Come to Alaska with Redwood Sewing Center & Scottie Dog Quilts

In 2009 our store sponsored our first cruise to Alaska. What a time we all had! Fantastic scenery, food, quilting, adventures and more. Many who went said they'd love to go again and those who couldn't make it couldn't wait until we planned another cruise.

We are so excited to announce our Scottie Dog Quilts Alaskan Quilting Cruise. We leave Seattle August 11, 2012 for 7 fabulous days aboard Norwegian Cruise Lines ship, the Jewel. We'll have 7 days of Quilting and glaciers and quilting and whale watching and quilting and shows and quilting and fine dining and quilting and spa treatments and quilting and totems and .... well, I guess you get the picture. Still need a picture? We'll visit the Sawyer Glacier for unbelievable views.

We'll see bald eagles.

Walk among Totem Poles.

Visit the gold rush town of Skagway.
You could ride a train into the mountains.How about High Tea at the Empress Hotel in Victoria, BC?
Tour Craigdarrah Castle...the most fantastic home I've ever toured!
Here's the entryway!
Perhaps you want to see whales.

Our sewing room will have floor to ceiling windows...we won't miss the scenery a minute. We only sew when we are out to sea so you will be able to take advantage of everything Alaska has to offer. Your cruise fees include your Quilting classes. Since our group rates are so good you can bring your spouse, your best friend, your entire family. Cruising is a wonderful vacation for all age groups. Our ports of call are Skagway, Juneau, Ketchikan and Victoria, BC.

Have I got your attention yet? Click Here for a PDF brochure. You can contact our awesome Travel Agent, MJ Bryant at 888 278-7875. You will need to hold your space with a fully refundable deposit. Don't wait, space goes quickly. I want to go to Alaska with YOU!

What do you see aboard a cruise ship?

Scottie Dog Quilts Alaskan Quilting Cruise--Part IV

What do you see on a cruise ship? First night we found an elephant made out of towels on our bed. We had a "large, outside cabin." This meant we had a window...with curtains the steward closed every evening and we opened....night and day. After all...who could see us? In Skagway I awoke to seeing men's knees right at eye level 12 feet from our window! The dock was right on our level! By the time we disembarked after breakfast the tide had come in enough that we went off two floors above us! Our cabin was quite roomy for two people and we had an adjoining door (my back is to it) to Liz, Steve & Sydney's room.

What do you see on a cruise ship when you don't understand how to order from the room service menu (very confusing!). If you ask for 7 pieces of bacon from the "Country Breakfast" section, and 2 pieces of fruit and 3 assorted pastries and 2 cereals and milk, a cup of tea (Sydney was going to have breakfast in my room the first morning) this is what you get:

7 Country Breakfasts: Bacon, sausages, scrambled eggs, hash browns & grilled tomato half

2 Large plates of assorted fruits

3 Large plates each with croissants, hard roll, apple turnover & cheese danish

2 bowls of cereal

2 cartons of milk

1 pot of tea

What do you see on a cruise ship on the way to dinner? Whales!

On a Cruise Ship you'll see pretty ladies in their beautiful clothes in the dining room. Here are Bev Harrison (one of our teachers) and Judy.

On OUR cruise ship we saw the glaciers of Tracy Arm Fjord. You can't believe how beautiful they are until you see them in person. The blue is incredible.

On a cruise ship you may see a rock climbing wall. On OUR cruise ship you can see Crystal coming down and Paula racing up to ring the bell. You did NOT see BrendaLou even attempting!

On a cruise ship you might see fantastic carved fruits.....display is everything. Here is but one of the CHOCOLATE sculptures for the midnight buffet. Mr. Scottie Dog and I stayed up long enough to get pictures but chose to go to bed rather than sample any of the chocolates...I hear they were scrumptious.

On a cruise ship you might just meet a princess posing with a pig made out of towels. Sort of sounds like a Fairy Tale, doesn't it......well it was!

And on a cruise ship you might see a couple relaxing on deck. Look quick, you won't find BrendaLou and Mr. Scottie Dog like this very often!

August 7: Leaving Seattle

Friday, August 7: Leaving Seattle

We (Mr. Scottie Dog, Liz & Steve & Sydney and myself) spent Thursday night in Seattle at a Park 'n Ride hotel. Up early and breakfast in the room, we convinced the Hotel Shuttle driver to take us to the pier early. We'd been told we could board between 1 pm and 3 pm, but we thought if we got there early...... We had our personal luggage AND 10 pieces of luggage from the store.....3 foot lockers, 4 cardboard boxes, 2 duffel bags and one very large, flat cardboard covered piece with cutting mats and rulers in it. (on the way home this multiplied to 16 items!).

