To close out the tierneycreates 4th Year Blog Anniversary, I will randomly share random follows-ups on random posts from 2013 – 2017. It is not really a “the best of tierneycreates” it is more just “the random of tierneycreates”!

If you’ve followed my blog the past 4 years it is likely you’ve never thought about these posts again...but just in case you were wondering what happened with…or what became of…

The link to the original post is in the header of the section; and warning – this post is going to be very random.

Announcing the Winners of the tierneycreates Blog’s 4th

Over the past 4 years I have gone through various iterations of my tierneycreates business card. Here is my current business card:

Some of you may remember this post in which I asked for your input on my new business card options – New Business Card Options (please vote for your favorite).

However, when I ordered these cards I still had many copies of my previous version of my business card (which had old URL addresses and listed my now closed Etsy shop):

So what to do with these left over cards? Make them into custom “tierneycreates” cards to send those who won the Little Wallets in the tierneycreates 4th Blog Anniversary Celebration Giveaway!

2017-10-30_12-15-36_393 — Finished card (talented papercrafters reading this blog please look away – ha!)

Moving on to the next random update…

UPDATE ON “A CHICKEN NAMED TIERNEY”

I know you all are wondering what happened to the chicken named “Tierney”. If you are new to this blog you may think I’ve lost my mind now. You can read the linked post in the title of this section, but a dear friend named all her hens after women she values in her life. So one of her Dominique chickens (she has 3 different breeds of chickens) is my namesake.

2017-07-27_17-29-47_401 — Tierney the Chicken (and another hen trying to “photo bomb”)

2017-10-31_16-07-40_237 — Tierney and her fellow hens having fun in the compost pile

Well Tierney the Chicken is now a full grown hen and laying eggs! Tierney is still the friendliest (and likes to snuggle) of all the hens in the coop.

Will it be too strange to eat eggs laid by my namesake?!?!?!

More randomness…

LITTLE MISS MUFFET, MADE HER OWN TUFFET

I love to blog about attending quilt retreats and I love to read other bloggers stories and see their images from quilt retreats. Quilt retreats are magical!

In August 2016 I attended a quilt retreat at the Over the Rainbow Quilt Retreat Center in Camano Island, WA. In addition to making tuffets (hence the title of the post), quilters worked on various projects.

My quilting sister Dana (for more on Quilting Sisters, see posts Quilting Sisters, Part I and Part II) worked on her first improvisational quilt after being inspired by my “log jam” quilts (you can search “log jam” or “log jamming” in my blog’s Search tool if you would like more info on these types of quilts).

Here is her piece in progress during the retreat:

And here are sections of her beautiful completed and quilted quilt (quilted by Krista Moser):

No the randomness is not stopping, it continues below……

WHAT’S OFF THE DESIGN WALL: COZY COBBLESTONES

This quilt, Cozy Cobblestones is now with Cindy of inastitchquilting.com for long-arm quilting:

So in the future I will have a reveal once the long-arm quilting is done!

Now on to the last bit of randomness updating you randomly on random previous posts.

LIVING WITH LESS?!?!?!

This was my first post related to my Minimalism journey (at the time I did not know what I was doing was “minimalism”). Eventually I developed a series of posts on my Minimalism Journey.

I have tapered off curating my life and getting rid of things. I did get rid of a couple things I wish I kept, but I figured that was going to happen eventually.

Now I am just careful what I bring into my life/my house; and I am no longer on the verge of “rabid” decluttering. Instead I am focused on appreciating little moments of joy found in the everyday.

So I am going to close out my this post and the month of October 4th Blog Anniversary with this reposting of this post from June 16, 2016 about finding little moments of joy:

AT THE CORNER OF JOY (AND SOME OTHER STREET)

Repost from June 2016

Yesterday I was at the corner of Joy, literally and metaphorically.

A reader asked “so what happened to your Pilot Butte hikes?” Well it has been very hot in Central Oregon and I had no desire to hike in the heat. Also my knee was bothering me a bit so I thought perhaps I should try something else besides the Monday hikes for a while.

So I decided instead to start riding my bike, on a daily basis, in the early morning, instead of a Monday hike. It has been a year since I have been on my bike and I forgot the joy of bike riding!

I am riding a couple miles each morning up to 7 or more miles. Some days I can only fit in a couple miles but that is still wonderful!

Bike riding is great for my knees and I am feeling a tremendous sense of JOY when I ride my bike.

I am riding in the surrounding neighborhoods and in low traffic areas. Many times, it is like I have the road completely to myself.

A sense of peace washes over me and I would be in a complete meditative state if not needing to carefully watch for cars (as you never know when a car will come out of no where and many drivers do not seem to see cyclists – it is like we are invisible!)

The other morning I was having a glorious bike ride in a newer neighborhood area I had not noticed before and I came across a street called JOY WAY. This street name perfectly described what I was feeling biking on a beautiful morning!

I had to take photo (yes I did dismount from my bike to take the photo) as it made me smile even wider than I was already smiling!

I hope you all find yourself at “the corner of Joy…”, metaphorically that is!

“One of the most important days of my life, was when I learned to ride a bicycle.”
– Michael Palin (English comedian of Monty Python fame)

“I’ll tell you what I think of bicycling. I think it has done more to emancipate women than any one thing in the world. I rejoice every time I see a woman ride by on a bike. It gives her a feeling of self-reliance and independence the moment she takes her seat; and away she goes, the picture of untrammelled womanhood.”
– Susan B. Anthony, 1896

“Cycle tracks will abound in Utopia.”
– H.G. Wells

Featured image credit: Svilen Milev – free images.com

Additional on “Additional Conversations”

October 30, 2017November 7, 2017 tierneycreates: a fusion of textiles and smiles

Follow up to yesterday’s post, What’s on the Design Wall.

Better Photos

Terry the Quilting Husband (TTQH) and I did an outside photo shoot with Additional Conversations, the improvisational art quilt from recycled materials I completed yesterday.

Here are some better photos of the piece (as opposed to those from yesterday where I squished myself to the hallway wall to take photos…):

2017-10-30_14-06-42_749-2 2017-10-30_14-07-56_584

Now the quilt sit on the ironing board awaiting batting, backing, and quilting.

The Recycled Materials

In case you are curious, here is a list of the recycled materials used in this piece:

Denim duvet cover
Old jeans
Curtain (valence scarf)
Tweed jumper
Old sweat pants
Corduroy Shirt
Gold home decorating fabric scraps (given to me by an interior decorator from her sample collection)
The world’s ugliest orange corduroy pants

All these items were destined for the landfill but instead they became this quilt!

Postscript

Tomorrow is the last day of October (and Halloween) and the end my month long 4th blog anniversary celebration (see post Blog Anniversary Celebration & Giveaway).

To close out the 4th anniversary I am putting together a post called “Random Follow-ups“. I am going to randomly follow up on posts over the past four years that are hopefully deserving of follow up!

