Month: December 2025

Special Events

Pacific Northwest (PNW) Quilting Bloggers Comfort Quilt Drive

tierneycreates: a fusion of textiles and smiles

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! 💫

My Minimalism Journey, Studio

Chaos in the Craft Room!

tierneycreates: a fusion of textiles and smiles

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!

Adventures in Paper Piecing

Revisiting the EPP Quilt

tierneycreates: a fusion of textiles and smiles

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:

  • Began project in 2016
  • Finished EPP flowers in 2024
  • Now in 2025 decide to finally make it into a quilt top…

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.)

Bags Bags Bags

A Little Gift Set to Send a Little Hug

tierneycreates: a fusion of textiles and smiles

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.