Knitters and Natters

It's hard to quilt at home. You need a lot of space, a lot of equipment, and a lot of free time.

It's really hard to quilt on a cruise. There actually are "quilting cruises," but . . . no, I don't think so.

So I cast around for a portable project. (A knitting pun and a sailing pun!) Cross-stitch fits the bill exactly.

On cruises, whenever there is a day at sea there is usually an "event" called Knitters and Natters. It's not really an event. It's more like a flash mob - just show up with your project at a specific place and time. There is no instructor, no leader, nothing. Just show up.

Usually there will be from 10 to 25 women. Never any men. So far. Most of the women are knitters and most of them seem to be making socks. There are usually a few cross-stitchers and needle-pointers. Sometimes there will be someone hand-sewing some small patchwork piece. Every once in a while you will see someone doing something like tatting or some arcane form of embroidery.

Inevitably someone will ask, "What is a natter, anyway?" Some people think it is a special kind of knitting or needlework. But the definition of natter is:

to talk casually, especially about unimportant matters; chatter

There's a little bit of a value judgment in that definition, but quite often the topics ARE relatively unimportant. That's what makes it so pleasant - no politics, no religion, no competitiveness over needle skills.

Before the trip I gathered up all of my supplies and different colors of floss. I sewed some grid lines on the aida cloth. I got ready, but I didn't start stitching until the September cruise. 

I am a relative newcomer at this. I found out there's a lot more to counted cross-stitch than just making x's. For one thing, you need good eyes and really good light. I ripped out a lot of stitches and my work went very slowly.

Here is what it looks like after two cruises:

I won't say what it is, but I'll post photos from time to time.

I was fortunate to be on the same cruise as a woman who is a MASTER cross-stitcher. She was very generous about sharing her expertise with me. Of course, I thought of a lot more questions after the cruise was over.

Her work was absolutely amazing. Her stitching was so perfect that the front and the back of her work looked almost the same.

Lesson learned:

Find a mentor. You will learn things that you didn't know you didn't know.