Well Tierney on the road (well in the air) again, this time for a quick business trip to Portland, Oregon for a meeting. So I am going to be the guest blogger on this post.

Do you all miss me? It’s been a long since you heard from me. I was packed away along with Mikelet (I know, I know, you are thinking of reporting Tierney for Beastie-neglect but we should give her a break since she been through a lot this past year…).

Now we have a nice home in Tierney’s new studio:

2019-10-22_08-11-05_364 — It now Autumn in the Denver, Colorado area and getting kind of cold so it is sweater time!

Oh, but if you are new to this blog, I guess I should first introduce myself:

My name is tierneycreates Beastie and I am a Monster, but the good kind of Monster. You can read my story at I’m A Monster!!!. You can also check out the other posts I’ve had to guest blog on (i.e. when Tierney fell off the blogging-wagon) in the series of posts: Beastie Adventures.

I think the last time I guest blogged, I was complaining about the physical spot (in a box in the closet!) where she had me living in her first studio after moving to the Denver greater metropolitan area.

Here is that post if you want to be shocked and appalled like I was: Another Beastie Blogging Intervention: New Studio Tour, Part III.

I must warn you, Beasties are notorious for making things all about themselves (just check out the blogs Crawcrafts Beasties and Tammie Painter and you will see what I mean!) but I am going to try to focus on the primary subject on this post – an update on Tierney’s post from 10/13/19 – The “Madness” Returns (though a post just about me would be much more interesting!)

So Tierney has finished about 14 little wallets so far. It is not a very impressive number but at least she’s gotten off to some sort of start in replacing her previous stash:

2019-10-22_08-12-01_966 — Only 13 in the photo because she already gave one recently as a gift

I inspected her work and provided feedback that she needs a lot more color and fabric combinations:

Do like the fact that I could use one of the little wallets as a suitcase?

Of course I only have one other article of clothing – my warm weather shirt. Eventually I need Tierney to place an order at crawcraftsbeasties.com to expand my wardrobe!

Tierney does have other additional color/fabric combinations in progress:

I guess if she wasn’t flying around everywhere all the time she could buckle down and get a larger variety of little wallets done!

She won’t allow me to use the rotary cutter or scissors so I cannot help her. We won’t talk about the time one of her quilting friends loaned me a rotary cutter at a quilt retreat…(Guest Blogger: October Quilt Retreat Part I).

2018-10-25_15-03-23_912 — Perhaps not the best idea…

Postscript

As long as I am guest blogging, I might as well also give you a follow up to Tierney’s 08/30/19 post New Studio.

Tierney’s been moving things around and playing with a slightly different layout.

Most importantly, she put me and Mikelet on top of this “pre-cut bookcase” so that we are prominently displayed in her studio (where we can closely watch over her crafting):

She also moved some stuff around after sewing in the room a couple weeks, to make it work better for her.

2019-10-22_08-22-09_986 — So many precuts…maybe they are breeding when Tierney not looking…

Tierney loves this colorful display of books and recently found one of the books she was missing from the “Pretty Little” series, Pretty Little Pillows, at a charity yard sale.

Perhaps she’ll do something crazy one day and actually MAKE crafts and quilts from these books on display!

Oh one more thing – remember how Tierney mentioned in her 09/27/19 post A New Way to Organize My Fabric, that she had more fabric to organize?

Well she finally did: she organized her flannels, canvas, novelty prints and panels in the shelves in her studio.

So with the fabric above, plus the pre-cuts, plus the fabric below in this photo, Tierney should give up sleeping and starting crafting/quilting 24/7 (and we will not even mention her collection of fabric scraps at this point).

And I will supervise her!

Shows and Exhibits

The “Dad Quilt” Has Come Home

October 19, 2019September 27, 2021 tierneycreates: a fusion of textiles and smiles

I am working on this post from 40,000 feet, at least I think that is what the pilot said over the intercom a little while ago. I thought I would treat myself and pay for the flight WiFi service as I travel from Denver to El Paso Texas to visit old friends.

