Author: 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".
Continuing my series of posts about regular get togethers with neighborhood quilters J and D.
Wednesday I met up with J and D (the new quilter who just finished her first project – see my series of posts for the category Learning to Quilt) to see D’s progress on her second quilt (see previous post Quilter’s Playdate: What’s Next)
D is working on this kit, which is loaded with stars created with Half Square Triangles (HSTs) and fussy cut flower panel sections:
This is D’s first dabble in HSTs and she blew us away from the awesome work she did on the 5 large stars for the quilt:
The points on her stars were quite pointy! (For those of you who are not quilters, it is challenging as a new quilter to get your points on stars “pointy” and sharp as it can be a technical skill you have to develop over time and experience).
I had a flashback to my first star quilt and my points were not very pointy!
J demonstrated for D how D will eventually need to trim her star blocks to the “finished size” listed on the pattern:
J also reviewed with D how to trim each HSTs as we catch a couple areas of improvement in piecing seams D could make (but only after searching through her seemingly perfect blocks!):
Then we took at look at what J was working on in her studio…
J quilted her sunflower panel based runner with a sunflower pattern:
J also pulled out of the closet one of her earliest quilts – a Christmas log cabin and showed – she showed D some of the errors she made as a new quilter (that none of us noticed until she pointed them out):
I worked on my granny square blanket.
I might bring over my travel/for classes little Bernina sewing machine when we meet again next week and actually sew something during our Quilter’s Playdate.
Here is an update to the post Update on Latest Granny Square Blanket and an update to my progress on my latest granny square blanket, this time made with Lion Brand Re-Spun – yarn made from recycled polyester.
I’ve completed the first 20 granny squares from the in various stages blocks I started with 100 centers:
I’ve run into an issue: I realized the three skeins I’ve been using is likely not enough to finish 100 granny square blocks:
Here are the other granny square blocks in progress – the remaining 80 are either just centers, or a center and the next row (there are 4 rows in total to the block):
This yarn is hard to find unless I order it online; and I do have it in other colorways (I found a bunch for $2.99 a skein compared to $8 – $10 a skein retail, while thrifting one day).
So I looked through my stash of Re-Spun and found some sort of similar colors that might work to add to the existing blocks in progress:
I am going to make some test granny square blocks adding the new yarns to see how I like them.
I might need to make more centers as I am not sure 100 blocks will be a big enough blanket, and I can use the new yarns (if I ended up liking them for this project) for centers.
I am determined not to buy more yarn and use what is in my stash!
Postscript
Here is the YouTube video again if you want to see the pattern. I taught myself to crochet this pattern from the video and I refer back to it whenever my mind has disconnected when I am skipping around on completing rows 🙂
Our friends tease us that we now living in a “retirement home”, but we now live in a 55+ Active Community (it’s not even called a “Retirement Community” as many people still work, there just needs to be on person 55 or older in the household and no one under 21).
Our community has a Lifestyle Director who plans many awesome activities (and every time we tell a certain group of friends about these activities, ha, we add more fuel to the fire of them teasing us about living in a retirement home!)
Before the outing we had a workshop in the community room on how to read the Racing Form/Track Program at a racetrack and how to do betting.
I haven’t been to a horse racing track since I was a kid growing up in Long Island, New York – Belmont Park.
For many years as an adult I was anti animal racing (horse and dog) due to the animal abuses I read about in these sports but over the years much improvement has occurred in the treatment and conditions for racing animals. So I was willing to try this outing; and a group of fun community members that we’ve befriended were attending.
John was very excited about going to a racetrack and although he’s lived in Colorado all his life, he’s never been horse racing in Colorado before.
He couldn’t wait to place his bet.
I didn’t pay much attention to the horse racing (hence no photos of actual horse racing in this post by me) but I did enjoy the social aspect of visiting with people and working on my granny square project at our indoor viewing area.
The photo above is of some of our friends in the community being very excited about the race. (Interesting tidbit about our new community – I’ve met many people from New York including Upstate NY and Long Island where I grew up! A lot of people moved to our community because they relocated from different states around the US to be near their grandkids.)
John did make $35 from horse race betting and it was a very fun afternoon with our community!
I’d go again with a group for the social activity but I don’t think I’ll become a regular at the racetrack, ha!
Continuing my series of posts about regular get togethers with neighborhood quilters J and D.
Last Friday I met up with J and D (the new quilter who just finished her first project – see my series of posts for the category Learning to Quilt) to discuss our next projects.
J who is originally from Wisconsin (and every lady I’ve met from Wisconsin appears to know how to bake very well…is it in the water?!?!) made us an amazing pull apart coffee cake/bundt cake thing for us to snack on while we met:
During this get together we primarily focused on the new quilter, D’s next project – a kit she had purchased when we took her on her first quilt shop hop (see post Taking a New Quilter on Her First “Shop Hop” ):
We opened up the kit and reviewed with D all the cutting instructions step by step for both the fabric yardage and the pre-printed panel. We spent a lot of time figuring out how D could most efficiently cut the panel to meet the pattern requirements.
J is a whiz at “quilt math” (she happens to have her degree in Mathematics and is a former Math Teacher!) and she is an expert at efficiently cutting fabric for a pattern.
The pattern has a a lot of half square triangles (HSTs) so J did a refresher for D, who had first learned about HSTs during an Intro to Quilting class she took at a quilt shop, on making and trimming HSTs.
After we (and I use the term “we” loosely as J does most the teaching/coaching) got D all set up with her assignment to complete before we meet again, it was time to look at what J was currently working on in her studio:
A quilt on her longarm quilting machine for the Quilts of Valor program:
Autumn table runners and placements using several different panels:
And a wall hanging for her studio about the kitchenette area:
She was using her new basket of Batik fabric scraps we had recently organized together (see post Fabric Organization Emergency!).
J had also recently put up a very cute Halloween quilt that she made years ago. I love the panel she used ofr the quilt; and the quilting (spider web) she did on the quilt!
By the end of our get together a dent had been made in the pull apart coffee cake (I wonder how that happened? Did elves sneak in and eat a bunch of the pastry?!!?)
“Central Oregon is where I got to be in my first quilt show – the Sisters Outdoor Quilt Show in 2007; and it is where my transition from traditional quilting to experimenting with art/improvisational quilt began.”
made me think about how much my art quilting journey has stalled over the past 7 years. Back in 2019, when I had my first solo show it looks like a very promising journey. Now at times it feels like that journey has ended.
I was able to create my Langston Hughes, Pioneer Poet quilt for a Women of Color Quilting Network (WCQN) show in 2021; and my upcycled denim and home decor fabric quilt What Direction Do I Go? in 2023 (which was rejected from a show I entered).
But that’s been it except for some playing with home decor and clothing scraps a little recently:
It feels like the improvisational and creative magic is gone in relation to “art” quilting.
I remember a time when I wasn’t interested in using quilt patterns, I just wanted to create original pieces.
Currently I primarily crave working from patterns and having direction. However even with using patterns I am not making as many quilts or other sewn projects (like when I was making a lot of bags and other non quilt projects).
I’ve been thinking about this and I just know it has to do with grief and how creativity, quilting and the fabric involved as so much a part of my prior life.
I definitely miss being around the amazing and inspirational art quilting community of Central Oregon.
I definitely miss my life long partner/best friend who was also a quilter (Remembering Terry the Quilting Husband (TTQH)) and all the fun fabric shopping related adventures we used to have. Terry loved dog themed fabric and every time I look at the amazing collection of dog themed fabric in my stash my heart hurts.
Every time I look at my fabric stash I struggle as so much of it is connected to old wonderful memories (and I realize how lucky I am to have had those experiences). Although I’ve paired down my fabric stash, getting rid of fabric that triggers memories is not a solution for me.
Joining local art quilting groups has not been a solution for me either.
I am working on figuring it out and seeing if I can find the passion I once had again. A couple years I even considering completely giving up quilting and just keeping my other crafts. But I know I still have a quilting and perhaps an “art quilting” journey still inside of me.
Thanks for reading my musings, sometimes it just helps to write about these things.
The featured image on this post is from a screen shot of the book Creative Struggle by Gavin Aung Than
One day my friend and neighbor J texted me that she desperately needed to re-organize her fabric and could I help. I popped over immediately (because I love fabric and I love organization…and J is a fun quilting friend!). Tierney to the rescue!
(yes, fun with Google AI)
I don’t have a “before” photo but a lot of her fabric stash was organized in one of these IKEA “Billy” style bookcases (from the tour of her studio post Project Linus Mini Retreat, Part II )
J doesn’t have as much fabric as I do in regards to yardage and “precuts”. She’s been a quilter longer than I have but she seems to have great control. Only recently has she started holding onto her fabric scraps.
Unfortunately I was wrapped up in the re-organization process and did not take many photos but here are the steps we followed to make her fabric organization work for her and give her the feeling she was shopping in her own miniature quilt shop:
Pull all her yardage fabric (1/2 yard of fabric or larger) from shelves and baskets, etc. in her studio and pile them on one of her cutting tables
Test out ways to fold the yardage on cardboard she had purchased so that the fabric could fit neatly without the confines of her bookcase.
Dump out all her baskets and shelves of precuts (fat quarters, jelly rolls, charm squares, layer cakes, etc) onto another table in her studio.
Sort the fat quarters by color OR if they were part of a coordinated collection, sort them by the collection.
