Wonderful needlework cruise

I’m back from the Needlework Cruise! It was an enjoyable experience, though I really missed my family at times. I met some delightful people, and did some new things.

When I boarded the ship on the Sunday, I wandered around feeling quite overwhelmed. It was opulent and absolutely huge! There was so much to see and explore. In the evening, we left Sydney in the rain, with a thunderstorm periodically lighting up the sky.

Before going through customs and boarding we had to hand over our “sharps” packages (needles, scissors, knitting needles etc) to the needlework conference organisers. They were all scanned separately by security and then returned to us the next day. The organisers had had to negotiate hard for the sharps situation to work for us. At first during the negotiations, the cruise company had demanded that they all be taken off us at the end of each day. What a ridiculous situation! If we wanted to hurt people, we’d be able to do it just as easily with a kitchen or dining room knife as with a tiny pair of embroidery scissors. Honestly, sometimes bureaucracy is just so ridiculous!

The next day was a settling in day, and the only activity I was involved with was a tutor meeting. We went to our teaching space (one of the dining rooms) and divvied it up between all the tutors. There were some limitations that we had to work with, such as that most of the tables were bolted down, so we couldn’t rearrange the space to suit us. And the lighting wasn’t the best in some places, so we had to make use of the natural light coming in through the windows. Apart from that, it was a very beautiful space to have a class!

My first class was a two day Mountmellick class. I had about 13 in the class, and they did really well. Some of the ladies had not really done any embroidery since school, but this was not obvious until they told me! Our classes went from 9am until 4pm, with a break for lunch somewhere in the middle.

The backdrop of the sea behind us was so lovely! I actually expected the water to be blue black, but instead it was a vibrant purple blue (about DMC 796 or 797!). I knew it wouldn’t show up that colour in my photos, but that didn’t stop me from taking photos!


Most days I got up quite early as I found it difficult to sleep. Maybe it was the rocking of the ship and the creaking of the room fittings that meant I didn’t sleep so well. But I usually was up on deck before dawn to do a walk of about 2km per day around the walking track while watching the sun rise. All the sunrises were my favourite part of the trip. Each morning I marvelled at the beauty that God has created.

I’ll continue my story tomorrow!