Hello this is tierneycreates Beastie finishing up my Beastie Travelogue of our visit to Ireland.

Human Tierney at some point will share her Ireland adventures from her human perspective (boring) but I am not sure when that will be. She is making stuff for her Etsy shop for the upcoming holiday season and has had more intermittent travel with Human John on business trips. Perhaps she’ll blog about all those things someday…we’ll see…

Here I am getting ready to write the Part II of my previous post – Guest Blog Post: The Beasties’ Ireland Travelogue (Part I) . However, my dog Mikelet continues to be a bit naughty, seeking attention (he’s still mad he did not get to go to Ireland we John Beastie and myself) and is standing on Tierney’s favorite miniature tape measure (which is the perfect size for him), distracting me from writing!

Okay so back to my travelogue…

So after a couple days in Galway we took our rented car onto to Doolin, Ireland. On the way to Doolin we stopped at Dunguaire Castle, the Cliffs of Moher and Lisdoonvarna.

Here are a couple photos of John Beastie and I outside of Dunguaire Castle before we went inside:

Tierney didn’t let us take too many photos as it was very windy and she was afraid we would blow into the ravine!

After the castle we headed to the Cliffs of Moher. Tierney will likely share a post about the allegedly amazing Cliffs of Moher. I say “allegedly” because as she left John Beastie and I in the car! All I know is she was really hyped up when she got back in the car after visiting those cliffs!

She did let us out of the car in Lisdoonvarna, a small town which is home to the annual Matchmaking Festival that happens every September. Here is a little from the website linked on the name

Europe’s biggest singles festival takes place every September in the small village of Lisdoonvarna on Ireland’s Wild Atlantic Way. The month long Irish festival attracts people from all over the world looking for Love, fun and a bit of ‘craic’. The festival is over 160 years old and couldn’t be more different from online dating services. There’s music and dancing in every bar from 11am in the morning to the wee hours of the night and those looking for love can meet Ireland’s only traditional matchmaker Willie Daly in his ‘office in the Matchmaker Bar. Legend has it if you touch his ‘lucky book’ with both hand’s, you’ll be married in six months!
– matchmakerireland.com

In the Lisdoonvarna town center there were statues commemorating their famous Matchmaking Festival. I just had to climb up and get my photo taken:

My partner John Beastie reminded me that the statue was about “matchmaking” and since he was my “match” we should probably be photographed together:

I probably should have stood up for the photo but I’d gotten pretty comfortable in the arms of the statue!

Finally we arrived in Doolin where we were to spend a couple more days before heading back to Galway, dropping off the rental car, and taking the train back to Dublin where we would fly back to the U.S.

Doolin is known as the home of traditional Irish music and it is filled with Irish pubs with live performances each evening of traditional/folk Irish music.

Matty Beastie (who I introduced in the post Guest Blog Post: Beasties Return to Ireland!), like Human Matt, loves traditional Irish music, so human Matt brought Matty Beastie to the pubs in Doolin:

Matty Beastie traveled in Matt’s jacket pocket (I think Tierney and John should take a lesson from Matt and start carrying John Beastie and myself in their pockets).

Sorry there aren’t anymore photos of John Beastie and I to share from our trip to Ireland. Tierney was busy photographing less important things I guess…sigh.

I’ll close this post (and my travelogue) with a little video of Matty Beastie enjoying traditional Irish music while we were in Doolin:

Beastie Adventures, tierneytravels

Guest Blog Post: The Beasties’ Ireland Travelogue (Part I)

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

Hello there – this is tierneycreates Beastie returning to guest blog post and continue the story of John Beastie and my trip to Ireland which I began in my previous post – Guest Blog Post: Beasties Return to Ireland! . (If you are new to this blog, my story is on this post – I’m A Monster!!! and you can see all my posts at this link: Beastie Adventures).

My dog Mikelet has calmed down now that I’ve been back a couple weeks. If you remember from the previous post, he was standing on my desk trying to get attention while I was writing you a blog post. Now he only peers over my desk trying to get attention…

I am ignoring him for now (but will take him out of a walk in the chilly morning – Autumn temperatures have hit in my part of Colorado – when I am done writing) so I can share a photo travelogue of some of the highlights of our trip to Ireland.