Studio, What's on the Design Wall

What’s on the Design Wall

October 29, 2017October 29, 2017 tierneycreates: a fusion of textiles and smiles

This post is a continuation of my ongoing series “What’s on the Design Wall”, featuring my latest project up on either the small design wall in my studio or the large design wall my hallway.

I spent this weekend working on a new improvisational art quilt made with recycle clothing and recycled home decor fabric – Additional Conversations.

On Instagram I shared a couple previews/peeks over the past week, like the example below:

Well here are several initial images of the completed quilt top:

Better photos to come – I was challenged with taking photos of my large design wall, at an angle, in our narrow hallway. Note: My enthusiasm to get the finally sewn together quilt top up on the design wall exceeded my enthusiasm to do a quality job of final pressing on the ironing board.

I am thinking of hand quilting this piece like I did The Recycled Road (made from many of the same fabrics).

Now what to do with the left over scraps from the piece – perhaps a smaller companion piece called “Additional Small Conversations“!

Additional Conversations is the fourth piece in my series Recycled Denim Stories (see my Tierney Davis Hogan page on the Improvisational Textiles website).

Books, Music, Podcasts, The Library Stack

The Library Stack

October 27, 2017May 1, 2022 tierneycreates: a fusion of textiles and smiles

Continuing my ongoing series, The Library Stack, sharing my latest stack of borrowed books from my beloved local public library.

Here is the latest stack:

Everybody Writes (Your Go-To Guide to Creating Ridiculously Good Content by Ann Handley is my favorite book in the stack and I am reading it cover to cover.

There are so many gems of wisdom on writing in this book, such as this one on sentence structure from page 25:

This is the first sentence of an introductory paragraph of a Center for Disease Control and Prevention style guide: “According to the National Assessment of Adult Literacy (NAAL), released in 2006 by the U.S. Department of Education, 30 million adults struggle with basic reading tasks.”

The primary idea in that sentence is that millions of people are not fully literate; everything else in it is secondary. The primary idea – the important words – should be placed at the beginning. So:

“Thirty million adults struggle with reading, according to the National Assessment of Adult Literacy….”

– Ann Hadley, Everybody Writes

What a difference between the original version of the sentence and the rewritten version of the same information by Ann Hadley! Ms. Hadley clearly demonstrates how improved and concise a sentence can be with all the fluff removed at the beginning.

This was a powerful example for me on thinking about sentence structure. I am fascinated by sentence structure and would like to spend more time in the future thoughtfully crafting sentences. Becoming a better writer is important to me. My goal is less cringe worthy moments when people read my blog (smile).

Ann Hadley references one of my other favorite books on writing, Stephen King’s On Writing – A Memoir of the Craft (2001). If you are an aspiring writer I highly recommend Stephen King’s book on writing.

Perhaps after I finish this book the quality of my blog posts will improve. What the heck, I might even begin doing a better job proofreading my posts before publishing them. Maybe. But, don’t get your hopes up…

“Writing is easy, all you have to do is cross out the wrong words.” – Mark Twain

Postscript

Speaking of writing, on Wednesday evening my friend and I got to see writer and Pulitzer Prize-winning author Michael Chabon speak at our library’s Author! Author! series.

Screen Shot 2017-10-27 at 2.40.29 PM.png — Image credit: deschuteslibrary.org

Now he is a true wordsmith and his sentences are beautifully and masterfully crafted. I recently finished his book Moonglow (2017) and it is one of my favorite memoir type of books (it is the story of his maternal grandfather as told to him by his grandfather as he was in his last stages of his battle with a terminal illness).

Mr. Chabon read a couple chapters from his book still in progress and those chapters were amazing. My friend and I sat in the front row and got to be “Literary Fan Girls”!

No worries, we were well-behaved and did not throw our lace bookmarks at the stage or anything like that…

A Crafter Needs to Eat

Fall Cooking

October 27, 2017June 22, 2022 tierneycreates: a fusion of textiles and smiles

I always say this blog is about a “Crafter’s Life”, therefore this is how I am getting away with this post about Fall Cooking…and Crafters cook (Crafters also do laundry, wash dishes, floss their teeth, etc. but you would likely stop following my blog if I start posting about those Crafter life activities!)

Recently I was blessed with shared bounty of a friend’s Fall Harvest: Fuji apples and Heirloom-like tomatoes.

So far the apples have become an Apple Crisp and the tomatoes became Homemade Pasta Sauce.

The Apples

This past weekend, during a visit to a friend’s house, I was given a large bucket of Fuji apples from her apple tree harvest:

2017-10-21_14-46-04_936 — Recently I’ve been playing with B&W photography

Arriving home, I gave many apples away to neighbors and friends. However I still had many apples left:

I asked Terry the Quilting Husband (TTQH) what he thought I should do with them and I suggested making a couple apple pies (and freezing some). He replied off the top of his head: “Why don’t you make an Apple Crisp?”

I never made an Apple Crisp before but I found a wonderful recipe online at the. Tastes Better From Scratch website: Apple Crisp

Screen Shot 2017-10-26 at 11.35.16 PM.png — Screen shot of partial image from tastesbetterfromscratch.com/apple-crisp/

Peeling apples is not something I get excited about so I enlisted TTQH to help (he has to work for his “Crisp”):

The recipe came out excellent and we ended up with a very delicious Apple Crisp, which I served warm with vanilla ice cream.

The house smelled wonderful as it baked, very “Fall-like” with the smell of cinnamon and baking apples in the air.

Here is a close up of the baked topping (which was so delicious on top of the tender baked sliced apples):

The Tomatoes

In addition to sharing her Fuji apple harvest, my friend also gave me 5 – 8 pounds of her spectacular heirloom type tomatoes in red and yellow varieties.

I decided to make my first completely from scratch pasta sauce. I have made pasta sauce from “semi-scratch” using canned tomatoes. I have also made pasta sauce with fresh roasted tomatoes. However, I have never made pasta sauce with fresh peeled tomatoes!

I searched recipes online and found one I felt I could handle from Wellness Mama website – Authentic Homemade Pasta Sauce (Fresh or Canned Tomatoes).

Screen Shot 2017-10-26 at 11.46.40 PM.png — screen shot from wellnessmama.com/8907/pasta-sauce/

I learned a lot from this recipe including how to remove the skin from fresh tomatoes (dropping in hot water for 10 secs) and using an unsliced carrot to remove acidity from the sauce.

I won’t share photos of my first attempt of putting little Xs on the top of tomatoes, dropping them in boiling water, retrieving them, and then peeling them. Why? Because it looked like a tomato-slaughterhouse in my kitchen until I got the hang of it (several tomatoes sacrificed themselves for the sake of my learning curve on how to peel hot tomatoes).

Here is the sauce during its initial simmering before it spent time with my immersion blender:

Okay so if you checked out the recipe link I provided and now you are looking at the image above, you are thinking: “Tierney what kind of brown round vegetables do you have simmering in the sauce? I did not see them mentioned in the recipe.”

Well…those are meatballs. I did not make this recipe vegan, I added meatballs and let the meatballs simmer for many hours in the sauce. As you can imagine, and if you like meat, the house smelled absolutely delicious most of the day while this simmering was going on.

