I shared in the post John Builds Himself a Desk that John, the self-taught woodworker living in my house (ha), built himself a Mission-style desk using images from the web to inspire him.
Well John decided he wanted to replace our existing file cabinet, that we got for free secondhand, with a printer stand/file cabinet combo piece.
So he developed a design and went to work building it:
And here is the resulting piece!
The two drawers on the right of the piece are set up as file cabinet drawers, while the drawer under the printer is a storage drawer. I forgot to take a photo of it but the area under the printer pulls out for easier access to the printer!
We are pretty excited about it and we had fun purging old files and arranging our files in the new file cabinet drawers.
Did you notice the old computer sitting on the new printer stand/file cabinet? Well that’s the computer that John built with his Dad when he was 10 years old. John spent a career as a computer software architect and it all started with him learning to build a computer with his father as a kid.
Oh and what became of the secondhand file cabinet we no longer needed? Well serendipitously we discovered our neighbor across the street, a new father trying to keep up with life, desperately needed a file cabinet!
So John brought it over to his house and made him very happy!
Since snow is now here in Colorado, I figured to was time to finish the hat I started knitting at the end of 2025.
Here is John modeling the hat at my favorite part of hat knitting: the double pointed needles to finish the crown:
And here I am wearing the finished hat; and then an image of the top of the hat (I love the swirl that decreasing the stitches for the crown makes):
Yes I am snuggled in the Sunflower Granny Square blanket I finished last year (Sunflower Granny Square Blanket Assembled (and Holiday Decorating)) as it was pretty cold in Denver (a little blizzard occurred while we were watching the Denver Broncos football team lose the semi-finals).
So I kept the finished hat on after I took the photo and snuggled under my sunflower blanket!
First we stopped at the Up Top Cafe for some breakfast, coffee (John) and tea (me):
It felt like we spent a couple hours on their cozy couches (there is another sofa across from the one in the photo) eating breakfast and drink our hot beverages. I think we only spent an hour there actually but it was a delightful hour!
Immediately upon walking in we were greeted by the staff and a very cozy and cluttered (but the fun kind of cluttered) quilt shop:
And there was a dog napping that I had to just walk around, he didn’t want to be disturbed by shop visitors!
There was a second section of the shop where they had a huge fabric sale going on of older fabrics and a “Husband Seating Area” for John.
(John sat on the other side of this fabric on a table with sewing machines for sale.)
It was more cluttered than I captured in photos but I had a blast wandering around and even found some fabric that I could not leave the store without:
It’s the Northcott Fabrics Barn Quilt line and here are the fabrics I bough a couple yards of each (images from Northcott Fabrics website):
Not sure what I am making with these fabrics but I totally fell in love with them!
They also had a collection of antique sewing machines scattered around the shop like this one:
Lots and lots of buttons:
And another shop dog that couldn’t be bothered with shop customers – ha!
Back in mid-December 2025 I shared in the post Chaos in the Craft Room! that we had moved my quilting/crafting studio from the large Primary Bedroom to a small bedroom in preparation for putting our house on the market and moving to a smaller home.
Since then I’ve been playing/sewing/crafting in my new studio and doing some re-arranging to make it work best for me.
I added back in my tea station and little refrigerator (we tried to make it work in our Primary Bedroom but I didn’t like the low volume noise the refrigerator made when I was trying to sleep at night; and I missed easy access to tea as I need a couple cups a day to keep me happy, ha!):
Thanks to my friend K who attended the 50th anniversary 2025 Sisters Outdoor Quilt Show and got me a poster! (I used to attend it every year when I lived in Oregon for 14 years and had exhibited quilts in it along with my quilter late husband several times…and sold quilts)
I had to rearrange where I kept my projects in queue because this is what the area looked like previously:
Now the projects in queue are stored under my cutting table (I forgot to take a photo).
I added a floor lamp (left side of image below) to my half design wall area (we had to break up my former design wall to make it fit in the room). As we plan to sell the house and move next year to a smaller house, John didn’t want to install track lighting in this room like he did in my previous mega-studio that was in our converted Primary Bedroom (which has now returned to being a Primary Bedroom):
I am pleased with the floor lamp and it illuminates the design wall nicely.
I’ve done additional rearranging and here is what the rest of the room currently looks like:
You might think it would feel very cluttered moving from a large studio (see the post Thrifting for the Studio if you’ve recently joined us and haven’t seen my previous studio) but it feels COZY and like a HUG of CREATIVE INSPIRATION whenever I go into the room.
In addition to being visually “warm and cozy” it’s also physically/temperature-wise warm and cozy because there is less space to heat compared to my big studio. In my post Magnetic Poetry to Ease My Soul I discussed, in the Postscript section, “Creative Restraints”/”Creative Limitations”/”Creative Limits”; and it appears that a smaller space to create in is really fueling/stimulating my creativity!
