Month: September 2025

A Crafter's Life, tierneycreates

Reacquainted with an Old Quilt

tierneycreates: a fusion of textiles and smiles

Recently my friend K reacquainted me with an old quilt with emotional ties I had forgotten about.

I’ve been quilting since the late 1990s and I’ve made a lot of quilts, most of which I’ve given as gifts or in some cases sold, so you kind of forget some of the quilts after a while; and sometimes the emotional connection you had with a particular quilt.

One of the quilts I had forgotten about was a blue and white quilt that I made from a pattern many years ago (10 years ago?) and ended up sellling (for basically the cost of the fabric and the professional longarm quilting) to a quilting friend L who fell in love with it.

Last week my friend K was staying at L’s home in New Hampshire and ended up sleeping under that blue and white quilt I made (and had forgotten about) and sent me photos:

It was nice to see the quilt but I forgot the emotional connection I had with the quilt until K mentioned that the quilt had a spectacular backing.

I gasped as I suddenly remembered the backing I put on the quilt and asked K to send me a picture of the back of the quilt so I could see it again:

On the back of what one might consider a “quiet quilt” (blues and white in a traditional setting) I put what one might consider a “very bold” fabric!

At the time I made the quilt I thought the front of it was “boring” and decided to spice it up with a colorful backing fabric I found in my stash.

That fabric was from my friend Tracy who suddenly died a couple years after giving me the fabric which she found at a thrift shop.

I met Tracy at work back in the 1990s when I lived in Houston, Texas and we stayed friends for many years, occasionally losing touch but finding each other again. I started quilting while livingi in Seattle, Washington and she, unknown to me at the time, had also started quilting! When we reconnected a couple years after each of us becoming quilters we were very elated that we now shared the same hobby.

I however have some intense regret related to Tracy. Over a year before she died we were supposed to go to the International Quilt Festival in Houston in October, and I cancelled and said it would work better for us to go next year.

There was no next year quilt festival for Tracy as she passed away the following year before the festival. I had missed a glorious opportunity and memory with my friend because I delayed going to the event with her a year. I also missed an opportunity to spend time with her before she left this existence.

Perhaps this is why many years ago I decided to sell the quilt to L. L loved the quilt and the quilt was just making me sad, reminding me of Tracy’s passing and my regret on not going to the quilt festival with her.

Now of course I wish I’d kept the quilt and honored Tracy’s memory by still having a quilt a made with a backing she gave me.

However, all I can do now is be grateful that is being used and not in a closet somewhere tucked away; to remember not to wait to do special things with special people; and tomorrow is not promised.

Studio, What's on the Design Wall

“Toward 2050” Quilt Top Done

tierneycreates: a fusion of textiles and smiles

This post is a quick follow up to the “Toward 2050” – Volunteering to Make A Quilt Top .

After seeing the Toward 2050 exhibit and walking the labyrinth at the Desert Botanical Garden in Phoenix, Arizona in February, I knew I wanted to contribute to the project in someway and ended up volunteering to sew one of the “blankets” (what they were calling the quilts, ouch) to be made from 30 of the flags that people around the world created inspired by their feelings on Climate Change.

So I turned this pile of 30 – 9 1/2″ by 9 1/2″ flags:

Into this quilt top per the detailed instructions provided:

It was challenging as the flags were really more individual art pieces and likely not originally created to be incorporated together into one piece*.

I ran into issues of trying to sew through very thick materials; and dealing with flag original construction and design issues such as sections within a flag not fully stitched together.

*I am not sure if the original participants knew their flags would become “quilt blocks”:

But I got it done (and so appreciated sharing my challenges with my friend W who was also working on piecing a different set of 30 flags) and will mail to the Toward 2050 project team tomorrow for them to send it on to their volunteer longarm machine quilters to finish.

tierneytravels

Smelling the Roses in Victoria, BC

tierneycreates: a fusion of textiles and smiles

More on our 24 hours in Victoria, British Columbia in July (which I began sharing in the post A Delightful Bead and Button Shop in Victoria, BC ), but today is a brief post on our delightful “floral experience” in Victoria.

In front of the Parliament building is a gorgeous rose garden.

If you remember from my post Agriculture Report: “I Never Promised You a Rose Garden”, John loves roses and dreams of a big rose garden someday like his beloved grandfather had.