Crystal and Rob were at the pier with us and we were allowed to check in about 10 am. We were shown to a waiting area and although they said we couldn't board until 11 am, I think we were on the ship by 10:45.

We had our carry-ons (including sewing machines!) so we went to the pursers' desk to meet Maria, the best Group Liaison you could ever want. (every part of the shop was beautiful!)

Maria got us into the Conference Center....it was totally reserved for our group for the entire voyage! We dropped our luggage and made our way to Deck 9.....home of the Windjammer Cafe where we ate most of our meals buffet style(Dinner's we ate in the Dining Room). Then out to the open deck so we could say goodbye to Seattle and Hello to the first ever Scottie Dog Quilts Alaskan Quilting Cruise.
With Sydney as we leave port.

Sydney doing a little jig as we leave. Kaia is another of the 3 little girls we had with our group.

I couldn't resist putting one last picture. Here are Liz and Larissa (with the Space Needle in background)...they look so beautiful and so very excited to be going on a cruise together. Friends since 3rd grade, roommates right after high school, their children are friends....heartwarming.

Next time: out to sea, sewing & Juneau!

Alaskan Quilting Cruise First Report

I'm sitting in a hotel in Portland, OR tonight after disembarking the Rhapsody of the Seas....our home for the past week. Scottie Dog Quilts' Alaskan Cruise is sadly over....we had sooooo much fun! Here is just a small part of our group before dinner one night. Don't we look nice!There's so much to tell.....exploring Juneau and the wonderful welcome we received from Martha at Martina's Quilt Shop....she had a welcoming sign for us, fresh fruit and ice cold bottles of water waiting. Lovely gift bags for each of us and a local designer was there to give us each one of her patterns and graciously autographed each one.

We sewed, we laughed, we chatted, we ate, and ate and ate (and took the stairs too!). Lots of beautiful new jewlery was purchased, we sewed some more, we ate lots more....well, you get the picture. We went on excursions (one of us was detained by Canada Customs and nearly ended up in the hoosegow........hmmmm who, I wonder).......even to the Fancy-smancy Empress Hotel in Victoria, BC for High Tea.....we had three tea tables. Yummy, yummy!

More quilt shops.....boxes of fabrics sent home! A great time was had by all!

Since I am not home yet, just two pictures and I promise I'll give all the details in a couple of days. I'm tired, but oh, we had so much fun! Start saving your pennies and dimes for our Mexico Quilting Cruise in 2011.

A Cruising We Will Go!

Last night we had a special gathering at Scottie Dog Quilts. Liz and I each baked a pretty incredible cake....hers was a 10" two layer cake with a creme filling, chocolate fudge frosting and toasted nuts on top, mine was a triple lemon bundt cake. We filled out our dessert table with some cookies, frosted brownies and a platter of fresh pineapple & strawberries. (I have to paint the picture with words because we forgot to take pictures!)

Our guests began to arrive just before 7 pm. Right on time. Who were our special guests? Those invited last night were our soon-to-be shipmates on the First Scottie Dog Quilting Cruise. We filled the classroom to standing room only....those who live out of state, of course, couldn't make it, but it warmed our hearts to see the room full of eager faces (by the end of the evening I think the husbands who are going were pretty eager too).

Oh, we talked about excursions...many seem to be adventurous and will be taking the Zip Line above the rain forest in Juneau (not I!) or the train ride in Skagway or whale watching or having High Tea at the Empress Hotel in Victoria, BC. We chatted about formal wear (what is and isn't acceptable---no shorts in the dining room!) and breakfast in bed and quilting projects aboard the ship. Liz and I gave them a taste of the specials the quilt shops will be providing for our visits (one shop is having books signing and trunk shows of Alaskan designers just for us!).

We are already working with our awesome travel agent, MJ Bryant, on our next quilting cruise in 2011. We haven't nailed it all down just yet, but it will be to someplace warm. If you would like to be contacted about this cruise when we have it all put together let us know. You can email us at: scottiedogquilts@aol.com


And now Liz and I change courses and tomorrow morning we set up for The Heart of The Redwoods Quilt Show in Eureka, CA. If you are anywhere nearby come see us July 18 & 19.
I've got to go now....I'm still binding two quilts for our booth!

What's Up Lately

I've been busy lately, our store is gearing up for several events:

• Quilt Camp begins this Friday. It's Day Camp for Quilters! Meals are provided (one night we treat them to dinner at Rita's, a great Mexican place a block away) and we quilt from morning till night! The project we'll be doing this time is "Sweet" and they ladies will be learning to applique curves by machine!

• Redwood Empire Quilters Guild is having their big, every other year Quilt Show July 18 & 19 at Redwood Acres Fairground in Eureka, CA. They'll have nearly 300 quilts this year and many vendors including Scottie Dog Quilts. It's a big job vending at a quilt show and it takes weeks of hard work to pull it off. Come by our booth for wonderful new things, coupons for great discounts at the store and a big hello!

• Scottie Dog Quilts Alaskan Quilting Cruise August 7-14! We are so very excited as we sail in only six and a half weeks. There are so many details to iron out, so many plans to complete, quilting projects to finish (I've finished mine....just ironing out the teaching details!). We are gathering door prizes.....pretty fabulous! We still have room if you have been thinking about it!
  

Sydney has started gymnastics. She seems to spend most of her time upside down!


Head stands, somersaults, bars, frog hopping and more. UP.....
and DOWN!

Doesn't her smile say it all!

Last weekend Liz and family and her friend Larissa & family went to a very isolated campground called Watts Lake. We decided to come up for Father's Day Lunch. There are several ways to get to Watts Lake and Mr. Scottie Dog decided to take a short cut.....instead of 2 hours and 10 minutes our short cut took 3 hours and 5 minutes. Well, the map didn't show our route was mostly dirt road! Once we got off Highway 101 we saw 3 cars and lots of cows in the last 2 hours of driving. We drove from Meyers Flat through Ft. Seward, Alderpoint, Zenia....these towns flourished in days gone by...way by. When stagecoaches went through and logging boomed in the Redwoods these towns boomed. Now I suspect it is an agricultural product that booms in these parts...some cattle ranches, but Humboldt Gold is probably the main crop.

Here are 3 cuties (L to R: Kaia, Sydney & Emma) not 3 peas in a pod but 3 pink princesses on a log! By the way, Wyatt lake is not much bigger than the lot our house sits on!

We cooked burgers & dogs over the campfire and celebrated Mr. Scottie Dog's birthday with a cake and candles that wouldn't stay lit. Later we had some fun around the campfire, I beat Mr. Scottie Dog at Chinese Checkers (that's got to be a first!!!!), Syd roasted marshmallows and we ended up staying the night sleeping in the back of the Tahoe....next time I'll remember to bring the trailer!

Back home Monday and classes to teach....and that is what's up lately.

Winding Ways

Scottie Dog Quilts is sponsoring a Quilting Cruise to Alaska in August. (If you'd like to join us CLICK HERE). There are several projects you may choose to sew on the ship. Bev Harrison is teaching a Karen Combs pattern called Transparant Stars sewn with two colors of Karen's Shade Cascade (gradated) fabric. Liz is teaching a big quilt made with jelly roll strips. My project is actually 3 smaller ones. A bag, a table runner and a hexagon project that may be done by machine or by hand. That one I actually think is faster and easier by machine, but you do have to have a machine with zig zag stitch. My little featherweight won't do for that one.





Last week Liz used the AccuCut machine and cut out two of my Winding Ways tablerunner projects. I finished one yesterday and sewed two more blocks of a second one. Don't you love the negative/positive look of the runner? The inner border didn't come out exactly right...it's actually a dark brown Shadow Play (Maywood Studios), not black as it appears in the picture. I'm also making a blue version and have a picture of one block.My Blogger friend, Tanya, recently made a lovely Winding Ways wall quilt but she cut and sewed hers by hand. Check out the quilting on hers....this was her 2nd machine quilting attempt and it is marvelous. It's one thing to be able to technically quilt a quilt well, but Tanya was quite creative and thoughtful in the quilting patterns she used.

Sail Away to Alaska

Have you always wanted to go on a cruise? Luscious meals, pampering, exotic destinations, exciting excursions.....and more! how about combining your cruise with a quilting adventure? Wouldn't that make it even better?

Scottie Dog Quilts has teamed up with Royal Caribbean Lines to offer you the trip of a lifetime. We'll be sailing to Alaska August 7-14, 2009. We'll leave from the port of Seattle, WA and travel up Alaska's Inland Passage (that means lots of unforgettable scenery and calm waters!) to several ports. We'll see Skagway, Juneau, the glaciers at Tracy Arm Fjord and spend a day in Victoria, BC.

While the ship is out to sea there will be a variety of quilting classes you can choose from. Teachers will be Liz Scott Adams and BrendaLou Scott from Scottie Dog Quilts and guest

teacher, Bev Harrison of Eugene, OR. Projects will be available for beginning through advanced quilters.

In Skagway you can explore the Klondike Gold Rush National Historic District or take a train ride. There are many tours you can join everything from hiking, to horseback riding, to boating expeditions.

At the Tracy Arm Fjord you might spot an iceberg toppling off the face of a glacier and crashing into the water; the fuzzy silhouette of a whale gliding under the water's surface; or a polar bear searching for prey through a hole in the ice. Alaska is considered by many the last American frontier; see it as it was before men existed.

In Juneau, Alaska's capitol city, you can eat at the Red Dog Saloon, shop at the Rain Tree Quilt Shop for Alaskan themed fabrics, go deep sea fishing and more.

There is still time to sign up. Now that the holidays are over, you might just thing about pampering yourself for a quilting vacation! This is a very reasonably priced cruise and Alaska is magnificent. You can come with a friend or bring along the family. There is lots to keep them busy while you quilt and you can explore the ports-o-call together.

our all inclusive prices are :

Inside Room: $1199.00
Outside Room: $1399.00
Balcony Room: $2049.00

Staterooms are beginning to fill up so if you *think* you might want to go it would pay to put down your FULLY REFUNDABLE deposit as soon as possible.

You can contact our travel agent, MJ Bryant at (888) 278-7875 or email her MJBryant@ak2trvl.com

It would be so much fun to travel together to Alaska.

Alaskan Quilting Cruise Update!

We got a phone call from MJ, our awesome travel agent yesterday. She has been on vacation and some of our quilting friends couldn't get through to sign up for our 2009 Alaskan Quilting Cruise in time for our special, rock bottom pricing. So she convinced Royal Caribbean to keep our prices the same until mid November. If you thought you'd missed out, tada!

Inside Room: $1199.00

Outside Room: $1399.00

Balcony Room: $2049.00

Staterooms are beginning to fill up so if you *think* you might want to go it would pay to put down your FULLY REFUNDABLE deposit as soon as possible.

You can contact our travel agent, MJ Bryant at (888) 278-7875 or email her MJBryant@ak2trvl.com

Alaska!

Alaskan Quilting Cruise 2009

I am getting so excited about our August 7-14, 2009 Alaskan Cruise. I've been on a quilting cruise before and it was so much fun, so much to see and do that when Scottie Dog Quilts decided to sponsor a Quilting Cruise, we knew that Alaska's Inside Passage was THE place we wanted to go. Royal Caribbean has a lovely cruise ship for us with all the amenities.
Unlike most cruises, when you cruise up the Alaskan Inside Passage you have beautiful scenery on both sides of the ship almost the entire time you are sailing! Imagine seeing whales, seal lions, bald eagles, spawning salmon runs, bears, moose and more! The glaciers are magnificent----I had no idea how awed I would be sailing right up next to a blue, so very icy blue wall of ice 20 stories high! Incredible.
We will be able to quilt for three days when we are "out to sea" and so be available to explore all the ports and take any excursions we might find interesting.
Our ports of call will be Skagway, Juneau, Tracy Arm Fjord and Victoria, BC. So much to see and do! PLUS you can choose three different quilting projects while we sail. You'll still have time to see the shows, go to the spa, swim or whatever your heart desires. In port, the local Quilt Shops will have specials for us .Bring your husband, your family or a non-quilting friend as they are welcome too.
We have a block of staterooms reserved at very special prices, but these rates are only guaranteed through the middle of August. After that they may go up. To reserve your room contact our wonderful travel agent: MJ Bryant at (800) 278-7875 or email: MJBryant@ak2travel.com

Alaskan Cruise, Anyone?

Have you always wanted to take an Alaskan Cruise? Wouldn't it be wonderful to go with quilting friends? Well, I have news for you! Not all the details are finalized, but start saving for August 2009! Scottie Dog Quilts will be sponsoring a Quilting Cruise with Holland American Lines on their fabulous ship, the Westerdaam. Only 3 years old, this ship is absolutely elegant. With a 7 day cruise, we'll quilt during our times out at sea but you'll have our days in port to do as you wish. The scenery is spectacular.
You can bring a friend, or your husband or your entire family! There will be so much to do on board, no one will feel left out. Let us know if you are interested. We hope to have all the details worked out by mid-May.