In this post I want to share an update on my Colorado themed quilt, which will be hung in our guest room, that is made from panels I picked up during the 2021 Rocky Mountain Quilt Shop Hop.
The quilt arrived back from the professional longarm quilter who used an Aspen Tree Leaf pattern (Aspen trees are so Colorado and I have several in my yard) for the quilting.
I have the binding sewn on as well as the hanging sleeve. I just need to sew them down and then hang the quilt!
Speaking on Aspen trees, the Aspen trees next to the windows in my studio (on the 3rd level of our house) are in full bloom now as are all the other deciduous trees in our backyard.
Once again I feel like I am crafting in a treehouse!
Postscript
I mentioned above I just need to sew down the binding and then it is done. But alas, that will have to wait because first I need to work on two blocks for the group Ovarian Cancer fundraiser quilt that Australian-based quilter Kate of Tall Tales From Chiconia is spearheading again (see her post Ovarian Cancer Quilt 12: Tealing All Our Stories).
I think I am the only U.S. based quilter participating again this year. Correct me if I am wrong and you are participating.
The theme is a bookcase quilt and since I love books (and libraries…and bookcases), I had to participate! I’ll share my blocks in a future post. Check out Kate’s blog if you want to see some of the blocks the group working on this charity quilt has made so far.
We recently returned from a trip to Asheville and Charlotte, North Carolina to visit friends in Asheville and to go on a road trip to Charlotte, NC to see Billy Idol and Joan Jett in concert at the PNC Music Pavillion. Yes you read that correctly, rockers Billy Idol (68 years old) and Joan Jett (66 year old) are still rocking in their late/mid 60s!
The Concert
Joan Jett opened for Billy Idol and performed her catalogue of hits (most of the songs I knew). We had fun singing along to songs like “I Hate Myself for Loving You”, “I Love Rock’n’Roll, and “Bad Reputation” (if you are familiar with this song, we were all loudly singing, off key, “I don’t given a d*mn about my bad reputation…”, ha!).
My favorite performance of her opening act was her cover of Sly & The Family Stone’s song “Everyday People”:
A very timely performance with all the interesting stuff going on in my country the past 5 months…
Sometimes I’m right, I can be wrong. My own beliefs are in my song. A butcher, a banker, a drummer, and then makes no difference what group I’m in.
I am everyday people! (yeah yeah)
There is a blue one who can’t accept the green one for living with the black one trying to be a skinny one Different strokes, for different folks! And so on, and so on, and scooby-dooby-doo. (oooh, sha sha!)
We’ve got to live together! I am no better, and neither are you. We are the same whatever we do. You love me, you hate me, you know me and then, you can’t figure out the bag I’m in.
I am everyday people! (yeah yeah)
There is a long hair who doesn’t like the short hair for being such a rich one that will not help the poor one. Different strokes, for different folks! And so on, and so on, and scooby-dooby-doo. (oooh, sha sha!)
We got to live together! There is a yellow one who won’t accept the black one who won’t accept the red one who won’t accept the white one. Different strokes, for different folks! And so on, and so on, and scooby-dooby-doo. (oooh, sha sha!)
I am everyday people!
Billy Idol was amazing as was his band. I smiled when he said his granddaughter was in the audience. Mr. “White Wedding”, “Dancing with Myself”, “Eyes Without a Face” is a grandpa now – awesome!
I took a couple video clips but they weren’t worthy an upload to YouTube but if you want to virtually experience the concert I attended here’s the full concert someone posted from the week previous in Tampa, Florida – you can see grandpa Billy rock out (warning: there is some profanity in the performance):
We road tripped from Asheville, NC to Charlotte, NC in our friends’ electric car – a Ford Mustang EV. It was my first time going on a road trip in an electric car and the 130+ mile (209 km) road trip was very smooth!
We arrived to the concert early so we had fun “tailgating” in the concert parking lot having a picnic from the car’s trunk/boot.