Separate all her Halloween and Christmas fabric (J enjoys making quilts and home decor like table runners and placemats for these holidays) and put them into baskets
Separate out all her “Quilts of Valor” fabrics and put them in a basket (she makes Quilts of Valor for Veterans).
Dump all her scraps on the floor and I separated them into bins of Batiks (she has a lot of Batik scraps), general, and solids/blenders.
Refold all her yardage on to the new cardboard and sort by theme, fabric line, or color.
Organize her shelves as follows: 1) precuts, 2) yardage, 3) Tula Pink, and 4) scraps.
J came up with the idea of cutting the cardboard in half to fold half yards and quarter yards.
Here is the finished re-organization fabric bookcase. I forgot to take photos of the baskets we created for Batik fabric scraps and special occasion fabrics (Christmas, Halloween, and Quilts of Valor):
J reports that she does feel like she has her own little quilt shop in her studio. She says she can easily “shop from her stash” and find fabric, precuts and scraps for her projects.
For me an organized quilt studio makes my creativity flow!
I thought I would return to stories about our 2026 late Spring and Summer travels….
In May 2026, around my birthday, I did something very brave – I returned for the first time in 7 years to my beloved Central Oregon.
I haven’t been back there since I left in April 2019 and moved to Denver, Colorado for a new life adventure after my partner of 33+ years suddenly died in 2018.
I tried to return for the first time for my birthday in 2025 but cancelled as I was still unable to face returning.
Bend, Oregon was the most wonderful place I had lived in my life and I had a glorious 14 years there with my best friend husband, our dogs, and some spectacular friends. During my grief journey I have grieved the loss of my life partner and the loss of our beautiful life together which included getting to live in this special place.
I am not sure how to put it all into words, but it was very difficult to return to the magical place I left.
If you’ve followed my blog since my early days of blogging (I started tierneycreates blog in 2013) then you might remember some of the sweet stories I shared of life in Bend, Oregon. Stories such as hikes on Pilot Butte, the little mountain (officially it is a giant hill…) near my former home; trips to my beloved local downtown Bend library; bike rides around my neighborhood picking fruit to make into pies; adventures with my husband and dogs; and fun adventures with local friends.
Central Oregon is where I got to be in my first quilt show – the Sisters Outdoor Quilt Show in 2007; and it is where my transition from traditional quilting to experimenting with art/improvisational quilt began.
I guess I avoided returning to avoid the intense feelings of grief that would come with returning; but I knew I had to return as part of healing and closure. So return I did in May 2026 and the pain of my return was eased by loving Central Oregon based friends who welcomed and supported my return. John came with me to see where I came from before he met me and to be my rock during a difficult time.
DOG THERAPY
I love dogs and we spent time with my amazing friends (who have become John’s dear friends also over the past 7 years) MJ and J who adopt rescued dogs. They provided me with lots of dog therapy while I visited Bend.
It’s difficult to feel sad when there are plenty of wet noses nudging you to pet them or snuggle with them!
VISIT TO AN ALPACA FARM
On my birthday, MJ and J took me to Crescent Moon Ranch Alpaca Farm. We had a blast petting and feeding alpacas! They had a gift shop with all the hand spun alpaca yarn you could imagine!
A LITTLE CENTRAL OREGON ROADTRIP
On my birthday MJ and J took us on a little Central Oregon roadtrip and visited Sisters, Oregon, the Camp Sherman area, and Smith Rock State Park. I was reminded of the beauty of Central Oregon and John was introduced to it.
Smith Rock State Park (photo above) was the most difficult place for me to visit during the trip. I had so many wonderful memories of going hiking and picnicking with my late husband. When I saw the beauty of Smith Rock (the photo does not do it justice) I just lost it.
I took a little hike around the area on my own and finally found some peace.
I did during our travels in Central Oregon come across this magnet and tried to keep it in mind to get me through the visit:
THE NEW BEND LIBRARY
I loved the downtown Bend main library and visited it nearly every week (or more) when I lived there. That library closed and they built a new huge main library in a central location away from downtown Bend. MJ and J took us there.
It was beautiful but very surreal to me. I was in shock to see how my cozy beloved library had morphed into a modern huge structure. I wandered around on my own for a while trying to see if I could feel the “soul” of the place but it felt hollow to me. I appreciated the architectural design but it just made me sad for some reason. I felt like something special was lost by the community. (Also gone were all the library staff I used to know and visit with when I lived there for 14 years).
MORE TO MY VISIT
There was more to my visit but I seem to be only able to write about this trip briefly (I was originally going to make this a series of posts but I realized I can only write one post on this trip). I feel very emotional trying to put together this post.
I did get to reunite with some other very special friends during the trip. I saw my friend art quilter Wendy Hill who I’ve mentioned on this blog before. We had a lovely lunch at her home.
