June 2024 – tierneycreates

Update on Sunflower Granny Squares and an Agriculture Report

June 27, 2024 tierneycreates: a fusion of textiles and smiles

Here is an update to the post Another Hat, Sunflower GS, “Agriculture Report”, and some Pickles.

I’ve made some progress on the sunflower inspired granny square blocks (which someday will be a blanket) that I’ve been working on, primarily while riding in the car as a passenger.

Here is what my first one looked like that I shared in the post I linked:

I decided to add some green to represent newly opening sunflowers and with the rust, yellow and green yarn in play here is how the blocks are progressing:

A couple close up of the various blocks in progress:

I am making the centers to the first 20 – 21 blocks and then I will be adding the oatmeal colored border yarn to complete the granny square blocks. I’ll share an update when I get the first 20 – 21 done.

I also thought I would share an “Agriculture Report” (inspired by @quiteayarnblog‘s ongoing series of posts titled “Agriculture Report”) and the tomatoes on my upper deck keep getting taller and taller and will end up taller plants than previous years by the time they fruit:

We were also able to harvest ONE strawberry so far (we shared it and savored each bite) from the first strawberry plant I am growing in Colorado:

Also the FREE seeds I planted courtesy of the local library (see post Explored a new library, tried a new group) are doing really well in the new raised bed John built from leftovers from our rebuild of the back deck (see posts John gets “ScrapHappy” too – new raised bed and Guest Blogger Post: Managing Humans Demolishing and Rebuilding a Deck):

We put netting on the raised bed to try to prevent the naughty squirrels and other critters feasting on our growing vegetables.

Okay now I need to start catching up on my blogging buddies’ posts, I’ve fallen behind again as it’s been a busy summer so far 🙂

Quilt Shop Tours, tierneytravels

Taos Adobe Quilting

June 19, 2024June 19, 2024 tierneycreates: a fusion of textiles and smiles

At the end of May into the beginning of June, John and I did a 4-day road trip from Colorado to New Mexico. Our final destination before heading back home was Taos, New Mexico.

We arrived on the evening of the second day of our road trip and went searching for dinner at the Taos Plaza/Downtown Taos which is where our Airbnb Hacienda studio was located (see post Channeling my inner Ansel Adams in Taos, New Mexico for some B&W images of the Hacienda where we stayed).

While looking for an open restaurant we stumbled upon this…Taos Adobe Quilting quilt shop!

But it was closed for the evening! Oh the torture! All I could do was stare into the window:

Oh I couldn’t wait until the next day to wander over there, and the next day I did:

I had a fun time chatting for a long time to the quilt shop owner’s son, who was headed out the next day on a major solo camping trip. He noticed my tote bag that said: “Libraries Build Communities” and being an avid reader himself, a lover of libraries, struck up a conversation with me while I was browsing. We ended up talking about books, fabric and life!

I didn’t go too crazy on my purchases from this lovely shop but I did get a little sampling of their Southwest fabrics and some other little remnants of artsy fabric.

Special Events

Batik Blocks for Teal Charity Quilt

June 18, 2024July 18, 2024 tierneycreates: a fusion of textiles and smiles

This year I am participating in the Ovarian Cancer Fundraiser Quilt coordinated by the awesome Australia based quilting goddess Kate @ talltalesfromchiconia. I am contributing two blocks to the quilt and I thought I would share those blocks with you.

This year’s theme is the sea and I signed up for the “deep sea” section of quilt blocks.

I researched deep sea creatures found in Australian waters and decided to make a block inspired by the Deep-Sea Bullseye Scallop and a block inspired by the Dumbo Octopus. Then I pulled out my box of batik fabric scraps and sorted out my teal and blue scraps.

In the images below you will see the original photo that inspired me (photo source hyperlinked) and then the block I created based (loosely) on that photo. Note: my smartphone camera photographed some of the true teal as blues and so there is a lot more teal in the blocks than it appears in the images.

The Deep-Sea Bullseye Scallop

Dumbo Octopus

The blocks are on their way to Australia now – crossing my fingers my fabric deep sea creatures arrive safely!

Agriculture Report, From the Woodshop, ScrapHappy

John gets “ScrapHappy” too – new raised bed

June 17, 2024 tierneycreates: a fusion of textiles and smiles

This might be part 2 to my 6/15/24 monthly ScrapHappy post (see post ScrapHappy June 2024)…

My husband John worked on a “scrappy” project in June also: he built a raised bed with the scraps of pressure treated lumber from our deck rebuilding project in May (see post Guest Blogger Post: Managing Humans Demolishing and Rebuilding a Deck).

Here are photos of him building the raised bed in our backyard and setting up the automatic irrigation:

We originally had our backyard swing in this spot and John relocated the pavers and the swing to under the two large Aspen trees in our backyard:

Here’s the raised bed with the netting we added to hopefully protect our planting from the critters (animal and bug) that live in the open space behind our house:

I am pretty excited about the raised bed as now I can (perhaps) grow things like squash and greens where I needed a larger and deeper space than my upstairs deck garden allows.

Speaking of the upstairs deck garden, my container garden pots are filling out nice with foliage from the tomatoes, peppers, and herbs I am growing. I also added a pot of strawberries using a macrame hanger that my friend K made me.

We also added to planters that rest on the deck railings to the mix and for now I have seed starts there which I will transfer eventually to the raised bed. Then I will put some type of trailing flowers in those planters.