I’m only going to focus on what John Beastie and I did, as human Tierney can write her own posts about her adventures!

DUBLIN, IRELAND

Before we got to Dublin, Ireland the four of us (humans and Beasties) flew from Denver, CO to LaGuardia airport in New York. While at the LaGuardia airport, John Beastie and I couldn’t help ourselves and had to go and hang out where it said “Do Not Climb“. I think they meant “Humans Do Not Climb”, I don’t think this sign applied to Monsters!

John Beastie and I were so excited to go on our first holiday together we had difficulty minding the humans! (and Tierney grew up in NY and was getting a little too sentimental about the “I love NY” sign so we had to do something to calm her down…)

Our first day in Dublin, Ireland was spent with John and Tierney the humans as their friends Matt and Kathy were not arriving until the evening as they were flying in from Scotland where they had spent a couple weeks.

So Tierney and John shared with us their first Fish & Chips in Ireland:

No worries we were careful not get to get any grease on our clothes (especially since they were the only outfits we had for 1 week in Ireland!)

After the Fish & Chips we had a wander about and visited places such as the Christ Church Cathedral and St. Audoen’s Church and the beautiful adjoining park. Here are a couple photos from those wanderings:

We also wandering about the streets of downtown Dublin taking random photos:

When we met up later that evening with Matt and Kathy, we got to enjoy our first fresh Guinness pint in Ireland! (Okay it was Tierney’s pint, she had a lot of hesitancy of letting Beasties near alcohol…):

The next day we first visited St. Patrick’s Cathedral and John Beastie and I entertained ourselves by finding places we probably shouldn’t pose for photos at:

Then went to the Guinness Storehouse (brewery tour)with Matt and Kathy and John Beastie and I took some photos there (this one is my favorite):

After the Guinness tour, we met up with Helen of CrawCraft Beasties who made me and I’ve already shared the stories from that reunion (for me) and first time meeting (for Kathy and Tierney) in my post Guest Blog Post: Beasties Return to Ireland!.

The next day we took the train from Dublin to Galway to spend a couple days in Galway.

There was so much to see looking out the train window, every if it was overcast and raining.

Here we are in the lobby of the lovely hotel we stayed in Galway – the Galway Bay Hotel – which was right across from the beach/water:

It was so windy in Galway along the water, John Beastie and I tried to take some photos but my hair was blowing everywhere:

Human Tierney had the same problem (but she pulled it out of her face for her selfie):

Of course John Beastie and human John did not have this problem, as they have not hair (on their heads)!

We finally had to settle for a photo away from the wind among some flowers in the garden at the hotel:

I’ll continue our Beastie Travelogue in my next guest post, but I’ll close this post with a really stupid photo Tierney took of us while she was waiting for human John to check out from the hotel (so they could head via the car the four humans had rented to the next part of the Ireland adventure!)

She had us stand in a tray on the coffee table of the hotel lobby (my eyes are rolling):

We are not decorative! We are monsters!

Special Events, tierneycreates

Recycled Windows Selected for NMA Public Art Program

October 21, 2022October 21, 2022 tierneycreates: a fusion of textiles and smiles

Recycled Hope IV: Recycled Windows has been selected for the New Mexico Arts Art in Public Places Program.

The notification I received by e-mail from Public Art Program Coordinator stated:

“Your submission has been selected to be part of Prospectus #268 Southwest Artist Series Purchase Initiative. The submitted artworks will be made available for purchase through the Art in Public Places Program. Your work will be shown to various sites throughout New Mexico with available 1% for public art funds. If your work is selected for purchase, I will contact you directly to begin the purchase process. The work will be made available for purchase for two years…”

Fingers crossed my art quilt gets selected for purchase! If I does I will need to get the art quilt (which measures 18 inches by 39 inches) professionally framed and have it professionally installed at the location in New Mexico it was purchased for. An estimate of the cost to have this done was included in the price I proposed to New Mexico Arts. It would so fun to travel to our neighboring state and oversee the installation!

