I finished Solstice Dream a few months ago and today I hung the quilt. Solstice Dream was designed by Kerry Green of kerry stitch designs. The quilt is 36" x 42".

The beautiful custom quilting was done by Cindy Paulson, owner of the Quilted Connection located in South Jordan Utah. I took a few pictures of the gorgeous machine quilting done by Cindy.

Yazzie, an Australian company, manufactures and designs multi-functional organizers. I purchased a Yazzie mini iron storage case and am embellishing kit for the case from Sue Spargo. I took the wool circles on the Panama Canal cruise and stitched on the circles in the evenings. The wool circles are 1" in diameter which I embellished with 3 colors of Eleganza thread. I store my Clover wedge iron in the caddy.

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In April, I met Sherri McKee at a Sue Spargo workshop held at the Bernina Connection here in Phoenix. Sherri is the owner of Garage Studio Fabrics. Sherri hand dyes gorgeous shibori wools. I contacted Sherri to dye some bright purple, turquoise and fuchsia shibori wools that I could use to make another Allium Spool Sac.

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A 90 minute drive over bumpy roads to the Argovia Estate and Flower Planation in the Sierra Madre Mountains was unexpectedly one of the most interesting tours of the cruise. Argovia was founded in 1880 and is one of the oldest coffee producers in the region. In 1995, a coffee fungus destroyed the coffee production so Argovia transformed portions of the estate into a cultivation area for over 125 species of tropical plants. Argovia was the first company to produce flowers in a sustainable manner.

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Saturday, January 13, 2018 the Westerdam docked in Corinto, Nicaragua. A 90 minutes bus ride to Ruins of León Viejo, one of the oldest Spanish colonial settlements in the Americas which was abandoned in 1610 because of earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. Climbing a small hill provided an excellent view of the Momotombo Volcano and Lake Xolotlan.

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