Touring the Post Hurricane Helene Devastation
In late September 2024 Hurricane Helene devastated large sections of Asheville, NC (in addition to other areas of North Carolina and surrounding states) but our Asheville based friends live in a housing community on a higher elevation than the lower areas impacted by the river flooding. During the hurricane and after they lost utilities (water, power, cellular service) but their home was not damage. Their previous car however was destroyed by a fallen tree. Thank goodness they were not in it!
While we were visiting Asheville for a couple days before heading to Charlotte they drove us around some of the areas devastated by the floods that still have not recovered.
I took a bunch of photos but they seemed too sad to post, homes and business lost (not to mention all those lives lost) so I thought I’d just share a couple to give you a little taste of what I saw.
On a happier note, my friend S and I spent a day during our visit thrifting and going to bookstores while John and E toured whiskey and cigar bars. We met up for dinner at a sweet outdoor eatery in the River Arts District in downtown Asheville.
Cats Obsessed with Lace
Our friends have two cats and the cats are obsessed with LACE! This was discovered accidentally when S trimmed some lace off a skirt she didn’t want and left on the floor. The cats battled over the lace. She had to cut it into two pieces so each cat could have their own piece of lace!
Here is one of the kitties enjoying their evening “lace time”:
Garden Tour
I’ll close out this post with some images from an amazing eatery in Asheville we visited for breakfast one morning – Sunny Point Cafe.
The restaurant has a wonderful onsite garden where they grow and harvest the produce that they serve at the eatery! You can eat in the garden or just wander around after eating in the main restaurant. It was so zen I didn’t want to leave!
Back in August 2021, John and I drove around the southern Front Range area of Colorado to visit the quilt shops in the 2021 Rocky Mountain Quilt Shop Hop.
Each quilt shop on the shop hop had a small panel, displaying something about Colorado, that you could purchase for $5 and make part of a Colorado themed quilt or use individually in project:
And then there were several Colorado themed larger panels to select from that you could buy to make a Colorado themed quilt including this one shown in a sample quilt in one of the shop hop quilt shops:
Here is another sample quilt using the same panel combined with the small panels each quilt shop participating in the shop hop had available:
While attending the 2021 Rocky Mountain Shop Hop, I bought this panel (“Welcome to Colorful Colorado”), collected the small panels from each quilt shop we visited along the shop hop, and bought this pattern – Pieces of Colorado.
And then they all sat in a box together for 4 years…
Recently I decided to finally make the quilt (which is wall hanging/small lap quilt sized) for our basement guest room which I was in the process of redecorating. Originally due to some waterfront/boating art John had from his previous life, the room was ocean/beach/sea themed. But we are “landlocked” in Colorado and the closest ocean is roughly 1000 miles away; and I thought we needed a theme that better represents where we live.
So I thought for our visitors, the guest room should celebrate Colorado as well as the amazing National Parks we have in my country.
At a later time I will reveal the remodeled guest room (and all the National Park themed art I havw added) but for now here is MY version of the Colorado themed quilt (“Pieces of Colorado”) in progress (I finished the quilt top) that is going above the bed in the guest room:
In addition to the large and small panels, I used several yards from my collection of Peppered Cottons in green and saffron. I will be using a brown Peppered Cotton for the quilt binding to “frame” the quilt.
Here’s the backing fabric that I found thrifting. It is a heavy cotton duvet that I disassembled to salvage the fabric:
So right now the quilt top and back are with my long arm machine quilter getting professionally quilted. I can’t wait to put the binding on and hang it on the wall (I will make a hanging sleeve for the back) when it returns!
Postscript
Here is the inspiration for the “Welcome to Colorful Colado” panel:
This sign is located at various borders between Colorado and neighboring states.
It was also the 2021 commemorative Rocky Mountain Quilt Shop Hop pin that I got when I completed my “passport” by visiting all the shops on the shop hop!
Sending thanks out to those of you who’ve followed the journey of this quilt completion. A special thanks to Kate of Tall Tales From Chiconia who inspired me to work on this quilt as part of the monthly ScrapHappy online group she helps run (the blocks for my quilt are entirely of fabric scraps, many of them from other quilters).
If Kate hadn’t inspired me, the quilt might have continued to be an old UFO (unfinished object for the non-quilters) for endless years!