John set up automatic irrigation (watering) for all the pots and planters on the deck so it we are out of town they will get watered!

Papercrafting, Sunflowers!

Back to a little card making

June 11, 2024 tierneycreates: a fusion of textiles and smiles

I have a penpal and we’ve been exchanging letters/cards. She makes beautiful handmade cards and it was time I made her a handmade card. I pulled out my dusty papercrafting/card making supplies and made one that is an ode to Sunflowers my favorite flower!

I also decorated the envelope. I have it partially displayed in the image above behind the card because I’ve already addressed it.

(In case you are wondering, I got those little sunflowers from Hobby Lobby last year. The other supplies were in my stash and who knows where I got them as they are at least 5 – 15+ years old!)

Now that I have my card making supplies out (and I re-organized them too!), I am looking forward to making more cards!

Life in B&W, tierneytravels

Channeling my inner Ansel Adams in Taos, New Mexico

June 9, 2024June 9, 2024 tierneycreates: a fusion of textiles and smiles

I thought I would dive into stories from my recent travels by sharing some Black & White photos I took in Taos, New Mexico on the 3rd day of our 4-day Colorado to New Mexico roadtrip at the end of May/start of June.

Taos, New Mexico was just screaming for me to pull out my smartphone camera and take photos in B&W, with it’s adobe structures and clear blue skies punctuated with a little cloud here and there.

I’ve loved the work of the photographer Ansel Adams since I was a teenager and while much “cooler” teenagers had posters of the latest “teen idol” on their walls, I had several Ansel Adams posters. I’ve also loved the work of the painter Georgia O’Keeffe (who lived in New Mexico) since I was in my early 20’s and I used to have several Georgia O’Keeffe posters in my room when I was in college (I was fortunate to visit the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum on a trip to Santa Fe, New Mexico 6 years ago, see post Creative Inspiration: Georgia O’Keeffe Museum).

Well our first tourist stop in Taos, NM was the adobe San Francisco de Asís Mission Church at the Ranchos de Taos, which was built 1813 – 1815 and was photographed by Ansel Adams AND painted by Georgia O’Keeffe!

Here is the Ansel Adams photograph “Church Taos Pueblo 1942” courtesy of fineartamerica.com:

Here is the Georgia O’Keeffe painting “Ranchos Church” courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art‘s website:

And here are my photos:

Yup, Mr. Ansel Adams is probably rolling his eyes from the afterlife on my B&W photographs; but I had fun taking them and pretending I understood composition and all those other mystical photograph taking terms – ha!

No I didn’t attempt to paint it like Georgia O’Keeffe did!

Ok so you might notice the church Ansel Adams photographed in the 1930s looks different than the one I photographed in 2024. According to Wikipedia the church has gone through several restorations over the years (we are talking 90+ years between Mr. Adams’ photo and mine) and the article on San Francisco de Asís Mission Church verifies it was photographed by Ansel Adams and painted by Georgia O’Keeffe. (But if you discover my research is wrong, let me know in the comments.)

Here are some other B&W photos I took in Taos. I was fascinated by the old style doors; as well as the simple tree limb fences.

We stayed at an amazing (and very photogenic) Airbnb studio right in the Tao Plaza/Historic Downtown Taos Shopping District, which was a historic adobe Hacienda! Here are photos of the outside of the Airbnb:

And finally (to end your visual torture of seeing my B&W photography attempts), when we visited the Rio Grande Gorge Bridge in Taos, it looked ripe for B&W photos so here you go:

A Crafter's Life, From the Woodshop

A Good Man

June 3, 2024June 3, 2024 tierneycreates: a fusion of textiles and smiles

I’ve been away from blogging for a little while because of travel. I celebrated my birthday at the end of May and John and I recently returned from a 4-day road trip around Colorado that I will post about in the future. Before that we were in Estes Park and Fort Collins for a couple days (will post about that trip too). I look forward to getting caught up on my blogging buddies’ posts in the near future.

My husband John is a good man and he continues to reinforce this fact all the time.

Our homeowner’s association (HOA) can be rather strict at times (and rather lax at other times when you want them to reinforce the rules), and our neighbor was in danger of getting fined for not finishing a fence he started on this property (our neighbor only got around to putting in two fence posts to start the fence).

Our neighbor is a busy father of two young children and commutes over an hour to work each way, Monday to Friday. He’s exhausted by the weekend and most of his energy goes to time with his kids.

So John offered to help him complete the fence and ended up purchasing for the neighbor (who paid him back of course) all the fencing materials, AND building the fence and gate on his own for the neighbor!

Here is the neighbor’s dog waiting for John to finish the fence so she can now have a fenced yard:

I got some cool gifts for my birthday including a lovely home decor book and collection of stickers (I love stickers) from my friend J. My brother and family sent me the cutest schnauzer themed T-shirt inspired by a Van Gogh painting:

The Starry Schnauzer?

John got me a new iPad (I think my previous iPad belonged in the Apple Museum as it was many many iPad generations old); and my awesome stepsons were very generous for my birthday. One got me a gift card to my favorite used bookstore, and another got me some very yummy books!

I can’t wait to dive into this pile. But first I have to finish the two books I am currently reading The Water Knife by Paolo Bacigalupi; and Fairy Tale by Stephen King.

I have some surprises on the way from my sister for my birthday still, and I just received the most beautiful fiber art card from my longtime friend in Austria (my “Danish Brother”, I spent part of my summer in 1998 in Denmark with him and his parents) today in the mail: