Good news from the travel desk. Your bags are packed, your hand project is in the tote and somebody else has agreed to water the plants. Stitch Away Vacation is our collection of getaway scenes drawn like fabric collage, each one lettered with the place where you will be stitchin', plus a few retreat designs for the friends coming along. Here is the itinerary. Please keep your seam ripper in your carry-on at all times.
Day one: mountain lakes
We begin at Stitchin' at Lake Tahoe, where white sailboats drift across rippling water between tall pines, and a snowy version adds skiers gliding down to the shore. Coeur d'Alene follows, with blue mountains standing over a row of colorful lakeside buildings and waves that look pieced from strips of batik. Up in Anchorage the sky swirls like a hand-quilted spiral above a blue city skyline, and one lucky moose wanders past.
Day two: lighthouses and lobster boats
Next we head for the coast. Door County is shaped like its own little peninsula and packed with lighthouses, sailboats and ripe red cherries. Bar Harbor tucks kayaks into a deep blue harbor beneath the rocky shore, with a red lobster signing the corner. Stitchin in Maine fills the whole state outline with lighthouses, pines, sailboats and a lobster claw, Cape May lines up a lighthouse, a shingled cottage and a flight of gulls over the dunes, and the Outer Banks design lets a wild horse gallop past two lighthouses while kites fly overhead.
Day three: warm sand and gracious towns
Time to thaw out. Gulf Shores plants two palm trees above bright striped waves, Stitchin' in Virginia sends a red cardinal soaring over the mountains, and the Charleston design sets a gold-domed capitol and a riverboat along the water. Then we check in to Threadcation, a retro roadside motel sign on the beach, complete with palm trees, a fruity drink and a pink pincushion sitting in the sand like it paid for the room.
The last night: all aboard
No trip is complete without the crew. Retreat Crew sails a cruise ship over crossed scissors, and Sewing Ship Retreat Mode sends another one cruising across the waves. The Getaway Gals pack a vintage suitcase with fabric spilling out, and Floating Retreat parks a sewing machine on a sunset dock where nobody can reach it by phone.
For the quilter who never travels without a project
You know her. She has a sewing kit in the glovebox, English paper pieces in her purse and a quilt shop on every road trip map. Maybe she grew up summering at one of these places, or maybe it is at the top of her list for next year. Let her choose her destination. The only rule on this trip: whatever fabric she finds along the way comes home in her suitcase, and nobody asks how it all fit.
Written by Jenny. Thanks for reading.