Eventually I removed the meatballs:

And I pureed the sauce using an immersion blender:

You’ll notice the sauce does not look very red. Actually it is orange-red because the bulk of the tomatoes I used were yellow varieties.

I remembered a sauce tastes even better the next day after the flavors have time to “think about themselves’ overnight, so we waiting until tonight to have wonderful Spaghetti and Meatballs supper! (Now if I could have made my own pasta…)

I am always fascinated by the science of cooking and I loved this new trick I learned from this recipe to simmer a half peeled intact carrot to absorb acidity in the tomato sauce. The 1/2 carrot is removed and discarded at the end.

Discarded fresh thyme sprig, bay leaf, and the 1/2 carrot used to absorb acidity

I also added a little honey at the end as the recipe’s author suggested to balance the acidity.

I made enough sauce to use for supper tonight and to freeze for a future meal (I froze it without the meatballs).

Okay, so next post, I will discuss and share photos of how I fold laundry (joke).

Outside Adventures!, Special Events

Pilot Butte Posts

October 24, 2017June 22, 2022 tierneycreates: a fusion of textiles and smiles

As part of the 4th year Blog Anniversary Celebration for tierneycreates, I am re-posting some favorite blog posts over the past 4 years throughout the month of October. Originally I was going to post just those with the most views or the most comments but I have decided to also randomly repost and that just totally cracked me up while I wrote them.

Yesterday I went hiking up Pilot Butte with a friend and her adorable Bernese Mountain Dog.

Central Oregon is a geological wonderland and one of its marvels is Pilot Butte. It is like having a “mini mountain” to hike in the middle of Bend, Oregon. At its summit is a splendid 360-degree view of nearly the entire Central Oregon region.

Yesterday while hiking Pilot Butte I thought of my series of posts from 2015 – 2017 on my Pilot Butte hikes (Pilot Butte Adventures). Then at the end of our yesterday’s hike, a visit to the Pilot Butte Challenge Board made me think of a post from April 2016 (that cracked me up while I wrote it) on how my time up and down Pilot Butte, at my top pace, is still slower then the 95 year old’s record! (In case you did not know, I am quite younger than 95 years old)

MONDAY, AGAIN (original post 04/25/16)

I walked/climbed/hiked Pilot Butte (see previous post “Monday“) for the 3rd Monday in a row today. I was fairly pleased with myself, as I again went up and back down Pilot Butte in 45 minutes.

However, on the way back to my car, I passed by the Pilot Butte Challenge board and noticed the records, by age group, of the fastest ascent/descent of Pilot Butte. I see in the 95 & up age range, someone walked up and down Pilot Butte in 26.51 minutes.

Yes, 95 & up. Now, my new goal is to be able to at least walk up and back down Pilot Butte in 26:51 minutes. Maybe I can even walk faster than that “95 & up” year old person someday and beat their record! Maybe someday I can even beat the time of the record holder in the “90 – 94” age group! (If I am going to dream, I might as well dream big! Ha!)

Here are some photos from my Pilot Butte hike today to distract you from the fact that my time was nearly 20 minutes slower than someone “95 & up” (maybe they were a retired Olympian or something; or maybe a space alien…).

Special Events

Announcing the Winners of the tierneycreates Blog’s 4th Anniversary Giveaway

October 23, 2017October 23, 2017 tierneycreates: a fusion of textiles and smiles

This morning Terry the Quilting Husband (TTQH) did the drawing of the names of the winners of the handmade Little Wallets to celebrate the tierneycreates Blog’s 4th anniversary. Names were selected from those who left comments on the post: Blog Anniversary Celebration & Giveaway.

In this post I promised we would select four (4) winners, well we decided at the last moment to up it to five (5) winners so more people could win (in my heart I wanted to just send a Little Wallet to everyone that commented!)

But before we get to the winners (be good, don’t scroll down yet, ha!) let me share the technical details of the drawing.

The Drawing

First the validity of the drawing was overseen and verified by Sassy & Mike of the prestigious firm Schnauzer Affiliates, Incorporated. Here is their corporate photo which hangs in their offices:

A highly complex method was used to select the winner while the principles of Schnauzer Associates, Inc. observed and verified the results.

First the names of those who posted comments on the blog anniversary post were written down on a piece of paper, numbers were assigned and then numbers were written on a piece of paper:

(I hope these technical details do not overwhelm anyone)

Then the numbers were placed in my recently knitted hat:

Sassy of Schnauzer Affiliates, Inc., closely officiated the drawing which was made by TTQH:

Here is Sassy providing TTQH with instructions prior to the beginning of the drawing:

Sassy closely monitored the drawing of the five (5) numbers/winners:

Sassy validated and verified the results of each number drawn:

The Random Drawing Winners

I am happy to announce the five (5) winners below, please send me your mailing address using the Contact Form in the Questions page of this blog – thanks and CONGRATULATIONS!

Crawcraftbeasties
Susan Maasch
SandraNY
Handmade Habit
Chela’s Colchas Y Mas

Feature Image Credit: Krzysztof (Kriss) Szkurlatowski, freeimages.com

Studio, tierneycreates

Artists Statements, Part III (Telling Stories)

October 22, 2017September 15, 2018 tierneycreates: a fusion of textiles and smiles

The Struggle to Make a “Statement”

In these two previous posts Artist Statements and Artist Statements, Part II, I shared my struggles with writing Artist Statements for a specific art quilt and the huge and intimidating challenge of writing an overall Artist Statement for my body of work as (a wannabe) an art quilter.

Here is an excerpt from the post Artist Statements, Part II, about my struggle:

You can see above, underlined in red, my big concern: That I had not yet established what I felt was a solid and cohesive body of work. This is what I felt was keeping me from creating my overall/general Artist Statement.

A couple weeks ago I realized I now have a body of work in regards to art quilts (maybe it is imaginary but it seems like a body of work) – 16 “art quilts”. 15 of these art quilts are “improvisational” and one (1) is a combination of pictorial and improvisational. Now I had to determine what I am trying to “say” with my current body of work and where I want to go with it (i.e. make it COHESIVE).

Telling Stories

Above the front entrance to my beloved public library are quotes by authors and my favorite quote, by author Barry Lopez, is shown in the image below:

It may be difficult to read from the photo, so here is the quote:

“The storyteller is the person who creates an atmosphere in which wisdom reveals itself” – Barry Lopez

I smile every time I visit the library and see that quote.

Thinking about that quote and where I want to go with my art quilting, I realized I want to be a storyteller.

So I’ve spent the past couple of weeks, as time allows, revisiting the Artist Statements on 15 of my 16 existing art quilts (1 of the quilts is part of an upcoming exhibit and the Artist Statement is already solid and cohesive with the them of the exhibit).