Quick story behind this quilt: I began working on blocks for this quilt at a quilt retreat back in 2017 (yes 8 years ago) when several of my quilting buddies were working on blocks from Lori Holt’s book Farm Girl Vintage. I am not into the “farm girl” aesthetic but the blocks looked so fun; and I was drawn into the fun and excitement my friends were having making the blocks.
But the blocks got put away to gather dust (because I didn’t know what I would do with such a quilt that didn’t fit into my more Bohemian decor aesthetic) until I did an audit a couple years ago of my UFOs and decided I should finish the quilt.
And now finally the quilt is done!
I hate binding quilts and decided to try out of new technique for binding the quilt per this YouTube video:
It worked and I ended up with nice crisp corners, which I’ve always struggled with:
The finished quilt measures approximately 96 by 97 inches (2.44 meters by 2.46 meters) and it was a bit unwieldy to try and photograph for this post. First I tried photographing it on my front porch draping it over the railing and photographing the front and back on the rail:
Then John got a long board of wood from his woodworking project pile along with a couple of woodworking clamps and clamped the quilt on. He held it above his head while I took photos.
Yes there is a shadow up top but I didn’t want to ask him to redo it in another location. This photo is good enough!
And here is a little section of the quilted back of the quilt with the Cortez Mill Flour sacks and disassembled recycled duvet cover:
So my future plan is to send a photo to the Cortez Flour Mill so they can see what I did with their flour sacks!
I thought I’d jump back into blogging by sharing my experience attending the Modern Quilt Guild (MSC)’s annual quilting convention, QuiltCon, for the first time. The convention was held in Phoenix, Arizona in February 2025. (Put the kettle on and get your cuppa ready, this is a long post…)
I’ll also share a couple extracurricular activities we did in Phoenix while there for the convention, which included a trip to the Desert Botanical Garden, the Phoenix Art Museum, and one of the Frank Lloyd Wright workshops Taliesin West.
QuiltCon 2025
I attended QuiltCon for the first time with a quilting friend (who was also a “first timer”) and our partners, and saw some really amazing modern quilts! The quilts were hung from curtained panels and when I first walked into the huge convention space and it looked like there were miles and miles of quilts to see!
So many impressive quilts and here is a tiny sampling of some of my favorites:
The artists/quilt names on these quilts in image order: Jennifer Candon/Chasing Rainbows (who had many fabulous quilts shown at QuiltCon), Steve Moe/Finally They Danced, Jane Rundle/Nurturing the Pod, Irene Roderick/Desperados, Emilie Trahan/Out of the Blue, Jennifer Candon/Modern Dresden, Jenny Hayes/Fokus, Wendy L. Starn/What Did We Do? What Will You Do?, Nikki Woolsey/Wild Geese.
In addition to the endless rows of quilts, there was a large (and seemingly endless) Vendor area:
Look at all those handmade bag samples in the image above! I wanted to buy all the patterns to make the bags (but I did not as I have many bag patterns already that have not been opened!)
Wandering around the Vendor area I got to meet several favorite quilt book authors and fabric designers including Elizabeth Hartman, Anna Marie Horner, Denyse Schmidt, and Blair Stocker. It was fun to meet/chat with the authors of some of my favorite patterns, books and fabric.
During QuiltCon, there were numerous interactive “Make and Take”s at various vendor booths where you could make a project for free (they supplied all the materials). I worked on an embroidered eyeglass case project at one of the “Make and Take” tables, but I’ve not finished it…
The samples in the images below are the talented instructor’s work.
Quiltcon was 4 days long but I only attended Day 1. Next year I will return to Quiltcon (which will be held in Raleigh, North Carolina), this time with a group of quilting friends, and likely attend the full 4 days. There is so much to see and do! (John will stay home this time).
Desert Botanical Garden
We attended 1 day of Quiltcon but we were in Phoenix, Arizona for a total of 5 days. Before QuiltCon we spent time hanging out with my friend’s sister (who we stayed with for a couple days) and visiting various sites of “artistic inspiration” like the botanical garden, the art museum, and Frank Lloyd Wright’s workshop.
