Books, Music, Podcasts, Creative Inspiration

Creative Inspiration: Winter Trees

tierneycreates: a fusion of textiles and smiles

A bit of time has passed since I continued my ongoing series on sources of Creative Inspiration.

I cannot promise I am going to create an art quilt based on every inspiration I have shared in the Creative Inspiration series of posts, but I use this series of posts as an online catalogue/resource for future art quilt ideas!

In January 2016, I posted about the beauty of Winter Trees. If you peek at this post, from nearly a year ago, you will see bare trees against a blue sky. January 2017 looks much different – the trees are bare of leaves, but they are filled with snow!

Here are a couple of photos from my daily walks (recently I upgraded from an iPhone 4S to an iPhone 7 so my photo quality has improved…at least in my mind):

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A snapped a couple photos of birds in the snowy Winter Trees:

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If any of my photos inspire you to create please feel free to use them!

It has been a beautiful Winter Wonderland in Central Oregon, even if I refer to it as “Snowmageddon”. I do have proof we have had serious snow – the Bend Bulletin recently published this story: “Central Oregon sees historic snow depths”. (See I am not being a drama queen over this snow, ha!)

Postscript

Follow up to my recent post Diving into a quilt (and other stuff) – I have made 192 half square triangles and in the near future I will have a “What’s on the Design Wall” post with my progress!

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Today I finished two books – an audiobook (Scrappy Little Nobody) and a paper novel (Girl on the Train).

Anna Kendrick’s Scrappy Little Nobody was delightful! It is narrated by the author and filled with charming and very funny stories from her days as a child actor, awkward adolescent, and struggling young adult. The end of her book contains a hysterically funny “Book Club Discussion Questions” written by the author and making fun of herself as a celebrity who writes a memoir.

Scrappy Little Nobody ranged from PG to an occasional PG-13 rating in my opinion. It was quite different than Amy Schumer’s The Girl with the Lower Back Tattoo which was R to NC-17 rated (but absolutely hysterically funny).

Just to give you a sense of the difference, Amy Schumer opens her book with a graphic letter of apology to her “lady parts”. Anna Kendrick on the other hand kept acknowledging that her mother would be reading her book so she had to leave some stuff out of her book…

I realized I have now listened to many memoirs by current pop culture female celebrities. Here is my ranking of these books:

  1. Scrappy Little Nobody – Anne Kendrick
  2. The Girl with the Lower Back Tattoo – Amy Schumer (Amy Schumer’s book was the funniest – like stop my walk to bend over laughing funny – but Anne Kendrick was more endearing)
  3. Bossypants – Tina Fey
  4. Shrill: Notes From a Loud Woman – Lindy West
  5. You’ll Grow Out of It – Jesse Klein (this would have had a higher ranking if not for the unnecessary Triple XXX chapter that took oversharing to a whole new level)

Am I rambling? There was something else I was going to add to the Postscript section but it left my mind. (Hope I have not been “oversharing”…)

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At least we have blue skies…

If you would like to see what Sassy the Highly Opinionated Miniature Schnauzer thinks of all the Central Oregon snow, check out her blog at schnauzersnips.wordpress.com/blog/

Published by tierneycreates: a fusion of textiles and smiles

Quilter, crafter, obsessive tea drinker and lover of all furry creatures (especially dogs and cats) - join me on my tierneycreates blog as I share stories from "A Crafter's Life".

21 thoughts on “Creative Inspiration: Winter Trees”

  1. I love playing with HST so look forward to seeing what you’ll do with them. I have a pile of “waste” triangles from my new medallion, all in pastel-ish yellows, pinks, greens… They need to be trimmed and sewn and pressed and trimmed again, with nothing planned for their use. Pretty low priority!

    Right now I’m working on a “mystery” quilt (but I cheated so I know how it’s supposed to go together) for my small group. Likely it will be for donation when done. Yesterday I ordered 20 yards of Kona Snow (white) to make a couple of red and white quilts. One of them should be fast, using the delectable mountains block I used last year, but arranged as a medallion quilt. The other is a more typical medallion, and it will be slower, mostly because the center block is complex. Both will mimic amazing quilts from about 200 years ago.

    Doesn’t it feel great to be EXCITED to start something new? 😀

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    1. Ooooh red and white quilts! I took a book out of the library about antique red and white quilts. That is on my someday to do list. I look forward to seeing your next work in progress 🙂

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  2. Love those trees covered in snow! I have to enjoy pictures because my trees might see snow once every few years. I’m inspired to create one in fabric from your pics. Thanks!

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    1. I was able to get a special deal with my cellphone carrier, otherwise the iPhone 7 is just too expensive. I was lucky I got my first iPhone (the 4S) for $99 USD. It served me well and I would have held onto it but I do not enjoy carrying around my actual digital camera and iPhone 7 takes such wonderful photos (as does the newer Samsung, etc phones).

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  7. Love the inspirational pictures. I think my favorite is the one with the forward facing bird. When I saw it, I could just imagine it as a painting, quilt, or even a jigsaw puzzle! Funny you said something about a painting as well.

    I like your book assessments. I will try to keep titles in mind for my read through–once I ever make it to the fiction section! It will be awhile though since I am STILL in the 360’s!

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