Unfortunately the in flight WiFi appears not have the bandwidth to handle adding images to this post, so I will have to return to the post when I land and add in images.

Speaking of traveling, my quilt The Lesson & The Equation which toured in the traveling exhibit Visioning Human Rights in the New Millennium: Quilting the World’ Conscience, has been returned to me as the show has completed its schedule tour.

The show’s curator, Dr. Carolyn Mazloomi, did an excellent job of packaging up the quilt for return to me and I learned a lot about how a quilt should actually be packaged for mailing. Thinking about mailing quilts, reminds me of a post I did early in my blogging adventures (September 2014) in which I share a near disaster the first time I mailed a quilt into a show –True Tale of Shipping Terror (and Packaging Obsessions).

I so appreciate my friend and the amazing art quilter Wendy Hill (Instagram – @wendyquilter) who mentored me on mailing quilts to shows.

The “Dad Quilt” Comes Home

I nicknamed the art quilt I made for the show Visioning Human Rights in the New Millennium: Quilting the World’ Conscience – The Dad Quilt. The quilt was inspired by the lessons I learned from my father Raoul A. Davis, Sr.

If you are new to this blog, the links below can catch you up to speed on creation of this quilt and the amazing show it got to be in if you check out this series of posts: Stories My Father Told Me.

Here are the series of posts about the Visioning Human Rights in the New Millennium: Quilting the World’ Conscience show opening:

Visioning Human Rights in the New Millennium, Part I August 26, 2018′
Visioning Human Rights in the New Millennium, Part II August 29, 2018
Visioning Human Rights in the New Millennium, Part III August 30, 2018
Visioning Human Rights in the New Millennium, Part IV September 1, 2018

And here is the post from April 2016 that inspired the journey of this quilt: Creative Inspiration: Stories My Father Told Me

Now the quilt is back with me and I hung it in what used to be sort of a formal living room or parlor in the house I now live in. I “Tierney-fied” the room.

I turned it into a reading room where my partner and I now like to sit and read.

The room is perfect for sitting with a pot of tea and a book, or snuggling with a miniature schnauzer (Mike the Miniature Schnauzer is awaiting his snuggles):

2019-08-13_08-19-07_832 — Why are you taking photos? Why are you not snuggling with me? – Mike

The quilt is featured in the book from the exhibit, which is available on amazon.com:

I repurposed a cookbook stand to feature the book in the room near the quilt:

Sometimes I talk to the quilt and say hello to my father. I sort of feel like the quilt watches over me!

Postscript

You’ve likely figured it out that I’ve now landed as there are images now in this post. Not only have I landed but it is actually the next day and I am sitting in the hotel lobby finishing this post.

I am staying in a lovely hotel in downtown El Paso and guess what images they have on the wall of the hotel rooms:

It was awesome to sleep under antique sewing machines!

Bags Bags Bags

The “Madness” Returns

October 13, 2019April 7, 2021 tierneycreates: a fusion of textiles and smiles

The madness has returned.

Little Wallet Making Madness!

I am back to making a massive amount of little wallets inspired by Valori Wells’ pattern (which I modified), just as I discussed in this 2017 post Little Wallet Madness.

Some of you might remember the little wallets being part of my October 2017 and 2018 “Bloganniversary” giveaways. Well it is now October 2019 which means it is my blog’s 6th anniversary.

However, given the major change in my life over the last year, I may or may not do a 6th blog anniversary celebration like I did in the past…we’ll see how I feel later in the month.

It’s not like last year, where for my 5th blog anniversary I posted daily for 30 days and did a series of (what I thought was) awesome giveaways.

Honestly, thoughts of my blog anniversary makes me sad as it makes me think of how Terry the Quilting Husband (TTQH), who passed in December 2018, used to help me do the blog anniversary giveaway drawings along with Sassy the Highly Opinionated Miniature Schnauzer (who passed in December 2017 and used to have her own blog, Schnauzerships) who ensured the integrity of the drawings (see post Announcing the Winners of the tierneycreates Blog’s 4th Anniversary Giveaway).

During previous blog anniversary Octobers, I would share links from favorite previous posts, like a “Best of tierneycreates”, but so many of those posts are loaded with memories of my previous wonderful (darn near perfect) life with TTQH.

But next year is my 7th year of blogging anniversary and my hope is I do a blowout sort of celebration for that one! Time does help ease the pain of loss a little at a time. So bear with me (smile).

Oh but back to little wallets, the original subject of this blog post…

I had a HUGE stash of little wallets after making so many like in this photo from September 2017:

Recently though I got down to only two wallets left:

Oh and if you are new to this blog and are curious what the little wallets look like on the inside, here is a photo:

I have a ridiculous amount of tierneycreates business cards and each little wallet comes with a business card tucked inside.

SIDEBAR: It’s the tierneycreates business card that gave it away when I discovered one of my little wallets in a thrift shop, that obvious someone I had given one to had donated it – see post Found! At the Thrift Shop!. I ended up buying the little wallet for 50 cents from the thrift shop and then regifting it.

So it was time to make another stash of little wallets, so I pulled out a bunch of fat quarters and fabric scraps and got busy designing little wallets:

The images above are just a couple of the combinations I am working on and in a future post I will share the plethora of wallets I made to replenish my little wallet stash!

Postscript

A quick follow up to the September 27, 2019 post A New Way to Organize My Fabric, I finished refolding my ridiculous fat quarter collection and now have them organized (except for novelty fat quarters) in front of the yardage that I wrapped in the comic boards:

I have to admit sometimes I just walk in the room and smile as this colorful organization makes me happy!

By the way – this is not all the fabric (should I even admit this?) – I do have separate organization for my flannel, canvas, and novelty fabrics that I recently created. Perhaps I will share this in a future post (if I am ready for full disclosure of my ridiculous fabric stash).

Speaking of stuff that makes me happy – two weeks ago my little brother visited me in Denver along with his family. He had a “milestone” birthday and we celebrated by taking him to his first NFL game to see his favorite football team of all time – the Denver Broncos. Here I am below with my brother and my adorable 7 year old nephew who thoroughly enjoyed the game (and danced in the stands during the music breaks!)

Much to the chagrin of my Pacific NW friends, I’ve sort of defected from being a Seattle Seahawks fan to a Denver Broncos fan (though I still root for the Seahawks if they are not playing the Broncos).

Sunflowers!

Savoring the Sunflowers

October 1, 2019October 2, 2019 tierneycreates: a fusion of textiles and smiles

I love sunflowers so much I have a series of posts about them – Sunflowers!.

In late summer 2019, I added some sunflowers to my new life for two reasons: 1) in honor of the beauty of my previous life; and 2) in gratitude that I have been able to experience beauty in my life again despite my ongoing grieving of the loss of my husband last December.

In April this year I left my life in Central Oregon behind and moved to the greater Denver metropolitan area (see series of posts Colorado Bound). My house sold in May and for the first time in my life I lived alone in an apartment.

As I shared in my post 08/18/19 post Morning Walk in Black and White, my dog Mike and I moved this summer from my apartment into a house. Living in a house now gave me access to a garden again.

I have been careful not to try and recreate the life I previously had in Central Oregon while my husband was alive, but I did want to bring a little special beauty into it and I planted sunflower seeds early in the summer in the front and back yards.

And they grew.

And they made my smile and brought some joy into my life.

We decided to harvest the seeds (the sunflowers are all done flowering now) and replant them next Spring – they are currently drying in the garage:

I hope next summer to enjoy sunflowers from these seeds. These sunflowers were special because they reminded me that I can still enjoy beauty in my life.