Here is my next installment in my new series of posts “Colorado Bound” which began with this post: Colorado Bound (Part I).

As revealed in my January 22 post I’ve decided to begin my new life in Northern Colorado this Spring.

In this post I thought I’d share a couple more details.

When I was considering the move to Colorado and not sure if it was the right thing or not, the Universe gave me a sign, and this ad was the first thing I saw when I opened a magazine to read while I was still deciding:

My Heart is In the Mountains

First, I want to share a series of photos that my friend Cody G. shared with me from one of his trips to Colorado (especially the Boulder, Colorado area) that show the mountainous beauty of the region:

I am am drawn to living in places where I can be among mountains. One of the favorite things about living in the Pacific NW and Central Oregon during the past 21+ years of my life is that I got to live in the Cascade Mountain range.

Now I am moving to another amazing mountain range: the Rocky Mountains (Southern Rockies).

The Road Trip

In another post I will share some of the logistics of my move from Central Oregon to Northern Colorado but these are not as exciting as the upcoming ROAD TRIP from Central Oregon to Colorado!

My sister is going to join me on the road trip!

During our road trip across four states in the Northeastern U.S. after my husband died in December (see posts Stories from the Road, Part I and Stories from the Road, Part II) my sister and I discussed that someday we would like to go on a road trip together for a happy and fun reason, not for a sad reason.

So I was very excited to invite her to drive with Mike the Miniature Schnauzer and me to our new Colorado adventure. She is going to meet up with us on our first leg of the journey – in Boise, Idaho.

She will fly into Boise and we will wander around Boise, staying overnight and then head out of our adventure through the states of Idaho, Wyoming, Utah and into Colorado.

We are discussing a detour along the way to Yellowstone National Park!

Old Faithful – Photo by Emily Campbell on Unsplash

We will of course have the tierneycreates Beastie with us (see series of posts Beastie Adventures) and she will be blogging from the road as we explore a couple states I’ve never driven through before!

Here is tierneycreates Beastie and her dog Mikelet, getting ready to study the road maps for the trip (but I hope she is not too much of a “backseat driver”):

I love GPS and the concept of having easy navigation from your smartphone but I still want to have on hand good old fashioned ROAD MAPS!

Postscript

I need to take a break from daydreaming about my move to Colorado and start working on an art quilt for an invitational juried show, a really cool one, which I hope I get accepted into…but first I need to complete my piece!

Oh and I haven’t forgotten about the series of posts I started in early December – Secret Quilt Revealed, Part I, I will continue with the rest of the story about the creation of my piece for the WCQN show: Yours For Race and Country: Reflections on the Life of Colonel Charles Young.

One more thing – I went to lunch with my neighbor Carole today (the one whose lovely “girl cave” I featured in the October 2018 post A Room of Her Own) and came across this sign that made me smile at one of the shops we stopped in after lunch:

Feature Photo Image Credit: Cody Gillenwater

“Tula in a Box” Quilt Top Finished

January 26, 2019January 27, 2019 tierneycreates: a fusion of textiles and smiles

This weekend I moved forward on one of my stalled quilting projects: I finished my Tula in a Box quilt. If you check out this category of posts you will see the story behind this quilt and stages of progress in a series of previous posts – Tula Time!.

This weekend I went from this on the large design wall in the hallway:

To this:

This quilt top measures approximately 82 inch x 82 inches (208 cm x 208 cm) and is comprised of 36 – 12 inch x 12 inch (finished) blocks.

I love the brightly colored fabrics in this quilt, especially the fabulous prints of 6 animals (frog, owl, fancy bird, squirrel, raccoon, and bee) in 3 different color ways, such as this one of the owl:

Originally I thought about piecing the leftover fat quarters and scraps into the backing for the quilt, but I’ve decided to save those for another project.

Instead I am going to search for a backing when I visit a couple quilting friends in Washington state in February (any excuse to go shopping with quilting friends!)

Colorado Bound

Colorado Bound (Part I)

January 22, 2019June 22, 2022 tierneycreates: a fusion of textiles and smiles

I’ve decided to relocate – to Northern Colorado. Either the Denver Greater Metropolitan area or to Boulder, Colorado:

Why Colorado? Well here is a list that summarizes the reasons for my decision:

I need to move to a major airport hub to put me closer to visiting my family and to make world traveling (should I choose to do that) more accessible.
I have a longtime friend that lives in the Denver area.
I have visited Colorado many times and love it.
I need a new adventure.
I hear they have a great quilting community
The climate (high desert, high elevation) is similar to Central Oregon.
It feels right.
I want to live in a large metropolitan/urban area with more cultural opportunities.
I love the mountains and always want to live near mountains.
Look how beautiful this place is (The Flatirons near Boulder, CO):

boulder-flatirons-@roblantzphoto-instagram-outthere-colorado-1024x683-min — image credit: Snowbrains.com

Soulful: A National Exhibition of African American Artists

January 21, 2019September 27, 2021 tierneycreates: a fusion of textiles and smiles

A couple of days ago I got some cool news.