My friend, her sister and I spent a day at the Desert Botanical Garden enjoying their collection of cactuses and other desert flora (the guys were golfing at one of the zillion golf courses in Phoenix).
However what really stood out during our visit to the botanical garden was their exhibit Toward 2050.
Here’s an excerpt from the Toward 2050 page linked in the paragraph above:
“According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the United Nations body for assessing the science related to climate change, global climate is on track to increase by 1.5° C by 2040, and with that, irreparable damage will likely be done to earth’s ecosystems if our course is not changed decisively and with haste. In the IPCC’s Climate Change 2023: Synthesis Report, clear goals and pathways have been defined to reverse our emissions of green house gases – 50% by 2030, and to arrive at net zero emissions by 2050, keeping the global rise in temperature to under 1.5° C in perpetuity. Hence, 2050 marks a very important point in our human history…
Textile work from makers from 45 U.S. states and 9 countries have become important parts of TOWARD 2050, which has culminated in this immersive installation at Desert Botanical Garden in Phoenix, Arizona – February 8th through June 1st of 2025. Makers were called to create environmentally themed, textile panels in the style of “prayer flags”. Our goal was to collect enough double sided flags to define the pathways of this interactive labyrinth experience. That goal was met thanks to the generousity and commitment of all the makers participating in this project.”
The exhibit was breathtaking and I walked the entire labyrinth (which took over a half hour to the center and back) that the handmade flags were arranged in. Photos will not do the my experience justice but here are some of my photos from the experience:
After I attended I found out from a friend that she made a flag for Toward 2050. I wish I’d known early so I could have found it and sent her a photo.
Phoenix Art Museum
We spent a half day at the Phoenix Art Museum and John, the woodworker, fell in love with an amazing piece of wood art we came upon in the exhibits:
I hope John makes a piece like this someday!
Taliesin West
One of the major highlights of our extracurricular activities before we went to Quiltcon, was visiting renown architect Frank Lloyd Wright’s workshop Taliesin West in Scottsdale, Arizona.
A blurb on it from the franklloydwright.org website:
“Wright’s beloved winter home and desert laboratory was established in 1937 and diligently handcrafted over many years. Deeply connected to the desert from which it was forged, Taliesin West possesses an almost prehistoric grandeur. It was built and maintained almost entirely by Wright and his apprentices, making it among the most personal of the architect’s creations.“
The venue ticket included a self guided audio tour that was amazing. It included a primer on basic architectural concepts so you could better appreciate what you were viewing.
I took a ridiculous amount of photos but here is a sampling of my tour experience:
John is a huge fan of Frank Lloyd Wright’s design style and he was very naughty in the gift shop!
One thing I did realize after visiting Taliesin West is that Frank Lloyd Wright was heavily inspired by Japanese aesthetics and design. I appreciate his work but I am thinking he sort of “reinvented the wheel”.
Other Adventures in the Phoenix Area
My friend’s sister has a winter home (she lives in Colorado during the warm months and Arizona during the cold months) in a gorgeous suburb of Phoenix in a horse owner/rider community surrounded by amazing walking trails. Each day we went for a walk on the trails (and I got fresh Meyer lemons from a tree along the trail!) and we visited the horse ranch where my friend’s sister keeps her horses.
The home we stayed in was comfy and well appointed with two fun German Shepherds to play with!
Photo above: One of the pups needed to know where were at all times (the “herding” instinct), and ambushed us while we were in bed!
One day we walked a couple miles on the trail with the dogs to the local outdoor taco stand which had delicious food and “horse parking”!
Nothing like riding your horse to the taco stand!
My visit to Phoenix was pretty memorable and I so appreciated the hospitality of our hosts and my friend for making it happen.
I did make a “hostess gift” for our arrival – a set of horse themed drawstring bags:
And then upon returning home, I made a “thank you” gift primarily focused on her sister’s husband who had taken our partner golfing three days in row – a golf themed drawstring bag filled with a sleeve of his favorite golf balls:
Okay you’ve probably worked through your pot of tea now so I will end this long post.
Postscript
I’m working on overhauling my blog and rethinking it. It’s been 12+ years of blogging and I want to freshen it up as well as clean out some old stuff.
tierneycreates 