If you’d like to read the Artist Statement for this piece which was created for a Central Oregon SAQA show several years ago, here it is:

18” W x 39″ L, recycled clothing, recycled denim, and recycled home decorating fabric

THE STORY OF THIS PIECE:

If you peek inside the window to my creative heart you will see it filled with a desire to reuse, repurpose, and reimagine materials which otherwise would have been discarded. Part of my Recycled Denim Stories Series, this piece blends a corduroy shirt and pants, denim jeans, sweat pants, a tweed jumper, an old curtain, and home decorating fabric sample scraps into an assemblage of window-like structures.

This is the second piece I’ve had selected by the NMA for their Art in Public Places program. The first piece was Recycled Hope III: Windows of Conversation in 2020 (see post Recycled Hope and Acclaimed Artist Series). Recycled Hope III: Windows of Conversation however was sold to a private collector in 2021, so I had to pull it from New Mexico Arts’ catalogue of prospective art for purchase.

Feature photo credit: New Mexico Arts

A Crafter's Life

Closer to Fine

October 18, 2022October 21, 2022 tierneycreates: a fusion of textiles and smiles

I will eventually return to posts on my recent trip to Ireland (either by me or by the tierneycreates Beastie…smile) but I thought I would share a recent musing in this post.

When I travel by airplane I like to listen to music when the plane is taking off (it calms me) and I usually listen to Pandora which has on offline option (when no WiFi available or device in “Airplane Mode”) which plays downloaded stations.

Well on a recent flight as the plane was taking off, the song “Closer to Fine” by the Indigo Girls came on…

At first I gasped as I’ve been trying to avoid for the past nearly 4 years all songs and performers that my late husband Terry and I listened together, especially if they were his beloved groups such as the Indigo Girls.

Terry passed suddenly and unexpectedly in December 2018 (I am approaching the the anniversary of his loss) and he LOVED singer-songwriter music. Our favorite bands (that we enjoyed together as we also had music that we enjoyed separately) included the Indigo Girls, Dave Matthews Band, Jack Johnson, Gov’t Mule, Ben Harper, Joan Osborne, David Gray, and other music similar to those artists. We’ve seen also those artists in concert (some many many times) but the group we’ve seen in concert the most times was the Indigo Girls.

The Indigo Girls were Terry’s favorite singer-songwriter group and he knew the words to most their most popular songs including “Closer to Fine”. We’d go to their concert and he’d sing along (quietly) to most of their songs. But the song he really loved, knew absolutely every word and would sing at the top of his lungs along with the other audience members was “Closer to Fine”.

Over the years I guess the Indigo Girls made “Closer to Fine” a “sing-a-long song” with full audience participation expected. And Terry would always sing along at their concerts (which we attended at least yearly). One of my favorite Indigo Concert memories is when they had a concert in one of Bend’s neighborhoods – NorthWest Crossing. I guess they story is they were visiting friends who lived in the area and decided to just have small concert at the neighborhood monthly festival! Not a lot of people knew about it and it was a small audience crammed into a little neighborhood space watching the Indigo Girls play with a smaller version of their band. Sort of one of those once in a lifetime experiences! So glad I got to experience that with Terry.

Before I go further, let me share a video of the album version of the song if you’ve never heard it before:

And here are the lyrics to Closer to Fine by the Indigo Girls (courtesy of Google):

I’m trying to tell you something ’bout my life
Maybe give me insight between black and white
And the best thing you ever done for me
Is to help me take my life less seriously
It’s only life after all, yeah

Well, darkness has a hunger that’s insatiable
And lightness has a call that’s hard to hear
And I wrap my fear around me like a blanket
I sailed my ship of safety till I sank it
I’m crawling on your shores…

And I went to the doctor, I went to the mountains
I looked to the children, I drank from the fountains
There’s more than one answer to these questions
Pointing me in a crooked line
And the less I seek my source for some definitive
(The less I seek my source)
Closer I am to fine, yeah
Closer I am to fine, yeah

And I went to see the doctor of philosophy
With a poster of Rasputin and a beard down to his knee
He never did marry or see a B-grade movie
He graded my performance, he said he could see through me
I spent four years prostrate to the higher mind
Got my paper and I was free

I stopped by the bar at 3 A.M.
To seek solace in a bottle or possibly a friend
And I woke up with a headache like my head against a board
Twice as cloudy as I’d been the night before
And I went in seeking clarity