One of my early recycled silk art quilts was juried into the national Art (yes “art” not quilting, ha!) Show – “Soulful: A National Exhibition of African American Artists”. It opens February 7th and runs through February 28th at the d’Art Center in Norfolk, VA.

My piece that will appear in the show is called Color Story I: Flying Triangles. It was the first recycled silk art quilt I made when I began to experiment with using recycled materials. Below is the piece and the updated Artist Statement I did for the show.

COLOR STORY I: FLYING TRIANGLES

45 ” W x 44.5″ L, silk & linen garment scraps pieced on muslin foundation

ARTIST STATEMENT:

The Color Stories series of art quilts are vibrant colored compositions, created from recycled textiles including silks, wools and linens. Many of the recycled silks and linens are from samples and remnants from NYC Fashion District couture fabrics from the 1990’s European textile houses of Ratti, Braghenti, Castellini and D’Este.

Instead of ending up in a landfill, these couture fabric samples with their complex colors, patterns and textures inspire my textile art.

This is piece is from my first art quilt series: Color Stories. If you’d like to see the other art quilts in this series, check out my page Art Quilt Stories.

Postscript

Next post I will share where I am moving or some of my plans for my next adventure in life. If you would like to take a guess, it is one of the states in the image of AAA travel books below (if you know already don’t ruin the surprise for any other readers, thanks!)

Featured image credit: d’Art Center (d-artcenter.org)

Shows and Exhibits, WCQN

Visioning Human Rights Show Opens in Austin, Texas on 02/21/2019

January 20, 2019September 27, 2021 tierneycreates: a fusion of textiles and smiles

For those of you who’ve followed my blog for a while you know that my piece, The Lesson and The Equation is part of the traveling show Visioning Human Rights in the New Millennium: Quilting the World’s Conscience.

You can read about my piece and the show in the following posts – Visioning Human Rights in the New Millennium, Part I , Visioning Human Rights in the New Millennium, Part II, Visioning Human Rights in the New Millennium, Part III , Visioning Human Rights in the New Millennium, Part IV , and International Exposure for The Lesson and The Equation.

This show, curated by Dr. Carolyn Mazloomi of the Women of Color Quilting Network (WCQN) celebrates the 70th Anniversary of the United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights and features a collection of art quilts based on the 30 Articles of this declaration.

The show continues to travel and is opening on Thursday February 21, 2019 at Texas Folklife in Austin, Texas.

Screen Shot 2019-01-20 at 10.05.00 PM.png — Image credit: Texas Folklife

You can more about this show at this link: Gallery Exhibit: Quilting The World’s Conscience.

I am sharing this in case any of my blogging buddies in Texas might be interested in attending.

A Crafter's Life, Adventures in Paper Piecing

Back to Making Things and Lovely Surprises in the Mail

January 16, 2019January 16, 2019 tierneycreates: a fusion of textiles and smiles

Hello My Blogging Community, thanks for all your support during the most challenging time in my life.

I wanted to share that I have finally returned to “making” after quite the hiatus after the loss of my husband.

But first, let me share the two wonderful surprises I got in the mail today.

Surprise #1

My blogging buddy in Dublin Ireland, Helen @crawcraftsbeasties.com sent me a hand painted card featuring a Beastie comforting another Beastie:

To learn more about the amazing Beasties that Helen makes, check out her website – crawcraftsbeasties.com.

Surprise #2

My blogging buddy in the Netherlands, Emmely @infectiousstitches gave me an amazing stitched card:

It was like a large fabric postcard with a wonderful handwritten note on back.

I so appreciate all the support from my blogging community including so many people who have never met me in person and only know me from my blog. I wish we could all get together for some tea and pastries at a nice cafe.

No Longer Dreading the Mail

I feel I turned a corner as I am no longer dreading sympathy/condolence cards in the mail. So many thoughtful people have sent their condolences over the loss of my husband but each card was like a gut wrenching stab reminding me of my profound loss. I dreaded getting the mail and making myself open the cards and their words of sympathy blurring before my tearing eyes. Perhaps in retrospect I should have put them aside and read them later. I felt compelled and obligated to open each card.