Out of this work (revisiting the specific Artist Statements for each piece), came a reorganization of my work into Six (6) Series of Stories:

Color Stories
Recycled Denim Stories
Stories My Father Told Me
Reinvented Stories
Library Stories
Other Stories

On the Tierney Davis Hogan page of the Improvisational Textiles website I’ve organized my art quilts into these six series and I provide an introductory paragraph/overview on each series.

Now that I organized my work into these series and decided where I want to go with my art quilting, I was able to finally write a general/overall Artist Statement.

My overall Artist Statement (which is also found on the Tierney Davis Hogan page) is:

“The storyteller is the person who creates an atmosphere in which wisdom reveals itself”, storyteller Barry Lopez noted.

My fiber/textile art is created with a single or ongoing story in mind. These stories originate from my life experiences, observations, struggles, dreams and hopes. The earth and its inhabitants are very precious to me and I want to do work that contributes to environmental conservation efforts. I primarily use recycled textiles in my art to include recycled clothing, textile manufacturing samples and scraps, and discards from others quilt-making. My focus on improvisational design: The fabric itself and creative inspiration guide me to allow the piece to evolve organically and become what it wants to become.

I am sure I will continue to refine this statement in the future, however I feel now like I have a map for the direction of where I want to go with my art quilting instead of just wandering aimlessly creating one new piece and wandering onto the next piece.

And Something Else

One more thing on Artist Statements – when you blog and post publicly, you never know who is reading. Well in the THOUGHTS (Comments) section of the Artist Statements, Part II post I was surprised and quite pleased to see a detailed comments/advice from someone who professionally works with and mentors artists.

In case you did not catch this comment from that post, I am sharing a screen shot of this helpful advice a professional posted:

Postscript

I am currently working on a new piece for my “Recycled Denim Stories” series and here is a little peek at “What’s on the Ironing Board” (pulled from the Design Wall temporarily as I work out the layout):

Here is a little section of one of the blocks I shared on Instagram:

The recycled denim, recycled various clothing and recycled home decor fabric in this piece is the same fabric used in my other pieces The Recycled Door and The Recycled Road.

Trust me you will never guess where I am going with this piece, it is going to have quite a bit of whimsy! Watch for more on this piece in a future What’s on the Design Wall series of posts…

Featured Image credit: Meredith B., free images.com

My Minimalism Journey, Studio

Quilt Studio Archaeology and Purge, Part III (re-post)

October 18, 2017June 22, 2022 tierneycreates: a fusion of textiles and smiles

As part of the 4th year Blog Anniversary Celebration for tierneycreates, I am re-posting the blog posts over the past 4 years that either had the most views or the most comments throughout the month of October 2017. This post had many views and the most comments of any post I had to date of this post (March 2017).

It is about my ongoing struggle to balance having the stuff I love around me, and not having too much stuff around me!

QUILT STUDIO ARCHAEOLOGY AND PURGE, PART III (originally post 03/06/2017)

This post is a continuation of yesterday’s post: Quilt Studio Archeology and Purging, Part II.

How well do we know each other? Are we at the point that I can bare my soul and share with you my deepest secrets? Can we talk about “Fat Quarter Pathology” (and can you try not to judge…okay you can judge a little..I deserve it…)

But before I bare my fat quarter hoarding soul here’s a couple definitions so we are all on the same page:

Fat Quarter – a quarter yard of fabric cut into a rectangle that measures 18″ x 21″, commonly packaged with other fat quarters into a themed fat quarter pack.

Pathology – any deviation from a healthy, normal, or efficient condition (Dictionary.com)

Are you ready? Alright here is my darkest fabric hoarding secret…

Fat Quarter Pathology

When I started quilting around 1999/2000 and discovered the magic of fabric shopping, I also discovered my love of little “fabric samples”. I was not into collecting scraps yet (or making many scraps as I only had a quilt or two under my belt). I was intimidated to buy a bunch of yardage when I saw a fabric collection I liked, but I did like buying a fat quarter bundle of the fabric collection that gave me a sample of many of the different fabrics in a collection.

This attraction to fat quarter bundles (usually or 6 – 8 fabrics) morphed into an attraction of fat quarters in general, including individually fat quarters. Quilt shops would display baskets of individual fat quarters and sell them in “baker’s dozens” so if you bought 12 you got 1 free.

Perhaps I only need a couple fat quarters (or likely none) but how could I turn down getting ONE free. So I would buy 12 to get the 13th free (makes sense, huh?)

Fat quarter bundles for a future project, individual fat quarters, fat quarters given to me as gifts, fat quarters won at Quilter’s Bingo, fat quarter found at thrift shops, and more, and more and more fat quarters…

I kept them organized, I kept them…IN THE CLOSET:

I knew as part of the Quilt Studio “Archaeological Dig” I needed to go beyond just looking through them in their containers, I needed to go through them, find the treasures I wanted to keep and let go of what I would never use. I always try to keep lessons from Marie Kondo’s book – The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing in mind.

Marie Kondo says you have to actually look at and hold every single item you own in your hands and decide if it is brings you joy. Every single item.

I knew I needed to go through every fat quarter. Then I needed to create a better system to store them which encouraged me to use them, not just try to create the world’s first Fat Quarter Museum.

The big step first – go through every fat quarter – here is my secret revealed – it was all laid out in the huge pile on my floor:

I am a fat quarter hoarder!

There it is, now you know. Watch for my story on a future episode of the American TV show Hoarders (there was a UK version of this show but I forgot the name of it). I will be the one sleeping in a mattress in the corner surrounded by piles and piles of fat quarters. The Health Department will send a public health worker for an intervention…

But seriously, I was shocked at the sheer volume of the amount of fat quarters I had in my collection. I just kept accumulating them. I had purged a little in the past but obviously not enough to make a dent.

The Intervention

Similar to what you might see on a reality show about hoarding, I had to get honest with myself, deal with this pile and then find a meaningful way to organize what I kept.

Previously I organized my scraps by color (see post When all else fails, reorganize your fabric scraps) and I tend to think in colors rather than in fabric lines or fabric collections when I am working on a textile project, so I decided to organize the fat quarters I was keeping into the following groups:

Black, white, black & white patterns, and gray
Creams and fabrics where cream to light beige is the predominant color
Browns
Yellows
Oranges
Reds
Purples
Greens
Blues
Teals & Turquoises (I struggle with sorting these into blues or greens so I decided to just let them be their own group)

Interesting, the colors I had the most of in fat quarters, also reflected the colors I had the most of in my fabric yardage:

Green
Blue
Red & Orange (tied)

I cleared out another standing storage drawer set and arranged the fat quarters in drawer set so I could easily access them. I also had to use the bottom drawer of another drawer set for the Blues.

Black, black and white, gray

Creams and beiges

Yellows

Browns

Oranges

Greens

Teal and Turquoise

Blues

Reds

Purples

When I dumped out the fat quarters from their previous containers, I pre-sorted them by color into piles on the floor (see photo above). When I put them away by color, I looked at EACH fat quarter and made a decision whether to keep or donate.