I went to the doctor, I went to the mountains
I looked to the children, I drank from the fountains
We go to the doctor, we go to the mountains
We look to the children, we drink from the fountain
Yeah, we go to the Bible, we go through the workout
We read up on revival, we stand up for the lookout

There’s more than one answer to these questions
Pointing me in a crooked line
And the less I seek my source for some definitive
(The less I seek my source)
Closer I am to fine
Closer I am to fine
Closer I am to fine, yeah

And if you are curious, here is what the concert sing-a-long version of the song is like:

I get chills (and tears) when I hear the audience sing acapella: “we stand up for the lookout” and then sing loudly with the Indigo Girls the last couple lines of the song together.

I can still hear Terry singing along with the audience the last three lines:

Closer I am to fine
Closer I am to fine
Closer I am to fine, yeah

At first listening to this song again, I was overwhelmed with sadness and despair (over what was lost – a lifetime with my music/concert buddy and amazing life partner/best friend) but then I turned it around in my mind and realized that over the nearly past 4 years I’ve gotten myself:

CLOSER TO FINE

I’ll never be fully “fine” and I accept that. I will always be a widow who lost the love of their life (even if I am so blessed to have my wonderful partner John in my life, who is a widower and deeply understands my journey and the heartbreak I carry around) but I am at so much better a place than I was a couple years ago.

And better than I was last year.

I get a little more “closer to fine” as the years progress.

If any of you are on the same journey as me (dealing with a life changing loss) I hope you getting a little “closer to fine” everyday even if you gain only millimeter of distance each day.

Thank you Amy Ray and Emily Saliers for your amazing song and lyrics…

Indigo Girls, image credit The San Diego Union-Tribune

Postscript

I think one of the things people do not realize about widows and widowers, is that they did not just lose the person they (likely) loved most in this world. They also lost their entire life with that person – all the history they shared, things only they knew, the memories and experiences they shared, and most of all (in many cases) their deep bond and friendship. You lose the person you shared your deepest secrets, your partner in life. For many (like happened to. me), they also lose their identity and have to create a new one.

As my grief counselor said: “You have to now go out and create new experiences and memories on your own” (and yes that is unbelievably difficult to do)

Thank goodness I had a wonderful grief support group and continue to know and interact with amazing people who are on my same journey and understand the depth of the loss. I am also thankful to those who do not understand the experience of the loss but are kind, patient and supportive with me on my journey.

If you know someone who is grieving such a loss, please be patient and kind to them – their loss is more than you can imagine.

A Crafter's Life, Sunflowers!

The Sunflowers!

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

We’ll continue with stories from the tierneycreates Beastie on our trip to Ireland (see post Guest Blog Post: Beasties Return to Ireland!) but I’d like to pepper in some posts that I as drafts before I went to Ireland, planning to schedule them for posting while I was overseas, but forgot about them (distracted by Ireland!).

I love sunflowers, so much that I have a category on my blog on posts about them – Sunflowers!.

Summer is over and we are now deep into Autumn but I wanted to share some of the sunflowers in my garden this season that made me smile. Also I learned how to properly harvest sunflower seeds (thank you YouTube).

Here some of my favorite sunflowers from my garden (to me they are glorious…to you you might wonder: “why is Tierney using up some of her blog’s image limit on these pictures”, ha!):

This year I successfully grew a giant sunflower. Yes ONE giant sunflower, but when it finished blooming and go to the seed maturing phase of its existence, I figured out how to harvest the seeds for next year:

I am pretty excited as I think there are over 100 sunflower seeds in that jar. Just think if every seed became a giant sunflower and then I harvest each of those – I could have a “Sunflower Empire” at my house! (No worries of this happening, I do not have the garden space to achieve this…unless my neighbors let me use their front lawns also….)

MY FANTASY:

Okay I will be happy with 5 instead of just 1 giant sunflower next year.

Speaking of fields of sunflowers, I do have a wonderful memory of actually sitting in a field of sunflowers. I did this in 1998 during my first visit to Italy. Here is a photo I took of a photo in an old scrapbook:

I wonder if my partner John will mind if I pull up the grass in our backyard and turn it into a field of sunflowers…

I love sunflowers so much I have them around my house. Here is my upstairs guest bathroom which is decorated in a sunflower theme:

Recently I brought home a new enamel tea pot and cups from Ireland and I had my first pot of tea with them and used my sunflower tea cozy!

