible in the time we had.  That was fun! We spent some time in Pike’s Place at the fish market and the shops down there.  We took a picture of the original Starbucks from outside for our daughter (there were so many people we couldn’t go inside) and stopped at a couple more for coffee.  They really are everywhere up there!  They make great places to stop and rest for awhile. 
Everyone else arrived Saturday evening. We all stayed at the same hotel so we could all go together to the ship on Sunday.  It is quite a challenge to organize even that many people to be ready to go at the same time.
I’m very glad that tatting is so portable.
You notice how dressed up I am?  My husband and I figured we were going to Alaska so we would dress comfortably and fit right in 🙂
I couldn’t think of any patterns I wanted to work on during the trip so I just made sure I had a some thread and several shuttles.  I didn’t tat a whole lot for the first few days – there were so many things to do on the ship!  But I had it with me all the time.
To start with I decorated a few buttons and did an short edging to put on the card holder on my lanyard.  I wore this all the time on the ship.  It had my room key, tatting, crochet hook and scissors, the schedule of events on board for the day, receipts, a pen and cash for when we went ashore.  You see that it was the last day of the cruise before I realized I didn’t have a picture of it.
I gave this button away to one of our servers who had been very interested in what I was doing.  The server was very happy with it.  I hadn’t realized that the schedule I used as the background was from day six instead of seven until later.  
Be fore-warned: there will be a lot of pictures from our vacation in the coming weeks. It was a great week with many, many beautiful things to see.  I haven’t even gone through all the pictures yet , but I’m looking forward to enjoying our vacation all over again as I do.

“We travel not to escape life, but for life not to escape us.”
Anonymous