Here was my criteria:

Do I love this fabric and do I find it visually pleasing?
Is it high quality quilting cotton (when I first started quilting, I would only buy inexpensive fabric at chain craft stores)?
Would I use it in a future project and is it still my style (our tastes change over the years)?

Using this criteria I was able to pull out many fat quarters for donation:

At one point I likely loved all the fat quarters shown in the donation pile above but not any longer – there is no joy for me in that pile!

Epilogue

Now that this project is over, I know I do not need to add any more fat quarters to my life (as I appear to have enough for several lifetimes!)

If you have followed my blog for a while you likely know a little about my minimalism journey and my quest to curate my life with only those items that bring me joy. I have removed and donated so much from my life such as household items, trinkets and kitsch and clothing (I probably own only 25% of the clothes I used to own).

The challenge with my craft supplies is that they BRING ME JOY and I think this is why I have saved this deeper dive into my crafting related supplies for last.

Another bit of Marie Kondo always in the back of my mind:

The space in which we live should be for the person we are becoming now, not for the person we were in the past.

So fat quarters I no longer love – be gone! I am not going to worry about the money lost for bringing you into my life. I hope via my local thrift shop you will find your way into some other crafter’s life who will appreciate you (or perhaps hoard you in their collection, oh no….).

Thanks for letting me share with you my true confessions and my ongoing journey to curate my life to only the things that are useful and bring me joy.

Books, Music, Podcasts

Music to Craft By

October 17, 2017June 22, 2022 tierneycreates: a fusion of textiles and smiles

It’s time we get to know each other better. I mean some of us have been together nearly four (4) years with the tierneycreates blog.

It’s time I find out what type of music you like to listen to while you craft (for those of you who are Crafters)!

This weekend I spent time working on a new art improvisational art quilt using leftover clothing scraps from my pieces The Recycled Door and The Recycled Path, and I listened to a lot of music as a I designed and sewed from my Tierney Mix on my iPhone.

Frequently I listen to audiobooks or podcasts while crafting but I was really in the mood for just music while sewing.

My Tierney Mix is all over the place as far as musical genres. Here is a sampling of a run of songs that played from the mix while I crafted this weekend:

Beast of Burden, The Rolling Stones
My One and Only Love, John Coltrane
Pride (In The Name of Love), U2
Light My Fire, Jose Feliciano
Ode to My Family, The Cranberries
Waiting in Vain, Bob Marley & The Wailers
The Stone, Dave Matthews Band
Wichita Lineman, Glen Campbell
Lovesong, The Cure
Annie’s Song, John Denver
I’m Like a Bird, Nellie Furtado
Dust Bowl Dance, Mumford & Sons
Tin Pan Alley, Stevie Ray Vaughn
Desperado, Linda Ronstadt
Forever My Friend, Ray LaMontagne
All In Love is Fair, Stevie Wonder
The Logical Song, Supertramp
Lovesick Blues, Hank Williams
She’s Gone, Hall & Oates
Oh Yeah, Los Lobos
Nothing Even Matter, Lauryn Hill
Subdivisions, Rush
I’m Your Boogie Man, KC & The Sunshine Band
Reminiscing, Little River Band
Let Her Go, Passenger
Leave Me Here, Hem
Sweet Love, The Commodores
Mama, You Got A Daughter, John Lee Hooker
Angela, The Lumineers
The Girl from Ipanema, Joao Gilberto, Stan Getz, Astrid Gilberto
I’ll Take Care of You, Van Morrison
Let it Be, The Beatles

As you can see, my musical tastes are all over the place! The only type of music I think I do not like is “Death Metal”. I also listen to Classical Music but I do not mix it in with contemporary music. I have a separate Classical Music Mix.

When I am not listening to my own mix, I love to listen to the online radio station – Radio Paradise (also available as a phone app). The Radio Paradise mix is even more eclectic than my personal mix. The gentleman and his wife that run Radio Paradise will mix in Tchaikovsky followed by a Rolling Stones song!

So – what type of music is on your playlist while you craft? Please share!

music-5-1309764-1920x384 — Daniel Moore, free images.com

Postscript

Just a reminder – you have until Sunday 10/22/17 to comment on the post Blog Anniversary Celebration & Giveaway in order to enter the drawing (which was extended to 10/23/17) for a handmade Little Wallet!

Feature Image credit (musical score): Daniel Moore, free images.com

Quality of Life

Holding On and Letting Go (November 2013)

October 14, 2017June 22, 2022 tierneycreates: a fusion of textiles and smiles

As part of the 4th year Blog Anniversary Celebration for tierneycreates, I planned to re-post the blog posts over the past 4 years that either had the most views or the most comments throughout the month of October 2017. However I came across this post from my very early days of blogging (my second month, November 2013) when I was still trying to figure what to blog about (I now have a backlog of about 50 things I want to blog about, ha!) that I just want to share. I think there were only 2 comments on the original post and at this point I only have 5 followers to my blog!

This post makes me smile – not just for the Rumi quote that I love, but because it reminds me that soon it will be time again for the Stitchin’ Post‘s Annual Pajama Sale! This is always such a fun event that occurs each November. If you show up in your pajamas between 6:30 – 8:00 am you get 35% off your entire order! I love all our Central Oregon quilt shops but the Stitchin’ Post has a spectacular collection of fabric, especially if you are into modern quilting or you are an art quilter. It also has an amazing selection of yarn and gifts in its adjoining Twigs Store.

Yes it is pretty awesome to get access to this incredible fabric and yarn at 35% off once a year but the best part of the Pajama Sale is the silly camaraderie of a store crammed with quilters in their PJs! The whole small town of Sisters, Oregon ends of filled with quilters walking around in their PJs on their way to breakfast after the sale. I always meet up with a group of friends and we wandered around the sale, visiting with other local quilting buddies and then head to breakfast in our PJs. We always get a kick out of the tourists who are at breakfast and giving us all curious looks like – “Wow this town is really casual. On Saturdays no one changes into clothes to go to breakfast!??!”

Oh apologies if you are tired of me talking about table runners, they are also mentioned in the post below.

Holding On and Letting Go (11/13/2013)

Saturday 11/9/13 I roused myself out of bed at 5:30 am, changed into my “good pajamas” and headed with friends to the the Stitchin’ Post quilt shop’s annual PJ sale. If you get there by some crazy hour, dressed in your pajamas (and it is crazy cold outside), you get a crazy discount on nearly everything in the store.

Naturally this is something for my hard-core-quilting-friends not to miss. After wandering around a packed quilt shop in the wee hours of the morning, with a sea of women (and an occasional son or husband that tagged along), with bolts of fabric stacked in your arms, it is time to go to breakfast. That is when the real fun begins – flocks of quilters in their pajamas wander the streets of Sisters, Oregon looking for the best place for post-shopping-frenzy breakfast.

There is something so pleasurable about sitting around in a local diner, having breakfast with your friends, in your PJs …with the occasional stare from an out-of-towner who is likely thinking “wow they are really casual in Central Oregon, they don’t even bother to get dressed to go out!”

