Sailing Trip Preparation

On my last post, I shared that I will be going on a wonderful, long anticipated sailing trip to the South Pacific, specifically, French Polynesia and The Cook Islands.  This will be an offshore sail training expedition so I may experience for myself what it is like to be out on a sailboat way far from land.

To get ready for this trip, I knew I needed to prepare for it physically.  Here is what I have done to prepare:

Fitness-I took my spine doc’s advice and joined a gym to work out, then hired a personal trainer, too.  We focused on the areas that needed strengthening, and my arms are now very toned.  I feel great!  I also increased my aerobics, and now I am doing sprints, too.

Coffee- One theory is that coffee contributes to sea sickness, so we are told to go off the java before the trip.  Loving my morning coffee as I do, especially when it is lovingly prepared by Joe, I weaned myself off of coffee slowly, to  avoid the dreaded caffeine withdrawal headaches.

Expedition Supplies- You are provided a long list of what you need to bring with you.  Here are just a few supplies from the list:  Foul weather sailing jacket (photo above), chest harness and tether,  Headlight, alarm for standing watch, waterproof watch, polarized sailing glasses,   packtowels, flat sheets, pillowcases, backpack and duffel.  Optional items I am bringing include my GoPro camera, a small Kindle Fire for reading, and my snorkel and mask.  Btw, Love my watch- a Baby G:

Medical Supplies- You must partner with your physician and bring along antibiotics, anti-fungal pills, and of course, Rx for seasickness.  Plus any regular Rx, too.  This takes some pre-planning, but it helps if your doctor likes to sail, too.

Clothes- you are very limited by how much clothes you can bring.  I will be bringing 5 pairs of sport shorts or my favorite white and black petal skorts from Athleta:

Add on sports bras, swimsuits, shoes, and tops, plus we have to bring a long skirt or dress to be culturally sensitive and 3 hats, plus a long tech shirt for the sun.

Did I mention that the total weight for all items together must be lower than 30 pounds?  I freely admit that this is the hard part for me.  To that end, I have been searching out shorts and clothes that are very lightweight, so that I might be able to bring a few more clothes along.   My favorite shoe I am bringing is from Merrill’s Barefoot collection and my Teva’s:

   

Both pairs are lightweight, and comfy.   To help save weight when packing, I bought a bunch of Eagle Packing cubes to organize my supplies in.

Ok, you get the idea that I had to prepare way ahead of time for this trip.  Joe tells me it will be the trip of a lifetime, based on his experience sailing betweem Fiji and Vanautu last year.  I can’t wait!!!   From adventurous Carla

 

Offshore Sail Training Expedition

I thought I would shift gears from my quilting today to tell you about a fun trip I have been planning for… an offshore sailing expedition in the South Pacific aboard John and Amanda Neal‘s Mahina Tiare III.  Here is what their Hallberg Rassy 46 looks like, via magazine covers:

Last year, I wrote about Joe’s sailing adventure between Fiji and Vanautu here.  I stayed behind to care for dear Ethan, and once Joe returned home, he encouraged me to apply for an expedition leg in 2013.    I was accepted for their Leg 2 in 2013, which starts less than 2 weeks away!  I will join the boat in Papeete, Tahihi in French Polynesia and will leave the boat in Rarotonga in The Cook Islands.

This expedition will allow me to have an offshore, bluewater sailing experience, while learning about topics such as navigation, safety at sea, standing watch, weather, sail trim, etc.  While I have been on numerous yacht trips over the years- crewing on numerous luxury yacht delivery going from Maine to FL, or FL to Michigan, this time I will be on a sailboat AND will literally be in the middle of the Pacific far from land.  In sailing speak, this is called “bluewater” or “offshore” sailing.

  ( Mahina Tiare III expedition photo from Bluewater Sailing magazine)

Yes, I will be wearing a foul weather jacket, tether and harness like shown in the photo above.  My jacket will be bright pink, as I like being different, yet still girly.      I will also have a chance to snorkel in exotic locations in French Polynesia- many not accessible to tourists.  My plan is to bring along my GoPro camera with dive housing so I may post some beautiful videos/pictures of what I see.  Anyone willing to take bets whether I will capture any images of sharks?

While I am in French Polynesia and The Cook Islands, my goal is to seek out local fabrics and if possible, buy a small tifaifai (French Polynesia quilt) or tivaevae (Cook Island quilt).  I have been reading up on the style differences between these methods of quilting art.

Here is an image of a tifaifai:

Here are examples of Rarotongan tivaevae from the blog by John Charles Davies:

Can you tell I am getting very excited???   Regards, Carla

Bobbie’s Quilt

Today I bring you a new quilt I am working on-  a quilt for a woman who served in the Marine Corps during WW2.  Here is the entire quilt, pieced by Bobbie Jarrett and Photo Transfer printing by The Pixeladies:

QOV quilt by Bobbie Jarrett and quilting by Carla Barrett

Here are some sections I have designed so far and quilted.  The corner motif is my design, with plans to have Digitech Design sell all the designs later in the year.  I plan to add a couple of stars to the motif below:

Quilting design by Carla Barrett

The blank blocks will have this design:

More pictures to come when I am finished.  I am told that this quilt will be unveiled in Wash. DC later in the year at a museum.