Well he was in heaven in the rose garden in front of Victoria’s Parliamentary building!

Here are some photos of the other beautiful roses/rose bushes that we spent time admiring:

As it was July it appeared everything was in bloom in this glorious Pacific Northwest City!

In addition to roses there were flowers all about the Inner Harbour section of Victoria, BC.

It’s such a beautiful place and I was so happy to return again after so many years. John and I now plan to visit every summer, he fell in love with Victoria (maybe it was the roses…).

Beads and Buttons, tierneytravels

A Delightful Bead and Button Shop in Victoria, BC

tierneycreates: a fusion of textiles and smiles

Well we’ve finished up the endless saga of our Wyoming, South Dakota, and Nebraska it’s time for a craft shop post – this time in Victoria, British Columbia!

In early July John and I headed to Washington state to visit his cousin who lives in Bremerton, Washington. On a whim we decided, as long as we were in the Pacific Northwest to add to our trip a visit to Mt. Rainer National Park, and an overnight visit to Victoria, BC which I’ve visited several times before (and absolutely love) via the Black Ball Ferry Line out of Port Angeles, Washington.

More on this Pacific NW adventure in future posts, but for now let’s focus on the fabulous time I had exploring the Button & Needlework Boutique in the Downtown/Inner Harbour section of Victoria, BC.

John and I were wandering after dropping off our bags at the hotel and we turn the corner and see this:

Walking into the Button & Needlework Boutique I was greeted with this delightful sight:

This shop is filled with embroidery patterns and supplies; yarn and fiber craft supplies; and loads and load of buttons!

The also had beautiful Japanese Sashiko kits and supplies, as well as beautiful examples of Sashiko stitching on display:

I couldn’t leave without picking up some buttons (I also bought a Sashiko kit which I forgot to photograph):

I fell in love with these owl buttons. There were many buttons to fall in love with but I behaved.

A Crafter's Life, Special Events

So I took a Watercolor Painting class…

tierneycreates: a fusion of textiles and smiles

Skipping around in my Summer of Travel stories to share a recent story (this past weekend).

I recently returned from a 3-day weekend in Portland, Oregon. I went with John to visit his son Z and decided to take a craft class in Portland one day so John and Z could have time on their own one day.

At first I looked into classes on crafts I already know – quilting, bag making or knitting/crochet. I couldn’t find any class that interested me on the weekend I was in Portland.

Then a crazy idea came to mind: I’ve been interested in learning to paint using Watercolors (not sure why I am so drawn to Watercolor but I am) – why not find a Watercolor Painting class?

I found two options at Wildcraft Studio School: 1) Introduction to Watercolor Painting; or 2) Color Theory: Watercolor.

I am very interested in Color Theory (see my post about my Colour Wheel Quilt – The Colour Wheel Quilt is Done) and the class said it was for beginner and experienced Watercolor artists.

So I selected this class. I figure I can watch YouTube videos to learn Watercolor painting techniques but I’d really like some hands on instruction with how to mix colors using the Watercolor paint medium.

Arriving to class this past Saturday I was greeted with a lovely courtyard in front of the studio as you enter (I ended up enjoying my lunch in that courtyard during our break):

I felt very intimidated as I sat down at my table – what was I thinking dabbling in Watercolors?!?!?

The class was comprised of women in my age group, one young woman and one man. They were a friendly and engaging group and I really enjoyed chatting with the two women who sat at the table with me.

The class was taught by the Seattle-based Watercolor Artist Robin Bundi who was kind, patient and an excellent instructor!

The class was focused on understanding color and color mixing and our primary class exercise involved creating color wheel mixing samples using different sets of primary color palettes.

The instructor had many amazing examples of how just a couple primary colors (some version of red, blue, yellow) can make an endless assortment of colors, tints and shades.

Here’s an amazing sample piece created by the instructor demonstrating how you can just use two colors (Ultramarine and Brick) to create a palette:

So I got to work and finally (sort of) got the hang of mixing colors.

And at the end of the class she had us each paint a small piece with basic shapes/improvisational design, using what we learned of color mixing as well as color washing techniques.