By now you are likely tired of sunflowers so it’s good it is the end of this post (smile).

Beastie Adventures, Guest Blogger, tierneytravels

Guest Blog Post: Beasties Return to Ireland!

October 11, 2022October 21, 2022 tierneycreates: a fusion of textiles and smiles

This is tierneycreates Beastie guest blog posting (if you are new to this blog, my story is on this post – I’m A Monster!!! and you can see all my posts at this link: Beastie Adventures).

You haven’t heard from Tierney or myself in a while as we’ve been in Ireland!

Tierney, John, John Beastie and I recently returned from Ireland and I got to see my maker Helen of Crawcraft Beasties & Knit with Helen; and Tierney got to meet Helen in person for the first time!

We had lots of adventures in Ireland visiting cities such as Dublin, Galway, Doolin, etc. I told Tierney I would get the blog posts on our trip started as she is still rather jet lagged.

Here I am trying to write this blog post (sitting at my desk that John built me, see post Guest Blogger: A Desk for Me!) while my dog Mikelet is trying to get attention from me as he missed me on my long trip (we did not take him for fear he might get misplaced during the trip).

We visited Ireland with Tierney and John’s friends Kathy and Matt who visit Ireland a couple times a year. Kathy’s family is from Ireland and she still has family there and Matt who is part Irish, is well versed in Irish culture and history.

Kathy also knows Helen as she has been working with Helen to get her husband Matt his very own Beastie!

John Beastie, Tierney, Kathy and I met up with Helen and visited a pub for a Beastie reunion with Helen. Here are a couple photos of our initial reunion, I could not decide which one I like best of my awesome maker so I included them all!

She was pretty pleased to see us again as she sends her Beasties out all over the world and rarely gets to see them in person again once they’ve traveled across the ocean!

After the pub, we all headed to Helen’s studio for a little tour of her studio, to meet the new Beastie for Kathy’s husband Matt, and to take a little knitting class (Helen is a professional knitting instructor) to learn how to knit cables (which scare Kathy and Tierney).

This is Helen’s new studio and although John Beastie and I were not “born” here but it was awesome to be in a place where our fellow Beasties are now “born”:

Here is a little photo tour of Helen’s bright and cheery studio:

After a little studio tour, it was time to meet “Matty Beastie” (and his dog Riley) the new Beastie Helen made for Kathy’s husband:

Matty Beastie comes with his dog Riley the Chocolate Lab (to see the Canine Riley check out the post Loved (or mugged) by a Lab, Tierney is Riley’s “Dog Godmother”), a pint of Guinness, as well as his PJs (if he gets tired of wearing his jeans) and his famous slippers.

Helen brilliantly added a magnet to Matty Beastie’s chest so he could hold up his pint of Guinness:

John Beastie and I took a group photo with our new friend Matty Beastie who we would now be touring Ireland with:

As you can see I was not sure where to look during the photo as Helen was also taking a photo of our group at the same time.

We got distracted during the photoshoot and Riley ended up sampling some of Matty Beastie’s Guinness!

I did take Matty Beastie aside and give him some tips on managing humans and how to get away with things right under their noses…

While John Beastie and I visited with our new friend, the humans Helen, Kathy and Tierney) had a cable knitting class. Below is a photo of the class sample and a photo of Tierney clumsily trying to knit her first cable (she won’t be whipping out a new Aran sweater for me anytime soon…).

I am sure Tierney will do a post about it whenever she finishes that headband.

After the knitting class, we headed back out to a pub (the humans visited a lot of pubs while in Ireland) to meet up with human John and human Matt so he could be surprised with his new Beastie!

John Beastie and I watched with anticipation while Matt excitedly unboxed his new Beastie:

Matty Beastie was a hit with Matt and John Beastie had raise a pint to toast the newest member of our US based Beastie family!

Sláinte!

More stories to come on our Ireland adventures. Tierney asked me to include this photo as proof that she and human John really did come on the trip: