The Most Expensive Quilt Ever

Just after the Houston International Quilt Festival in early November Martha and I went on a quilting cruise to the western Caribbean.  A quilting cruise usually entails an up charge on your cabin rate to cover the cruising expenses of several quilting teachers, the use of cruise organizers sewing machines, the use of the conference center for classes and sewing and lots of little extras like an opening cocktail party and lots of door prizes.  Our cruise included only one teacher, Deb Tucker and only one quilt.  This suited me just fine as I didn't want to end up with a bunch of small quilts, I did want to learn a new technique or two, I did want to work on a couple of UFO's and I did want to get in some serious sun bathing.

This is the quilt we worked on for the majority of our cruise:

It is about 42" square and it will reside on one of my walls once I get a curtain rod set up for it.

The special technique taught was the use of Deb Tucker's special ruler for the stars and another ruler for the little squares and triangles in the border.  Basically the technique is to create oversize blocks that are trimmed down to the right size.  The rulers really did help but it was very time consuming.

Why is this the world's most expensive quilt ever?   Along with base cabin charges at ~$1,300.00 I also was charged about ~$500.00 for the teacher and other extras and charged about ~$65.00 for the quilt kit.  I got one UFO top ~90% finished and one ~50% finished as well.  We did spend most one day playing with Bernina sewing machine accessories woth a great little kit included.

I figure this quilt, which is too small to snuggle up in, cost over $2,000.00.

Any every penny was well spent.

And I would even do it again.

And I even got to spend a few hours sun bathing.

While the Northeast gets hammered by a huge blizzard I hope this remembrance of my cruise will warm you up a little.