Here is the piece I made (yes, not ready for a solo exhibit in Watercolors yet, ha!) but I forgot to erase/lighten the original pencil lines I used (and then ignored) when sketching the piece.

I joked with the instructor when she critiqued the piece that it looks like I took some mind altering substances before I began painting – ha!

Now when I catch up on my sewing projects I am going to work through an Introduction to Watercolor book I found a couple months ago thrifting as well as watch YouTube videos on painting techniques.

I think my goal is to be able to make Watercolor cards to send to friends (for them to recycle – ha!)

Special Events, tierneytravels

Eating Our Way Through Frontier Days

tierneycreates: a fusion of textiles and smiles

Well I will close out my serious of posts about our ambitious roadtrip in July 2025 to Wyoming, South Dakota, and Nebraska with a post about where the roadtrip adventures began – in Cheyenne Wyoming.

Before we headed to Frontier Days in Cheyenne, we wandered around downtown Cheyenne, stopping at the famous The Wrangler western store.

And being met with the largest cowboy boot selection I’ve ever seen:

John was a sport and tried on some boots which went so nicely with his shorts (not! ha!):

No sorry, as fetching as they looked, he did not leave the store with them.

Back outside there was a giant cowboy boot on display painted with western scenes:

To give perspective of how big the boot is here I am standing next to it and I am around 5′ 11″:

Then we headed to Frontier Days and ate our way through the Fairgrounds, ha!

It all began with a corn dog (I think I literally squealed with delight when I saw the corn dog booth as I hadn’t had one in like 8 years):

Then we found a booth with VERY amazing brisket birria tacos! They were so good we shared a second serving.

We of course had to get some lemonade to share in a commemorative cup when this booth, shaped like a lemon lured us over:

Yes we were on the verge of needing to roll ourselves out of the fairgrounds if we kept going, so we just admired the rest of the food from afar. Here a little gallery of some of the POOR NUTRITIONAL CHOICES we could have kept making 😉 :

Some of the foods sound like serious indigestion but they are probably fun to eat…

Fair Food makes me laugh – there is definitely some sort of competition to serve the craziest food that you’d never eat in your daily life. And of course they had things like deep fried Twinkies and deep fried Oreos. I am curious about the Pickle Pizza – I wish I could have sampled just a little of it to satisfy my curiosity!

After filling our tummies we headed to see the some of the annual Cheyenne Frontier Days Rodeo. I was good for about an hour and that was enough rodeo for me, I am not a big rodeo person. I can’t help myself I always start feeling bad for the animals like the little calves getting roped and tied. I know, I know, I’d never make it on the American Frontier! The bull riding was fun to watch for a while but then I started thinking about the bulls who didn’t want humans on their backs.

When I lived in Houston, Texas in the late 1980s to late 1990s, we used to go to the Houston Livestock and Rodeo once a year. I mainly went to see the livestock and I enjoyed seeing all the 4-H farm kids showing off their animals.

Then one year we went I absolutely fell in love with the cutest cow with fluffy ears. I was obsessed with this cow. I wanted to move to a farm and have a cow like that.

What a vaguely remember the cow looked like (image credit Depositphotos)

My late husband Terry said to me: “Yes we could adopt it and name it ‘Hamburger'”.

Oh no I realized – my sweet fluffy eared new friend was going to become a yummy burger someday! After that I stopped wanting to go to the livestock show – ha!

(I was a Vegetarian for a while when I was in my late teens/early 20s but bacon and the smell of burgers on the grill made lured me back to being an Omnivore…)

Oh so back to the Cheyenne Frontiers Day Rodeo – there was one moment during my brief time at the rodeo that captured by heart. The competition opened with a Native American/Lakota horse blessing by Mo-Brings-Plenty, a member of the Lakota Tribe who was also the Grand Marshall for the 2025 Cheyenne Frontier Days.

I took a little video of the end of the presentation as I was too enthralled at first to think to film it, but here is what I have:

I wish I had captured the whole thing.

Well that continues this series of posts. If you are just joining us, here are the other posts about our travels in Wyoming, South Dakota and Nebraska.

