A Crafter's Life, tierneycreates

Celebrating 25 Years of Quilting

tierneycreates: a fusion of textiles and smiles

Several years ago (It might even before I moved in Colorado in 2019), my art quilter friend Wendy Hill was working on a retrospective of her quilting journey. She was putting together a binder with photos of the quilts she made and stories.

Wendy suggested that I consider doing that someday and not just have online copies of photos of my quilts stored on my computer or posted to my blog.

I put that thought in the back of my mind and after a while forgot about it for the most part. Then this year I started thinking about how to archive part of my blog to save storage space on my blog since the plan I pay WordPress for is running out of space. Check out the Postscript section of my June 28, 2026 post Getting Down to Business for more discussion and musings on dealing with this issue.

In the Postscript section of my July 7, 2026 21 Ready to Applique! I discuss my recent discovery that  the Denver Public Library lets patrons print out up to 100 photocopies a day for free.

I tested this at first and converted some of my blog posts to pdf files (if you simply pull up a post on your screen, then click on “Print” and change the “Destination” from your printer to “Save as PDF”…this is how it works on my Macbook/MacOS not sure if it is the same on a Windows based device) and printed them out in color at the library. It worked well.

Then I remembered Wendy’s advice all those years ago – to consider making a binder about my quilting journey. I thought about the beginning of my quilting journey and realized I finished my first quilt around 2000 and if I went to 2025 (as I am still in 2026) I could put together a binder about my first 25 years in quilting: 2000 – 2025.

And I did!

It took about a month and combed through a lot of information on my blog. I am very glad I documented a lot of my quilting journey, especially since 2013 when I started my blog, on my blog. I also combed through old photo files and saved documents on my external hard drive that I back up documents on. Then I got to creating web pages into pdfs and selecting what to print out, etc.

I spent about 5 to 6 trips to the library printing out materials and ended with this binder filled to the brim with printed pages documenting my quilting journey:

tierneycreates: the first 25 years

Tierney’s quilting journey 2000 – 2025

The front of the binder has a photo of me at my first solo show along with images of my first official art quilt “Flying Triangles” and similar quilt “What Direction Do I Go?” made 11+ years later; and the back of the binder is the flyer for that show:

Inside the binder are stories and photos from my 25 year quilting journey, some examples are below:

(Image above: The home page to my blog, the first flyer one of my pieces appeared in, the first ad I was featured in, photos of completed quilts, my first quilt to be in a quilt show (Sisters Outdoor Quilt Show 2007), my first quilt and my pair of rescued miniature schnauzers Fritz and Snickers wrapped in that quilt; and galleries of non quilting items I’ve made over the past 25 years)

I am so thankful to have pulled so much information and photos off my blog and printed them out for free (in color!) at the local library.

I’ve maxed out the binder which was a binder I snagged for free, filled with sheet protectors, in the ‘Free” bin at a garage sale. I am thinking about having it bound into a book once I decide I’ve filled it with all that belongs there (perhaps a couple more trips to the library for printing…)

Wendy was right. This was a VERY GOOD and important exercise to do and it was very powerful to look at my body of work and my journey over the past 25 years of quilting. I cannot believe I am in my 26th years of being a quilter and I look forward to working on my 50 year retrospective someday (finger crossed) 🙂

By the way, much thanks to those of you who’ve been following my journey on line over the years and some of you have been with me since 2013 when this blog began!

Postscript

Still Working on Blog Storage Space Issue

I’m still working on the trimming down my blog storage project and I’ve decided to start with revamping my whole Portfolio, News and Events/Publications pages on my blog by combining them in some format and reducing down the images.

I am looking into WordPress page formats that will work and I was recently very inspired by what Mariss did on her Fabrications website/blog in her newly revamped Gallery of Works page.

Unknown's avatar

Published by tierneycreates: a fusion of textiles and smiles

Quilter, crafter, obsessive tea drinker and lover of all furry creatures (especially dogs and cats) - join me on my tierneycreates blog as I share stories from "A Crafter's Life".

32 thoughts on “Celebrating 25 Years of Quilting”

  3. What a beautiful binder!!! The triangle quilt is the first quilt I saw at that gallery show. I thought then- and I still think- the floating triangles are great!!! Hmmmm…. could I get a Wendy Is Right banner for my husband? JK

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  4. That’s a wonderful record. I don’t think I have been anywhere as diligent at documenting my quilting journey, especially at the start before I even realised I was a quilter lol

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

    1. Thanks so much Helen, even though it was tedious when getting the files ready for the library printing (they have a mobile upload service on their website) and lots of trips and waiting for things to print out while other library patrons were waiting, it was totally worth it and I am very pleased 🙂
      Ah – you were secretly a quilter for a while, eh?

      Like

      Reply

      1. My sister convinced me to go halves on a sewing machine she found at a yard sale and there was a patchwork book in the box with it. I don’t think I even read the instructions I just looked at the pictures and decided to make one 🙂

        Liked by 1 person

  5. That binder is an amazing idea!! Wow 25 years is amazing 🥳 I started in 2015 – I’ll have to go back and see what I’ve saved to capture the last 10 years. Thanks for the idea!!! I’ve been ‘kicking the can’ about storage issues on my blog…ugh!!

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  7. well done, on getting lots of printing done, and being able to have a paper version of your 25 years of quilting. I’m curious as to how on earth your library can offer a free printing service though, what with the cost of printer ink!

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  9. oh, WOW I am so impressed. Your book will be a wonderful treasure of memories – and I too, can’t believe the library can afford to let people print and in colour. I need to do something about the WordPress limits but I’m not as good at the computer as you are, I’m studying your comments and hopefully do something – or just quit! Thanks so much for all this information and inspiring me to do something.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply
  10. Pingback: ScrapHappy August 2026 – Making a Family Scrap Happy – tierneycreates

  11. Here’s to the next 25 years of quilting.

    Thank you for this post, with all the details of how you created the binder of your quilting journey. It’s amazing. You have inspired me.

    Thanks too for the mention and link to my gallery page. Look forward to seeing your revamped website pages

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  13. Also I thought of you this week. Because a blogger I follow named clan mother, recently posted a wonderful post about old aprons and her family and what they mean to her. So when I stopped at a thrift store with my friend I looked at the aprons and I thought of two bloggers at once. I thought of her and you. And it’s just in time for your 25th anniversary because the apron says I would rather be blogging than cooking. How fun. Here is the photo of it.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  14. Oh, good for you! I used to have blog-books made but the service I was using went out of business, so I haven’t done anything since. One of these days I’ll try again, but I’m impressed with your 25 years 😀

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

Thanks for stopping by and thanks for your comments :-)

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.