On Tuesday I began an 8 week Spousal Loss Grief Support Group. The first meeting was incredibly difficult especially at first but by the end of the meeting as we all started to share and connect it got so much better. The Grief Counselor facilitating the meeting is amazing. This support group is through our local hospice and is a free community service.

There is an educational component to each meeting and I learned a lot about grief and why I have struggled with some severe irritability. I am so happy to have a safe place to talk about complex feelings with others who have also experienced the profound loss of a life partner.

I now get the whole “support group” concept where people going through similar experiences can support each other and relate to each other struggles, especially with the help of an amazing group facilitator.

Back to Making

I knew I needed to return to sewing and the tactile experience of working with fabric as part of my healing. I was either struggling with low energy or lack of interest, but I kept trying to dive back in.

First I tried to return to the Tula in a Box quilt I was working on before Terry died (and Terry helped me lay out the blocks) – see post .Tula in a Box. I managed to get the quilt back up on the large design wall in the hallway (I had half of it sewn together) as I had removed it from the design wall after he died as it was upsetting me:

But I have not done any work on it.

Then I tried to work on taking out the stitching of a quilt I made into a tablecloth. I decided to turn it into a quilt. I did get the stitching out but got stalled on getting it ironed out so I could sent it out for long-arm quilting:

Finally I thought I would try some hand work – something I could sit in front of the TV (I’ve been watching endless Netflix in the evening) and work on – English Paper Piecing (EPP):

That worked. I’ve been working on making EPP hexies in the evening. Occasionally making the hexies feels bittersweet at Terry punched out the paper piecing templates for me. But I like to think that we are making them together.

tierneytravels

Stories from the Road, Part III

January 6, 2019June 22, 2022 tierneycreates: a fusion of textiles and smiles

Hello to my blogging community.

I am continuing my series of posts about my new journey as a widow after losing my partner for more than half my life, Terry the Quilting Husband (TTQH).

My first two posts in this series Stories from the Road, Part I, and Stories from the Road, Part II were literally about a journey – a road trip with my sister across 4 states to see family on the East Coast and to celebrate TTQH’s life. This post is focused on my figurative journey navigating the grieving process and moving forward with my new life after the loss of the love of my life.

Before I dive into that, I wanted to say thank you to those of you who left thoughtful comments on my previous posts with your condolences and support. I’ve read all of them. I also appreciate those who have reached out via e-mail and/or also sent cards.

I miss regularly blogging and interacting with my regular blogging community (to include reading and commenting on your blog posts, etc.) but the profound grief that comes with such a loss consumes mental and physical energy on a level I cannot put into words.

I will likely at moments ramble in this post, but hopefully I will stay fairly coherent (smile).

The Widow’s Walk

I’ve loss both my parents but I’ve never experienced grief on this level. I do take one day at a time and each day does get a little better and the walk to get through each day seems a little less long and painful.

I’ve been focusing on planning for my next journey in life, which I discuss in a moment, and this has made me hopeful.

I would say my current state of mind is “sad but hopeful“.

I’ve decided to sell my house and move out of Central Oregon this Spring. I am not ready to share yet on my blog where I have decided to move, but will in the future.

Over the past couple of weeks I’ve been cleaning and clearing out many items from TTQH’s life and my life. I think all the thrift shops and shelters in town are tired of my endless carloads of donations.

In addition to local charity thrift shops, I am pleased with the groups I’ve been able to help out by donating TTQH’s stuff. For example I was able to donate all of his historical gaming miniatures/figures to the Hobby University of the Historical Miniature Gaming Society. I was able to donate some cool stuff to a local Veterans Association. I know TTQH would have approved.

In preparation to sell the house and to move to a smaller space temporarily, I’ve been significantly downsizing my possessions. I’ve dabbled with Minimalism in the past (see my series of posts tagged with the category My Minimalism Journey) but I still had a lot of stuff.

It seems like now I am able to be “brutal” with downsizing my stuff and now able to let go more easily. When you experience such a significant loss, things just do not seem as important/precious as they did before.

For example, here is a growing pile of recycled fabric acquired over the years, that is headed to the local thrift shop:

Mike the Miniature Schnauzer and I will be on a road trip this Spring to our new home. I will of course bring my tierneycreates Beastie (see series of posts in the category Beastie Adventures) on the road with us and she might be guest blogging to share stories of our journey from Central Oregon to our new location in the U.S. (staying in the States).

I do plan to return to quilting and blogging about lighter topics. I plan to finish the Tula Pink All Star quilt I last wrote about in the post Tula in a Box; and to continue the story on Secret Quilt Revealed, Part I.

Feature Photo by delfi de la Rua on Unsplash