a fusion of textiles & smiles
A quick follow up to the post No To Last Minute Binding.
I decided to bind the quilt with the same fabric as I used on the quilt back as I had a lot of it left over from trimming the quilt:
Here is the quilt completed on the sofa in the basement:
Here is John snuggled in the quilt this evening while we watch a movie!
He reports it is very cozy and he can perfectly snuggle under it!
It’s New Years Eve and we have a wild evening of watching movies and recovering from colds! We are party animals!
For John’s birthday we headed in the middle of the month to Southeastern Florida for a little cold weather break, and visited Miami, Hollywood Beach, and Fort Lauderdale.
We stayed in Hollywood Beach on the water and enjoyed our breakfast on the deck of our accommodations each morning:
(not sure what setting John had his phone on that I am faded out in the image, ha!)
It was pretty windy in the mornings, and occasionally overcast; and this was our view at breakfast:
But then this was our view walking around the boardwalk of Hollywood Beach:
I love the mountains in Colorado but it is always nice to visit the ocean!
We wandered around the South Beach area and stumbled upon a luxury mall (Bal Harbour Shops) filled with luxury brand shops containing things we couldn’t afford (or wouldn’t want to waste money on, we have no interest in impressing anyone, ha!).
But they did have a bookstore (I bought a bookmark there) and they had turtles in their garden displays in the middle of the mall!
We definitely looked out of place in our casual clothes as there were many people wandering around the mall in very expensive clothes acting very impressed with themselves. We laughed because one very well dressed man looking John up and down (when John wasn’t looking but I saw it) with disdain. We weren’t offended we thought it was hysterical and wished the man well is his life of pretentiousness!
There were two beautiful young women walking around, very well dressed and looking like fashion models, and I complimented them on their style and they looked at me like: “why are you talking to us peasant?”. We knew it was time to leave the mall after that – ha!
We decided to give up on the Miami area and go visit Fort Lauderdale. We had fun spending a day at the biggest Outlet Mall in the U.S. – Sawgrass Mills. They have 350 stores and outlets and lots of fun places to eat.
We had “conveyor belt sushi” at SushiGami in the middle of the mall and it was delicious (and fun to select your sushi as it moved by on the conveyor belt.
We visited the craziest outlet/close out/bargain bin place we’ve ever seen – Super Bins.
Yes nearly everything was $1 and the place was packed with bargain shoppers. We got overwhelmed and I got tired of wandering around bins so we only left with some Airpod covers and two decorative pillow covers I found in the bins.
Here’s an image from the web to give you an idea of what it looked like, except it seemed even bigger and endless than the photo below:
Unlike Miami, people were very friendly in Ft. Lauderdale and I chatted with a lady wandering around the mall with a darling dog (Pomeranian?) that was very well dressed!
Back in the Miami area we went to the Bayside Marketplace at Pier 5 and John got to have paella on the water which made him very happy!
And this time there no Iguana spitting at him from a tree above while he ate (see 2024 post April Adventures in Hollywood and Miami, Florida)!
We enjoyed wandering around the Bayside Marketplace area and having an after dinner ice cream.
It was an awesome trip 🙂
First I want to wish each of you a Wonderful Holiday Season and Happy/Merry Christmas to those of you who partake in Christmas like I do.
I thought I would continue my tradition of sharing some of the themed Christmas trees one of my local libraries displays each year. They are decorated by the library staff and you can tell they have fun decorating them each year!
GHOSTBUSTERS:
DOLLY PARTON:
ADDAMS FAMILY:
THE LAST OF US (Apocalyptic show on HBO):
REMARKABLY BRIGHT CREATURES:
THE HOBBIT:
10TH MOUNTAIN DIVISION (see my post Birthday Colorado Roadtrip Part II: Leadville and an Emotional “Divide” to see why this is so special to me)
THE LION, THE WITCH, AND THE WARDROBE (Chronicles of Narnia):
DEATH OF THE NILE:
There were so many wonderful trees on both floors (2 stories) of the library I only photographed a sampling. Here are the posts from previous years if you’d like to see a sampling of their past designs:
2024 – But Tierney Christmas is Long Over…
2023 – O Christmas Tree, O Christmas Trees…
I’ll be back posting after the holidays but in the meantime I will be reading/catching up your posts…you know blogging activities seems to take a backseat during this busy season!