Design wise- I decided to make this a lovely patriotic quilt since the recipient is female.  As a nod to her military service, I am quilting stars here and there.  The recipient is also a musician, so I will be adding musical notes and the outside border (not shown) will include piano keys.

I am also using a purchased feather design for the outside diamond spaces- a Sherry Rogers-Harrison feather design from her Lancaster Star Collection (also sold at Digitech Designs.

More to come later…   Hope everyone is well who is reading this.  Would love to hear what YOUR current project is?  Hugs, Carla

Doug’s Finished Quilts

I realized I never posted images for Doug’s 2 quilts I quilted recently.  I will start with the Group quilt, which had Doug (High Sierra Quilt Store) to piece it, Bobbie Jarrett to applique some wonderful cattails on the quilt, I quilted it, and Lyn Baker is binding the quilt.

Here is the finished quilt laying on dining room table:

This quilt has wonderful texture quilting, and I have purposely added dimension to the cattails so they poof up nicely.  This quilt has a duck hunting theme, so look carefully for the duck hunter, and lots of ducks flying away in the quilting.   Here is the back of the quilt:

My favorite part of this quilt is the borders and cornerstone design:

The circle duck design I created to match the border design.  I took motifs from the border design, separated them, then created 2 circles to contain the arrangement.  The piano keys were done by hand using my Fine LIne Ruler.  The border design was purchased from Digitech Patterns here.  Denise Schillinger designed the duck border- which is actually a loon, but figured no one would know the difference.  LOL

Doug was very happy with my quilting, and I liked how the textural the quilting made the cattails poof out dimensionally.  It will be entered into a local County Fair next month.

Doug also creates retro teardrop trailers completely by hand.  He is a true artisan with his trailers- and is currently almost finished with his latest trailer.  Every trailer he makes, I quilt him a quilt which matches.  Here is a modern quilt with some retro quilting.  I actually used a design found here for the borders.  Once again, the border design is one by Denise Schillinger.

The design shown above is perfect for this modern quilt.  The density of the quilting will be great for the intended use- as a decorative bed quilt in the trailer.  Doug also used this fabric line to make curtains, too.

Hope you have enjoyed this preview!  Stay tuned for a really interesting quilt which I am working on now.    Hugs, Carla

PS: I just realized that this post is my 1,000 post I have written since I moved my blog to WordPress.   WordPress stats also tells me that I have had almost 1.6 million visitors to my blog since I moved the blog here!  Thanks for your visits and support!

Feather Heart Design

Here is another in my Art&Stitch Practice Series.  Art&Stitch is a digitizing program found here.

Today, I decided to channel my inner froo-froo, girly side.  I call this design my Heart Feather Series:

quilting design by Carla Barrett

First, I see this used in a border:

quilting design by Carla Barrett

Or how about as a wreath design:

quilting design by Carla Barrett

Here’s a block design, too:

Design by Carla Barrett

And, finally, my favorite design- a larger Block Motif:

design by Carla Barrett

Hope you have enjoyed this series of quilting designs I have created using Art&Stitch design software.  More information on this software is found here.  

Which one is YOUR favorite?

 

 

 

Palm Leaf Quilting Series

Good Day to you!  Today, I have a new group of quilting designs to show you in my Art & Stitch Design Series.  I call the following designs my “Palm Leaf Set.”   If you like it, let me know and I will send it to Jessica to see if she would like to sell it on here website, Digitech Patterns.

First, I drew a single palm leaf design:

quilting design by Carla Barrett

Next, I wanted to see how it would look as an allover pattern:

quilting design by Carla Barrett

I could see the allover design pattern being used on a modern quilt or a tropical quilt.  Next is my favorite- what happens when I turn the Palm Leaf into a block motif?

quilting design by Carla Barrett

I like the above block design and can’t wait to use it when the right quilt comes along!
It took me only a few minutes to create the designs shown here using Art&Stitch program.  It took me longer to copy paste, crop and add the type to the designs using Photoshop.

Can you tell I am having fun?  What are YOU up to creative wise?   Carla

Modern Quilt Design

Just finished a nice modern quilt for Doug, and now I am drawing designs for the next modern quilt- one by Lyn Baker.  I will most likely draw up 4 or 5 designs for her quilt using Art & Stitch program.  Here is my first one- a design for the sashing part of Lyn’s quilt:

mod sashing 1 by Carla Barrett

As you can see, this is a simple geometric design for a smaller border or sashing.  It has a nice modern vibe and will go with other parts of the quilt and designs I will be using.

Art& Stitch is a terrific program, it only took me a few minutes to import my quick sketch from Photoshop, then trace over the design using the Bezier Tool.   I first saved it in the ANS extension, then saved it with the extension used by my machine- an Intelliquilter.

Stay tuned!  Have several quilt images to share with you in the near future!  Carla