Carhenge 

A Wander About Downtown Rapid City, SD 

Badlands and Wind Cave National Parks 

Mt. Rushmore National Park, Believe the Hype 

Crazy Horse Memorial 

Deadwood, South Dakota 

Wall Drug


tierneytravels

Wall Drug

tierneycreates: a fusion of textiles and smiles

While on our ambitious Wyoming, South Dakota, Nebraska road trip in July 2025, we stopped at the iconic Wall Drug.

From Tripadvisor.com:

Once a humble small-town drugstore that offered free iced water to weary travelers, Wall Drug is now a buzzing 76,000-square-foot roadside attraction that draws travelers to this small city in South Dakota. Here, you can shop for Western-themed apparel at the shopping mall, snap a photo with an 80-foot brontosaurus in the kids’ area, and grab a 5-cent coffee and one of the best donuts in the U.S. at the restaurant. And don’t leave without getting the iconic Wall Drug bumper sticker—it’s free! Wall Drug is a great stop along a tour of the Badlands National Park. – Tripadvisor Some of our stores and the café may close earlier than our main store.

We ended up spending a couple hours wandering around and eating at one of their restaurants (and we did get a Wall Drug free bumper sticker for John’s toolbox).

John loves to sit for photos on benches with characters and here is John posing on a couple of their benches with their Western themed characters:

I first heard about Wall Drug in 2020 when I saw the movie Nomadland and the main character Fern (played brilliantly by Frances McDormand) stops along her travels to work at Wall Drug.

This movie is really tender to my heart and deeply touched me when I saw it in 2020. The main character Fern is a recent widow who has also lost her job when the town’s factory closes. She deals with her tremendous loss by putting everything in storage and embarking on an epic roadtrip across the US in an old van and exploring nomadic life.

There was a moment before deciding to move from Oregon to Colorado after my husband died in 2018 that I had considered such a journey. I watched a lot of “living in a van/RV” and “nomadic life” videos as I contemplated this option. It would have been Mike the Miniature Schnauzer and I on the road.

I am nearly done with my stories from our ambitious roadtrip in July, one more to go – Frontier Days in Cheyenne Wyoming. Here are the other posts to date related to our trip:

Carhenge 

A Wander About Downtown Rapid City, SD 

Badlands and Wind Cave National Parks 

Mt. Rushmore National Park, Believe the Hype 

Crazy Horse Memorial 

Deadwood, South Dakota 

tierneytravels

Deadwood, South Dakota

tierneycreates: a fusion of textiles and smiles

During our ambitious Wyoming, South Dakota, Nebraska road trip in July we stopped for an overnight in Deadwood, South Dakota, a historic Wild West town which attracted legendary figures like Wild Bill Hickok and Calamity Jane.

A lot of the town is preserved as a Wild West style town and you get the feel of stepping back in the American West history when you visit.

John loves Bourbon/Whisky Tasting and we stopped at one of the many Whiskey establishments in Deadwood for a tasting.

I had to include some of the signs that made us laugh related to whiskey drinking!

Several times a day on the main street they have a recreation of the Wild West shootout with a couple of gunslingers!

If you don’t appreciate Wild West culture this would not be the place to visit, because it is over the top at Deadwood!

John and I had fun wandering around the endless gift shops/”tourist traps” and just had to take photos with a huge Sasquatch/Yeti/Bigfoot (where you are in the U.S. determines what you call this legendary creature):

John likes to play poker so he did spend the later part of the evening playing poker at one of the Wild West saloons (nope he didn’t win enough money to pay for our trip, ha!) while I relaxed in our hotel room working on my sunflower granny squares.

Here is a listing of the other posts to date about our ambitious trip and I think I have another post or so to come about it:

Carhenge 

A Wander About Downtown Rapid City, SD 

Badlands and Wind Cave National Parks 

Mt. Rushmore National Park, Believe the Hype 

Crazy Horse Memorial 

Knit and Crochet Away!, Sunflowers!, What's on the Design Wall

What’s on the “Design Carpet”: Update on Sunflower Granny Square Blanket

tierneycreates: a fusion of textiles and smiles

During my Summer of Travel I’ve been working on my Sunflower Granny Square blanket as crocheting the individual granny squares is a perfect portable project:

Passenger in the car with my crochet project bag on my lap, crocheting through the road miles…

The last update on the Sunflower Granny Square Blanket I am working on was in January 2025 (see What’s on the “Design Carpet”: Progress on Sunflower GS Blanket).