Do you remember the “House that Won/Keeps Winning Halloween” (see posts The House That Won Halloween, Still Winning Halloween, and The House That Keeps Winning Halloween)? Well it turns out that house is not too bad at Christmas either!
The other day I happened to be taking my daily walk at dusk because the day got away from me and for the first time I saw the holiday decorations at night in that particular street I walked (usually I only walk it during daylight). The “Halloween House” was looking quite Christmas Festive (and not nightmare inducing)!
I was tempted though…
A quick follow up to the post T-Shirt Quilt Assembled – today, two days before Christmas, I received in the mail John’s T-shirt quilt from the longarm quilter (who had longarm machine quilted an all over pattern).
Fresh out of the box…
I was tempted for a moment to get it trimmed (remove overhanging extra binding and backing), assemble the binding, attach the binding and then attempt to sew down the binding/complete binding the quilt 2 days before the holiday so I could give it to John on Christmas.
Nope. I went ahead and showed John the quilted quilt and put it away to deal with until after the holiday! He knows it is eventually coming into his life to snuggle under…
I also had a couple of last minute gifts I was going to make and then decided this year no last minute crafting. (The intended gift recipients won’t know what they did not receive!)
Perhaps I will be better prepared next year – ha!
Photo from the longarm quilter Sew Colorado Quilting after she completed the machine quilting at her house:
A representative from the PNW Quilting Bloggers Comfort Quilt Drive reached out to me via my Inquiries page on my blog (which forwards to my email) asking if I could share this with my blog followers (edited a little bit for flow).
I have no background on, experience with, or affiliation with this project so it is at your discretion to decide to participate and you can contact the project coordinator directly for more information.
From Monique Arnold of The Sandpiper Project:
Just over a month ago, we launched our 10th bi-annual Comfort Quilt Drive, and with it came a wonderful idea: reaching out to the vibrant and generous quilting community here in the Pacific Northwest.
The Sandpiper Project is a community outreach dedicated to bringing comfort, spreading joy, and offering hope to children facing critical illnesses—primarily pediatric cancer.
Our work goes beyond delivering quilts. We also serve as ambassadors, using quilt auctions and community engagement to raise awareness and vital funding for nonprofit organizations that support children and their families during the most difficult seasons of life. The Sandpiper Project began as a way to pay forward the extraordinary care and compassion our family received when our oldest daughter was diagnosed with ovarian cancer at age 16.
In just four years, our community has:
-Delivered over 1,300 handmade quilts to major children’s hospitals
-Raised more than $100,000 for 12 children-focused nonprofits across the Pacific Northwest
Today, I’m reaching out with a heartfelt invitation.
We would be honored if you—and your readers or followers—would consider participating in this year’s Comfort Quilt Drive by donating a quilt & helping us share the drive within your quilting community.
Each quilt becomes a tangible reminder to a child that they are seen, cared for, and not alone.
This year’s quilts will be delivered to:
—OHSU Doernbecher Children’s Hospital (Portland, OR)
—Randall Children’s Hospital (Portland, OR)
—All Ronald McDonald Houses in Oregon and Southwest Washington
The drive runs from November through January 15, 2026.
If you choose to participate, we would love to feature your quilts, acknowledge your blog and community, and keep you updated on the meaningful ripple effects your generosity helps create.
Thank you for the beautiful work you do and for considering being part of this season of comfort and hope.
Warmly,
Monique Arnold
The Sandpiper Project
c/o Wish Ambassador Lizzie Arnold
3650 NW Witham Hill Drive
Corvallis, Oregon 97330
moakey2@icloud.com
Facebook Group: The Sandpiper Project – Quilting the Fabric of Hope
The Sandpiper Project on Facebook
Being Able To Say “Wish Granted!” Is AMAZING! 
So a couple days ago John and I decided to switch back my studio to another room and our bedroom back to the primary bedroom.
In case you have no idea what I am talking about, see this post from June 2025 – Thrifting for the Studio.
My studio is located in the former Primary Bedroom of the house. A couple years ago my husband John and I decided we didn’t need that much room for our main bedroom and moved to a smaller bedroom. Originally it was a carpeted room but in summer 2024 John put in a floor.
I’ve always had a small space to sew and craft until I met John and then a couple years ago we turned our primary bedroom (which is fairly large) into my studio.