While at the annual Pajama sale, I wandered over to the gift shop connected to the Stitchin’ Post – Twigs. Nested among artsy kitchen and home decor items, I found a small plaque that really spoke to me. I contained a quote by the 13th century Persian poet, Rumi: “life is a balance of holding and letting go”.

This quote was very timely to me as I am struggling with creating pieces for my Etsy store that I end up wanting to keep for own home! I am fairly sure that the poet Rumi meant something much deeper than struggling to let go of your hand made items, but this quote is helping me work through the process of let go to achieve my dream of selling to the public…maybe.

I just finished my first Modern Quilt Table Runner for my upcoming Etsy store and I wanted to keep it! The idea of doing table runners for my store came from my friend Marla Jo. I was struggling with the idea of making quilts to sell as they take a tremendous amount of work and you never know how they will sell online. Instead I can make modern and unique art quilt table runners that can be used as either table runners or hung as small narrow art quilts in someone’s home.

Not sure if I am going to sell the first “prototype” Modern Quilt Table Runner or only future iterations (still working through the “letting go” part). Below are a couple photos of it. It is my original design using a single piece of beautiful cream fabric with color variations from light to dark and inserting bands of pieced fabrics. I used an original quilting design.

Let me end this post with a couple more Rumi quotes – they are always food for thought whether you apply them to quilting or to life in general:

“You were born with wings, why prefer to crawl through life?” ― Rumi

“When you do things from your soul, you feel a river moving in you, a joy.” – Rumi

“I want to sing like the birds sing, not worrying about who hears or what they think.” – Rumi

“Wherever you are, and whatever you do, be in love.” – Rumi

“Let the beauty of what you love be what you do.” – Rumi

Feature image credit: socialmediapostclub.com

What's on the Design Wall

What’s on the Design…Ironing Board?

October 13, 2017October 13, 2017 tierneycreates: a fusion of textiles and smiles

This post is actually a continuation of my ongoing series “What’s on the Design Wall”, featuring my latest project up on either the small design wall in my studio or the large design wall my hallway. It is also a follow up to my post Can We Talk About Table Runners? on the table runners I am working on.

I had the five (5), yes five (5) table runner tops that I finished on the large design wall in my hallways but I yesterday evening I started a new art quilt and took them down. Now they are all sitting on the ironing board waiting to be completed:

They all began as yardage of my collection of Ombre fabrics and my stash of pieced strips from brightly colored fabric scraps:

I have decided to quilt each one of them.

In the previous post on these table runners I discussed my challenge of how long to make them and several of you weighed in with ideas on both length and width.

The unfinished group of five table runner tops measure anyway from 17 – 19″ wide and 44″ – 53″ long. The dimensions will decrease after I quilt them and trimmed them down a bit to straighten their lines. So I think I will end up with table runners from 16″ x 42″ to 18″ x 52″ or something like that.

I just flowed with whatever length the design took me as I progressed!

I will reveal the runners in all their glory in a future post once I get some quilted!

Postscript

The Natural Selection Convention

Whether you believe in Evolution, Intelligent Design, Creationism, or something else, you have likely heard the term coined by Charles Darwin – “Natural Selection”.

Dictionary.com defines it as “The process whereby organisms better adapted to their environment tend to survive and produce more offspring”.

Well last week I came across on my walk what I might call a Bird Natural Selection Convention!

First I noticed at the corner of an alley I turned into on my walk, an adorable cat sitting on a fence. Well that cat wasn’t just sitting on the fence, he was curled around a set of bird feeders!

“Here birdy, birdy, some nice yummy food is waiting for you…”

I stopped a greeted the cat who let me take his photo (I actually took like 10 different photos to get the right shot and the kitty just stared at me while I did it). Then I completed turning the corner and here is what I found two feet from the “bird-feeder-cat” – another kitty just hanging out on the same fence:

And then, one more foot down the fence, another kitty:

This is why I am calling this a Bird Natural Selection Convention – any bird that attempts to use the bird feeder will most likely not be having any more offspring!!!

I laughed so hard at the trio of kitties waiting for very hungry and not too bright birds!

What the Heck is This?!?!?!

Have you ever been to Costco? It is a magical place I try to stay away from (see my post Break Up Letter to My Warehouse Club). However there was something we really needed at Costco (what Tierney, an 180 count jar of olives, triple pack?) and so we went.

While strolling the aisles (okay even if you go there for just one thing, it is mandatory that while you are in Costco you stroll the aisles), Terry and I came across this:

It looked like someone had skinned a schnauzer! We do not know if it was synthetic or some poor animal but it was a very unusual pillow. It was quite soft to the touch (you could pet it for hours) but then that added to sort of a creepy feeling I got from it.

Also – how the heck would you wash it if you got a stain on it? We had quite the laugh over it (like we did in September when they had the Christmas decorations already out in Costco) but we somehow controlled ourselves and did not buy it.

(Sassy the Highly Opinionated Miniature Schnauzer would have been quite distressed if she thought we were bringing home a skinned schnauzer pillow!)

tierneycreates

What’s on My Lap (March 2017)

October 12, 2017October 12, 2017 tierneycreates: a fusion of textiles and smiles

As part of the 4th year Blog Anniversary Celebration for tierneycreates, I am re-posting the blog posts over the past 4 years that either had the most views or the most comments throughout the month of October 2017.

Interestingly, this one – What’s on My Lap – from March 30, 2017 is the top viewed post for 2017, and yesterday I just posted an update on the related art quilt (The Recycled Road) in the Improvisational Textiles blog – Pathways Exhibit. This piece just finished a month long show at Cascade Sotheby’s International Realty Gallery in Bend, Oregon and now moves onto another month long exhibit at Twig’s Gallery in Sisters, Oregon.

I sure miss the piece and I am thinking about making another one for the series in the near future that requires hand stitching on my lap again. I did go ahead and start another hat to work on in the evening while watching, but I would rather be slow stitching in front of the TV.

Sassy the Highly Opinionated Miniature Schnauzer is also celebrating her 4th year Blog Anniversary and she has a post It’s My Blog Anniversary Too in honor of this occasion.

Oh – one more thing to share – I have decided to move the closing date of comments for a chance to win a Little Wallet (or a “Little Wallette” as a friend called it) from 10/15/17 to 10/22/17 and move the random drawing to 10/23/17. Not everyone reads blog posts right away and I want to give any of my regular readers time to enter if they want. I have updated the related blog post (Blog Anniversary Celebration & Giveaway) with the new date.

Re-Post: What’s on My Lap (March 30, 2017)

This is a follow up to my post Slow Stitching and a part of my continuing series: What’s on the Design Wall, featuring my latest projects in progress.

I titled this post “What’s on My Lap” for two reasons: 1) The obvious: I am hand stitching the quilt, so it is on my lap of course; and 2) As a follow up to the hilarious comment from Sandy (or Cindy?) of Gray Barn Designs, (one of my favorite quilting blogs to follow) on my 03/21/17 Slow Stitching post:

Oh yes, I might do a future post titled “What’s in My Head” if Gray Barn Designs does not beat me to it! Of course that would be a very long post. Way too many design ideas going on in my head.