In that January post I reported 39 granny square blocks done. I now have 91 blocks done as of this photo which I took before heading out on another recent road trip (to Santa Fe and Taos, New Mexico):

PLUS 10 more I finished on the recent New Mexico roadtrip (more in a future post on that roadtrip):

So in total I have 101 blocks done.

Here are a couple close up images of the different yarn combinations I used for the blocks (because I only wanted to use yarn from my stash); the ones with the green yarns represent sunflowers that are not fully open:

And I still need to make some more to make the blanket a little bigger. I might make 20 more, we’ll see. I am going to finish up all the remaining sections I’ve started which I think total 20.

Here’s my basket in the living room where I store my completed blocks (oh my will there be a lot of block ends to weave in someday!):

I’m going to do a different granny square block join than I did on the other three granny square blankets I’ve made. This time I am going to do a Single Crochet Join this time instead of the Join As You Go Method I’ve used in the past.

Single Crochet Join Example:

Image credit: Repeat Crafter Me

Join As You Go Example:

Image credit: Crochet 365 Knit Too

Oh something really cool I discovered – for the outside border of each sunflower granny square I used Lion Brand Wool Ease (an acrylic and wool blend) yarn in Wheat.

Image credit: Michael’s

Well when I was taking photos of the laid out granny squares on the “Design Carpet”, I was barefoot and ended up having to step on the laid out squares. I discovered THEY WERE SO SOFT under my feet and I think it is due to the border yarn I used for each square.

I think it will be a really cozy and snuggly blanket and now I really want to get it completed for the winter season!

tierneytravels, U.S. National Parks

Crazy Horse Memorial

tierneycreates: a fusion of textiles and smiles

While we were visiting South Dakota in July, we discovered that 17 miles or so down the road from Mount Rushmore (see my recent post Mt. Rushmore National Park, Believe the Hype) is the Crazy Horse Memorial.

Since we were already in the area to see Mount Rushmore it made sense to see the Crazy Horse Memorial (which is a memorial in progress)!

According to Wikipedia:

“The Crazy Horse Memorial is a mountain monument under construction on privately held land in the Black Hills, in Custer County, South Dakota, United States. It will depict the Oglala Lakota warrior Crazy Horse, riding a horse and pointing to his tribal land. The memorial was commissioned by Henry Standing Bear, a Lakota elder, to be sculpted by Korczak Ziolkowski. It is operated by the Crazy Horse Memorial Foundation, a nonprofit organization.”

Crazy Horse was a Native American war leader of the Oglala Lakota. He took up arms against the U.S. Federal government to fight against encroachments on the territories and way of life of the Lakota people. His most famous actions against the U.S. military included the Fetterman Fight (21 December 1866) and the Battle of the Little Bighorn (25–26 June 1876). He surrendered to U.S. troops under General George Crook in May 1877 and was fatally wounded by a military guard, allegedly while resisting imprisonment at Camp Robinson in present-day Nebraska. He ranks among the most notable and iconic of Native American tribal members..”

Image credit: Crazy Horse 1842, nativepartnership.org

Before we took a bus to see the Crazy Horse Memorial in progress, we first stop at the Visitor Center and wandered around the Indian Museum of North America, “a large collection of art and artifacts reflecting the diverse histories and cultures of over 300 Native Nations.” (crazyhorsememorial.org/the-museums)

Then we got on the bus to travel to the Crazy Horse Memorial carving site which is on a private road.

Here are some of our photos from the site and I bet you can guess that the photos do not do the experience justice of seeing it in person, but unless I can teleport you all to the memorial this will have to do! 🙂

At the Visitor Center they had a model of what the completed memorial will look like someday:

As far as completion of the Crazy Horse Memorial – so far the head and left hand are completed; and according to Google AI:

“There is no definitive completion date for the Crazy Horse Memorial, and it is expected to take many more decades, with estimates suggesting a potential completion around 2037 for the horse’s head, arm, and hand, but the entire monument is considered a long-term project with no firm deadline, according to Summer Creek Inn and Wikipedia. The monumental scale and funding challenges, which rely on donations, have contributed to the lengthy construction time.” 

I’d like to visit it when it is complete someday, it will be spectacular.