However In my small crafting spaces I created entire bodies of work such as those I exhibited in my solo show (see 2019 post Solo Show Seattle Municipal Tower, Part III) The Wardrobe Meets the Wall. (And no new body of work has occurred in my large studio!)
I made that entire The Wardrobe Meets the Wall collection of 12+ quilts in a tiny little back bedroom of my house in Oregon where I had to use part of my hallway as my design wall.
I know of course I traveled a lot in 2025 but this has been an ongoing problem – I don’t seem to be as “creatively inspired” in a large space. I just had a gut feeling that I needed a cozy little space of creativity again.
So we switched the rooms back and Chaos in the Craft Room ensued:
Moving the contents of my large studio and walk in closet into a much smaller space was quite the undertaking!
The good thing of this move is I spent a couple days preparing for it and purging what I didn’t really need. It seems that I thrifted stuff to fill the space – I expanded to fill the space…
It took a couple days after we switched rooms to settle into my new room, which is less than half the size of the space I had in the primary bedroom, and here is what it looks like now:
Yes my design wall had to be split into half as it wouldn’t work in the room in it’s full size.
Besides giving me a small cozy space to work in to stimulate my creativity, John and I also made this switch because we are considering selling the house someday and moving to a smaller Ranch-style house. We recently toured houses in a cool new development in another section of the Denver Metropolitan area and fell in love with a one story house with a basement that could be finished however we liked.
We aren’t ready to sell/move just yet, but we were going to have to switch the rooms back anyway someday in order to put our house on the market.
So what became of my huge stash of craft supplies (most of them thrifted)? Well I moved all the sewing related supplies that didn’t fit in the studio shelves into the closet in my new studio:
The non sewing supplies got moved to the closet in the upstairs guest room which had previous housed my clothes, which are now moved into the walk in closet off the primary bedroom.
And…
As far as the Primary Bedroom, John and I took a couple days and turned it into a relaxing bedroom sanctuary. I want it to be our private sanctuary so I am not sharing any photos. (I recently saw on YouTube a tour of a Hollywood actor’s home on the Architectural Digest channel and she wouldn’t show her bedroom because she said that was her private sanctuary. That inspired me!)
Well here’s to getting into my cozy new studio and creating!
In my November 2025 post Easing Back into Quiltmaking with a T-Shirt Quilt, I stated “I’d like to always have some quilt, whether traditional or art, in progress on my design wall.”
Now that the T-shirt quilt for John (see post T-Shirt Quilt Assembled) and sent to the Longarm Machine Quilter for professional quilting, I realized I need to start working on ANOTHER QUILT in order to meet this goal – ha!
So I decided to pull out a dusty old project – my English Paper Piecing (EPP) hexie flower quilt top that I started in 2016 after seeing this quilt on the cover of the premiere issue of Quiltfolk Magazine – Issue 1: Oregon (I was living in Oregon at the time):
I finished paper piecing 99 hexie flowers (which each contained 7 paper pieced hexagons) in May 2024 from fabric scraps (that I sort of tried to coordinate).
Okay so let’s summarize:
I pull the project out of my UFO (unfinished objects for the non quilters) pile:
After auditioning a bunch of options, I decided to set them in my collection of scrap denim, using various shades of denim. Here’s one example:
But before I can machine applique (using a blanket stitch) the hexie flowers to the denim squares (I will cut the squares initially to 7×7 inches and then trim to 6.5 x 6.5 inches after they are stitched), I have some less than pleasant work to do 99 times…
REMOVE THE PAPER FROM THE BACK OF EACH HEXIE FLOWER!
I’ve set up this project as a sit-in-front-of-the-TV project for evenings and put them all in a basket in the living room:
I’ll update you on my progress and hope to soon have some appliqued square up on the design wall in my studio.
(By the way: you might be curious about my choice to set them in denim, which is heavier than a quilting cotton. Well I plan to use the quilt as a wallhanging, not a cuddle under/utility quilt. I have a bed I plan to hang it above.)
Recently I discovered a previous work friend who I stay in touch with on social media had a very challenging 2025 with some very big life changes.
When I had my Etsy shop open she had supported it by purchasing several items including some drawstring bags.
So to send a her a little treat after all she’d been through in 2025, I made her a little drawstring bag and matching little wallet:
If I ever get the Etsy shop up and running again and sell the drawstring bags, I’d like to give and option of a set with with a matching little wallet.
tierneycreates 