Update on ‘Recycled Road’

I decided to name to piece Recycled Road, even though I have not written the Artist Statement for it yet. I am having so much fun slow stitching it! (Notice in the photo below I included my shoe so you could see it really is on my lap!)

I am not looking to win any “hand quilting technique competitions” but I have fallen in love with the whole experience of hand quilting. All the fabrics in this art quilt, for our local SAQA group annual themed show, are recycled (jeans, corduroy pants, corduroy shirt, tweed jumper, curtains, home decor fabric sample, and sweat pants!) and they have a wonderful texture.

I especially love stitching through the sweat pants material. It is so soft and supple and I like to brush my hands along the fabric after stitching a section (ok Tierney are you getting weird now with your hand quilting?!?!?). Was that “oversharing”?

Interestingly, Terry the Quilting Husband’s two sisters and mother are quilters and one of his sisters is really into hand quilting. My sister-in-law Sue is a serious quilter. Like a paper piecing and hand quilting quilter. She is an expert hand quilter. I remember years ago watching her hand quilt while she was visiting us and thinking “yikes, why would anyone want to do that?”

Now I get it. I was teasing Terry the other evening as we sat in front of the TV and I hand stitched: “Terry, I have become your sister!” (In reality, the only thing I have in common with Terry’s very talented quilter sister, is that we both hand quilt now. My skills are light years from hers!)

I feel like I am on this cool ongoing journey related to my quilting, even after 17+ years of being a quilter.

(I will unveil a photo of the entire piece once I have it completed. I have to keep up the suspense…or at least the imaginary suspense…)

Postscript

I do plan to return to more Farm Girl Vintage blocks in the future. Hopefully!

Special Events, tierneycreates

Pathways Exhibit at Cascade Sotheby’s Sept – Oct 2017

October 12, 2017February 4, 2019 tierneycreates: a fusion of textiles and smiles

This post originally appeared on the Improvisational Textiles website 10/12/17. Moving this post to tierneycreates.

My piece, The Recycled Road (2017), exhibited at Cascade Sotheby’s International Realty Gallery in downtown Bend, Oregon, September 3 through October 3, 2017 as part of the Central Oregon SAQA Pathways Exhibit.

2017-09-06_12-00-05_588 2017-09-06_12-01-26_410

Below is a sampling of other art quilts at the exhibit. For wonderful images of the entire Pathways show art quilts, please see the post by fellow Central Oregon SAQA member, Kristin Shields – SOQS 2017 : 6 : CENTRAL OREGON SAQA- PATHWAYS.

2017-09-06_12-02-04_148 2017-09-06_12-03-30_713 2017-09-06_12-03-36_479 2017-09-06_12-04-09_704 2017-09-06_12-04-49_697

The Pathways show will travel next to the Twigs Gallery in Sisters, Oregon, opening October 24 and running through the end of November 2017.

Creative Inspiration

Creative Inspiration: Autumn in Central Oregon

October 11, 2017October 29, 2018 tierneycreates: a fusion of textiles and smiles

Monday I went on a field trip to the Wintercreek Nursery with my friend Jenny. The Nursery was filled with glorious examples of the beauty of Autumn in Central Oregon.

I thought I would post a couple of those photos as part of my ongoing series of posts on sources of Creative Inspiration. I think these photo compositions could be inspiration for an interesting art quilt. Feel free to use them for inspiration and if you repost the photos, please credit me as the photographer, thanks.

Here is my absolute favorite of the photos I took:

And here is a tiny little house that I think was covering some plumbing that looked like a real house tucked away in forest growth:

Finally here are a couple photos of Autumn at my house in Central Oregon:

We have a lot of reds, yellows, yellow-greens and greens. We do not have the purples of the Autumn in Vermont (when I lived in New York we used to drive to Vermont in the Fall to see the exquisitely beautiful palette of colors) but I think Autumn is an exceptionally lovely time of year with the Fall colors and the backdrop of an impossibly blue Central Oregon Autumn sky!

Thanks for reading my photo essay of Autumn in Central Oregon!

One of the “non-Wordpress” blogs I love to follow is that of a fellow Central Oregon SAQA member, Kristin Shields. On her blog Kristin Shields: Artist & Quiltmaker, she has a visually beautiful post on Fall Color – October Color.

Postscript

I’ve made quite a bit of progress on the table runners I am working on (see recent posts) and will sharing a peek in a future post.

Now that the weather has changed (it has dipped into the 60s and 50s during the day and 20s – 30s at night!) it is time to start making knitted hats again in the evenings while watching TV.

I love to wear my knitted hats (yes I only know one pattern) on brisk Fall and Winter walks!

As I mentioned in the post Not Working On What I am Supposed to be Working On, I love to wear my nearly finished hat around the house with the double pointed needles sticking out of the top, as a tradition right before I finished off the hat.

So here is another silly picture of me with my nearly finished hat!

Terry the Quilting Husband puts up with me weirdness!

Oh and here is the full image of the featured photo – I would like to find fabric in this color:

My Minimalism Journey

Dark Cabinet of Mystery (October 2015)

October 9, 2017June 22, 2022 tierneycreates: a fusion of textiles and smiles

As part of the tierneycreates Blog Anniversary Celebration, I will be featuring (sprinkled through out the month of October) my top posts of the past 4 years (i.e. most views and/or most comments). Kicking off the “Best of tierneycreates” with a sort of scary-Halloween-esque themed post from October 2015 (…don’t read it alone in dimmed lights….).

There is nothing on the Design Wall and the sewing machine is cold…

We all have those stretches on “non-creatvity” and I am hopefully on the tail end of one of those stretches right now. I have however continued with my side project of decluttering and scaling back my life as discussed in previous posts (see posts in category My Minimalism Journey ).

I decided to take on THE DARK CABINET OF MYSTERY…

Don’t be afraid to peek in (and then reach inside)…

I know I am not alone – many people have those drawers or cabinets “of mystery” in which you never peek unless you really, really, really need to find something (and you strongly suspect, unfortunately, it is in THERE).

Most of the time you just throw something in there and quickly close the door without looking too hard to see what has gathered inside.

I have started working on what I call my Dark Cabinet of Mystery in the corner of my kitchen.

It is an oddly shaped cabinet and has angle that reaches into…another dimension? A break in the “space-time continuum”? A wormhole? I actually asked my husband to just reach into the cabinet and pull everything out.

(I figured if something grabbed him when he reached in, I could retrieve the dogs quickly and run out of the house)

Well everything got pulled out, and my husband survived emptying the cabinet. Below is what was inside and it is obvious that I kept thinking: “oh I need to save this glass jar”, “I probably really need to save this glass jar”, “not sure if I have enough glass jars”…

In addition to a large supply of empty glass jars I discovered I had a springform (aka cheesecake pan) which I have never used since buying it like 20 years ago; and I have an electric carving knife used once or twice in the 15+ years I have owned. I also have an entire extra set of flatware.