During the studio move and reorganization I’ve had an “archeological dig” of unearthing old projects in progress (or “UFOs”/Unfinished Objects as quilters like to call them). For example I discovered this partially finished table runner that would be wonderful on the table in our entryway:
I actually sold a couple of these when I had my Etsy shop going (see my post from 2017 – What’s on the Design…Ironing Board?) and I guess this one another one from 2017 that I was going to finish and list in my Etsy shop.
I continue to work on the English Paper Piecing hexie flowers quilt that I shared in my post ScrapHappy January 2026: Moving Forward on the Hexie Project ; and I love sitting my little studio and working on removing the hexie papers from the back of the flowers (so so so many to go…):
(I’ll share an update on the hexie quilt progress during February’s monthly ScrapHappy post.)
Over the next couple of months I’ll be saving updates on my long time English Paper Piecing hexie rosette project to share on the 15th of each month for ScrapHappy.
In my most recent post on this project, Revisiting the EPP Quilt, I shared that I’ve been working on this project since 2016 when I fell in love with the quilt on the cover of Issue 1: Oregon of Quiltfolk Magazine.
I paper pieced 99 rosettes from my fabric scrap collection, attempting to coordinate the colors:
And finally I’ve begun setting the rosettes into blocks using my collection of scrap denim with plans to trim each block to 6.5 inches by 6.5 inches.
But I had to find the most efficient want to attach 99 rosettes to the denim scraps without having to hand appliqué them to the blocks. I was afraid if I committed to hand appliqué all 99 blocks, it would be another 9+ years until I finished this quilt!
So I decided to find a way to use my sewing machine to do it.
I researched my Bernina sewing machine books on the Bernina sewing machine feet and sewing machine stitches, and discovered I could use the #20C foot to sew a blanket stitch around each rosette to attach it (I decided to use a little Stitch Witchery Tape to anchor the rosette onto the denim before machine stitching).
After practicing on scrap denim I was able to figure it out and attach my first rosette and from there I put together my first 9 blocks:
Here they are squished together to sort of give you an idea of how the quilt might look:
I have a long way to go but it is a start!
I did discover that in addition to removing the paper from the hexies in each rosette, I still have to stitch some of the rosettes fully together! So there is a lot of work to get this project done and we’ll see how much progress I will have to report next month 🙂
Oh and yes it will be a heavy quilt using scrap denim as the setting squares but it is going to be a wall hanging in my upstairs guest room, not a utility quilt for snuggling under.
(I was struggling to write this post with all the terrible stuff going in my country and in the world. Writing about my 2025 travels seems so shallow and trivial; but perhaps this post will be a brief distraction for you if you are feeling like I am…)
July 2025
Early in July we headed to Washington State in the Pacific NW to visit John’s cousin M and his wife R in Bremerton, WA. During the trip to Washington we also visited Poulsbo, Olympia, Mount Rainier National Park, Shelton (quilt shop), Port Townsend, and Port Angelas Washington. We also did a 24 hour trip to Victoria, British Columbia (Canada) via ferry.
Here are a couple photos from parts of the trip I did not blog about – the delightful Victorian-style Bed & Breakfast we stayed at in Olympia; an afternoon at Mount Rainier, and Poulsbo (Norway themed historic town founded by Norwegian settlers) for July 4th with John’s cousin:
Continuing the summer travel insanity, in August we went on two more major trips: 1) a roadtrip to South Forks Colorado to visit with some of John’s family; and 2) a trip to Southern Oregon and Northern California.
Both of these trips in my opinion are blog post worthy (and there was a very cool quilt shop visit during that first trip) so I will plan to post about them sometime in 2026. For now here are some random photos from the trips.
South Fork, Colorado: We stayed at an amazing cabin on the river with very unusual toilet paper holders!
We were pretty traveled out by September and managed to keep September to one major trip for John but two for me!
I went to with my sister to San Antonio, Texas to join her on her business trip. Then I went with John to Portland, Oregon for him to visit his son Z while I took at Watercolor Painting class (see post So I took a Watercolor Painting class…).
I didn’t post about the San Antonio, Texas trip but my sister and I had a wonderful time and I slept in the best hotel bed EVER at the luxurious resort (do not remember the name) her company put her up at. We had fun after her work conference exploring San Antonio’s Riverwalk and eating tasty Tex-Mex on the river.
October 2025
We did one major trip in October and then had two separate out of town visitors during the month. In early October we headed to Baltimore, Maryland and visited my brother and his family in Delaware as well as my long time blogging friend Claudia (some of you follow her blog). Then we met up with my sister and her son and we traveled to Ocean City, Maryland to attend the Country Calling Music Festival. After that we traveled to New York City for a couple days with them.
I bought a cowboy hat while in San Antonio, Texas in September. In case you are wondering how we ended up going to Country Calling, my 21 year old nephew is a huge country music fan and wanted to go to his first country music festival so we went as a family group. It was an interesting “cultural experience” I’ve never had before!
November 2025
We had decided to take November and December off from major trips but then our plan fell apart due to fun trip opportunity temptation…
I went with my sister to New York City on her business trip; and then John and I went to Las Vegas, Nevada for his poker tournament. I posted about the Las Vegas trip related to over the top Christmas decorations in the post Christmas at the Bellagio Conservatory.
I plan to post sometime in 2026 about the New York City trip in November as I had a couple amazing experiences. Here is a photo of my sister and I enjoying our trip for now:
December 2025
And finally December…
You’d think we’d take the month off from traveling with the holidays but no we did not. We went to Hollywood, Miami and Fort Lauderdale, Florida – see post A Little Jaunt to Florida; and we spent a couple days before the New Year in Colorado Springs, Colorado.
I didn’t post about the Colorado Springs trips but here are some photos from the lovely lobby/lounge area of the historic Colorado hotel we stayed at – the Mining Exchange Hotel :
In 2025 I think I traveled more than I’ve ever traveled in my life (I feel like I was rarely home in 2025). John retired at the end of 2024 and we sort of went crazy with our new found freedom in 2025 (plus our beloved dog Mike had passed in July 2024 so we had no restrictions on planning travel – no more dog sitter needed).
We started out slow with one big trip a month and then picked up speed around May with cramming in more than one trip a month (you’ll see how crazy our summer got later in this post).
I didn’t post about all the trips – I as taking a blogging break for my mental health in the first quarter of 2025 and then I just couldn’t keep up with writing about my trips and traveling. If there is a related post I have linked it.
I’ve organized our 2025 travel summary by month and I did not include any day trips/playing tourist in Colorado for the day. We did have a lot of spontaneous day trips, especially when the weather was nice, in 2025.
January 2025
We began our year of travel with a trip to Las Vegas, Nevada so John could attend a poker tournament. I did not post about it.
Visiting with designer Elizabeth Hartman (whose patterns I love) during QuiltCon:
March 2025
In March we had a wonderful trip to the Sacramento, California region to hang out with our Northern California friends.
I didn’t post about the trip, but here is a photo from the trip during our wander around downtown Auburn, CA at the top of the stairs on the Placer County Superior Court on a gorgeous day (by the way I am not actually that much taller than John it was the angle/pose):
April 2025
In April John traveled to Portland to visit his son; and I went to spend a couple days with my sister in Baltimore, WA on her business trip. I did not post about it.
Here I am at this amazing and legendary Italian deli/grocery store in Baltimore we ate at twice – DiPasquales Italian Market:
There was seating right in the corner of the crowded market/deli where you are crammed in with the spices and pasta while you eat! But for me nothing beats East Coast Italian food (well short of actual Italian food in Italy…) so go ahead and cram me in among the groceries!
May 2025
In May we began having more than one big trip a month; and May was a month filled with travel to two concerts in two different parts of the US.
A trip mid May to Charlotte, North Carolina to see Joan Jett and Billy Idol in concert with North Carolina based friends: Concerting in the Carolinas and More
And then later in May, to celebrate my milestone birthday, we went to Las Vegas, Nevada and saw Bruno Mars – Birthday-ing with Bruno
June 2026
In June we had two EPIC roadtrips through Colorado.
Hundreds and hundreds of miles were traveled early in June and then if that wasn’t enough roadtripping for the month, we did a truly epic roadtrip across Colorado (like from one end of the other) in mid June (because we are truly insane…).
I never got around to posting this “across Colorado” roadtrip but in the span of a week we traveled to Pagosa Springs, Durango, Mesa Verde National Park, Four Corners National Monument (where Colorado, Utah, Arizona, and New Mexico intersect), Ouray, Gunnison, and Crested Butte, Colorado. From the Denver Metro area to across the entire state and back! EPIC!!!
I do plan to write some posts in the future about this cool trip as I’d like to share some memories on my blog. It is one of my favorite roadtrips of all time…to date!
Here is one of my favorite photos from this roadtrip: John peeking in on the poker game of a group of taxidermied raccoons at a gift shop in Ouray, Colorado!
I think I will end this post before we get to July 2025 – a lot more traveling adventures to share in Part 2…
I thought I would share my craft project completion summary for 2025 in pictures:
Not a lot of stuff completed but then I did travel a lot in 2025 and I will share a summary of that in my next post 🙂
I didn’t include the links to the posts about these craft projects but if you are curious for more information on any of the projects let me know in the comments below and I will give you the blog post link, thanks!
I needed a portable knitting/crochet project for riding in the car and I decided it was time to start knitting another hat (same pattern I always use!):
I looked through my hand knitted hat collection and noticed that most of my hats are either medium or dark colored yarn and I don’t have any light colored hats. I found this variegated cream and light brown yarn in my stash.
Slowly making progress and looking forward to my new hat 🙂
tierneycreates 