Now I have to decide what to keep and what to recycle (hint the numerous glass jars) or donate. I also need to decide the future of the Dark Cabinet of Mystery…

Maybe I should just have the Dark Cabinet of Mystery professionally sealed up…especially if creatures from other dimensions find a way to slip in through a portal likely in one of its dark corners..

Featured image credit: Ryan Smart, free images.com

tierneycreates

Blog Anniversary Celebration & Giveaway

October 8, 2017October 12, 2017 tierneycreates: a fusion of textiles and smiles

October heralds the 4th anniversary of the tierneycreates blog. Although a 4th anniversary it not traditionally a milestone anniversary, I did not want to wait until the 5th anniversary to start my first annual Blog Anniversary Giveaway!

Whether you are a new reader/follower or have been with me since the beginning (like perhaps the friends and family that were browbeaten into signing up to follow my blog in the early days?!?!) I so appreciate you taking time from your day to read my tierneycreates musings.

So let’s first talk about the “celebration” and then I will give you the details on the “giveaway”. (and of course I will ramble on more afterwards…)

The Celebration

Throughout the month of October, along with new posts, I am going to feature “the best of tierneycreates” from the past 4 years – those posts which got the most views and/or the most comments.

We’ll kick it off tomorrow with a sort of October/Halloween-esque post from October 2015 Dark Cabinet of Mystery.

The Giveaway

As I hinted in the Postscript section of the September post Limitless Library Love I am going to giveaway FOUR (4) of the Little Wallets I was obsessed with making in September 2017. You can view the whole lot of them in this post – Little Wallet Madness.

So here is what you need to do to ENTER THE GIVEAWAY:

Write a comment in the Comments/Leave a Reply section of this post with a minimum of the following three pieces of information:

Question #1 – What is your favorite color? (or “favourite colour” if you live outside the US!)

Questions #2 – What is your second favorite color (in case you’re selected & your 1st choice is gone)

Question #3 – If you are a blogger, what is your favorite thing about blogging; or if you are not a blogger – what is your favorite thing about reading/following blogs?

Oh my goodness Tierney you are asking me to write a freaking essay to try and get one of your Little Wallets (yup I know what you are thinking).

2017-09-10_15-59-53_350 — Hope this photo gets you excited about essay writing – ha!

But I think it will be fun to read people’s comments about why they blog or enjoy reading blogs. The last question is meant to celebrate blogging and our blogging community!

You have until Sunday, October 22nd to add your comment to enter the giveaway. I will have Terry the Quilting Husband (TTQH) randomly select 4 winners on Monday October 23, 2017. No, no, no don’t try and write cute comments to TTQH in your entry, I am going to just give him a blinded list of who responded on the post with assigned numbers! He won’t even see the names to be influenced by any cute blogger names (smile).

Do not worry if you live in other countries such as Canada, UK, Australia, South Africa, India, Texas, etc., I am going to mail the Little Wallet to you wherever you live (unless of course you are an extraterrestrial – unfortunately interspace postal services are not an option at this point).

I will privately contact the winners, within our solar system, for their mailing addresses.

Speaking of Community

What is my answer to Question #3? What I love about blogging and reading/following blogs is the sense of community. It makes me smile that there seems to be a little tribe of crafters who follow each other blogs. When I use the word “crafter” I mean all creative types – whether you have a cooking blog, a paper crafting blog, a needlepoint blog, sewing blog, creative writing or poetry blog, drawing/painting blog, quilting blog, etc., etc. I love being exposed to all this darn creativity floating around the ethernet!

I started blogging, heavily encouraged by my awesome sister, in October 2013 as a vehicle for my now closed tierneycreates Etsy shop. I discovered I like blogging way more than trying to sell handmade items online.

Much thanks for my longtime readers/followers and to my newer readers!

I hope to keep “fusing textiles and smiles” (my tierneycreates tagline) on this blog for many more years!

Postscript

Las Vegas

I had to take a little break from blogging as I dealt emotionally with sad stuff going on in the world. I could not bring myself to write for a couple of days.

I did come across something very awesome – the blogger Christa Quilts (christaquilts.com) lives in Las Vegas and her local guild, Las Vegas MQG is collecting quilts to pass out to those impacted by the shooting. You can check out her post link below for more information:

CATCHING MY BREATH AND CALL FOR #QUILTSFORVEGAS

Table Runners

This is a quick follow up to my previous post Can We Talk About Table Runners? – I have been working on table runners and have completed 5 tops so far! I am going to quilt them and will reveal the table runners and their sizes/dimensions in a future post.

Here is a little tease – stacks of strips of pieced brightly colored fabric scraps for the table runners:

Feature photo credit: “fire in the sky” by Lucretious, free images.com

Fabric Scraps Obsession, Studio, tierneycreates

Can We Talk About Table Runners?

October 1, 2017October 22, 2018 tierneycreates: a fusion of textiles and smiles

I might ramble a bit in this post, bear with me. I am trying to figure out standard lengths for table runners. I know, I know, this is a shocking and controversial topic to take on in a blog post. If you can stay awake while reading this post, I will try not to bring up too many sensitive issues about table runners, ha!

Table Runners Running Around in My Mind

Why am I thinking about table runner lengths – have I simply run out of things to think about?

Let’s back up a moment…

Recently I sold the last of my tierneycreates table runners from when I had my tierneycreates Etsy shop, to a work colleague. She remembered the table runners I had offered in my shop and wanted one. I explained I only had one left and I had laundered it as I had used it on my table. She still wanted it.

So we worked out a deal, I mailed it to her, and here is a photo of it on her table:

The photo made me smile. I love the idea of something I made being useful in someone else’s home and making them smile. This is aligned with the tierneycreates tagline of “a fusion of textiles and smiles”.

Here is the original style of table runner (quilted) I made for my Etsy shop that I could not keep in stock:

Here is one in green ombre that is not quilted that sold out in my shop also:

The one in the photo above is does not look very exciting, so you will have to just trust me that it looks better in person (and the women who bought it gave it a 5-star review on Etsy).

So this leads us back to why I am thinking about table runners lengths – because I am thinking about making up a new batch of quilted table runners (and maybe selling them on Etsy); and I am not sure what length to make them!

Do I just make up a couple in different standard lengths?!?!?

What Length, Oh What Length?

I did a lot of “googling” to try and find a guide to standard table runner lengths. I found several pages which listed info on standard table runner sizes.

Then I came across this webpage – Table Runner Dimensions

What I liked about this webpage was this statement:

“A table runner should be long enough to overhang the end of your table by approximately 6 to 10 inches on each end.”

Why did this statement appeal to me? Because it means there is no way to anticipate all the different table sizes potential customers will have and that I just need to decide one standard length I will offer as well as offer a custom table size option. I am going to aim around 42″ as my standard length.

Table Runner-ing

I have spent the last couple of days working on creating the strata for my scrappy table runners from a bag of Kaffe Fassett-type of fabric scraps from my collection of Challenge Bags (see post Basket of Challenges ):