I had a wonderful breakfast get together with my beloved neighbor of 14 years J who lived in the house across the street from me.
I also got to visit with my wonderful friend L, who was there for me the 2nd worse day in my life (going to the funeral home to “make arrangements”) and got to visit with her wonderful family. We had dinner with her family at her table which was covered with the table runner I made her.
So I did it. I returned. Honestly I am not sure if I am up to returning ever again. Time will tell.
Postscript
In case you are wondering, I did go see my old home. John and I had a rental car and he drove us by it. At first my plan was NOT to go see my old home, it would just be too incredibly painful. But spur of the moment one early evening I decided I wanted to see it.
The good thing is that my old neighborhood looked fantastic and the area has really become built up. My old home also looked fantastic, the person who bought it has done a fabulous job of maintaining it. I couldn’t believe how lush and beautiful the trees and plants I planted all those years ago had become. The house looked better than when I lived in it.
But it was so difficult to see it and the neighborhood I loved to walk and bike around. I don’t have the words to tell you all what it felt like…except the words “profound loss”.
I so appreciate my life now and I have a wonderful life with John.
But to my fellow widows and widowers who follow my blog – I know you get it and I see you. Hugs to you all – you are stronger than you ever realized you could be. I am so proud of you as you faced unfathomable loss and grief and kept going on in life.
This post is an update to the August 10th post Very Good Progress on the EPP Quilt on the English Paper Piecing (EPP) hexagon quilt I begin in 2016 and am still working on finishing in 2026 (I mere 10 years…perhaps not the speediest quilt completion…). The quilt is composed of 99 blocks and was inspired by the cover for the first issue of Quiltfolk Magazine (Issue 1: Oregon):
SO HERE IS THE BIG NEWS: I FINISHED ALL 99 BLOCKS!!!!
HAPPY DANCE!!!
Did you get up from your seated positions and dance along with me?!?!
Here are all 99 blocks – the scrappy hexagon rosettes appliqued on to scrap denim:
I had 98 blocks done and I remembered I had to one from scratch to make 99, because I’d lost one while traveling (I learned they did not make a good traveling project), So in the “eleventh hour” I had to pull out my EPP paper and paper piece six little hexagons (lucky I had one spare random hexagon and didn’t have to piece 7!) and sew them into a rosette (ugh).
But now all the blocks a done and I can start sewing the quilt blocks together and get them off the longarn quilter!!!
Back in October 2025, we visited New York City with my sister and her son after attending Country Calling in Ocean City Maryland (see post 2025: Year in Travel, Part 2– October). Our hotel was located across from the plaza from “Ground Zero” and the 9/11 Memorial and Museum.
We were only there two days and had a packed schedule of what the group wanted to see; but one morning I got up early and headed over to the plaza of the 9/11 Memorial area and spent some time at one of the 9/11 Reflecting Pools (“Reflecting Absence” is the official name).
The two pools were created inside the footprints where the original Twin Towers once stood. Here is the one I visited:
It was a very solemn experience.
According to Google AI:
“Reflecting Absence” is the official name of the design for the twin 9/11 reflecting pools located at Ground Zero in Lower Manhattan, New York City. They were designed by architect Michael Arad and landscape architect Peter Walker.The pools are meant to represent “absence made visible”. They symbolize the physical void left by the fallen towers and the emotional emptiness felt after the attacks.Each pool contains massive, multi-tiered waterfalls that are the largest manmade waterfalls in North America. Water cascades 30 feet down the dark granite walls of the basin before dropping another 20 feet into a smaller, central void where it completely disappears from view. The pools are framed by bronze parapets engraved with the names of the 2,983 victims who died in the September 11, 2001 attacks and the February 26, 1993 World Trade Center bombing
It is was so chilling to walk around one of the reflecting pools and look at the names of 9/11 victims. I could think about how the lives of their surviving loved ones have forever changed.
I grew up in New York (Long Island and Upstate) and I’ve spent a lot of time in New York City from my childhood on. I always carry in my heart a deep sorrow that this terrible tragedy occurred in my beloved New York State (it would be a terrible tragedy anywhere it occurred of course).
On a little bit more upbeat note, I didn’t visit the museum itself as I had a brief time to wander on my own before meeting up with the rest of the group, but I did wander about around the outdoor plaza area of Ground Zero. It was a lovely and uplifting area. The day was overcast but here are some of the sights I saw as I wandered around:
“Everyone’s Different and Everyone’s the Same” – that made me smile after my solemn experience viewing one of the Reflecting Pools.
I am so honored to participate in the anthology This is How We Create:Stories About Bringing Ideas to Life by our blogging buddy Dr. Yvette Prior of Priorhouse Books and Priorhouse Writes (Blog).
Image courtesy of Dr. Yvette Prior
The book was released on 09/10/2026 and is available as a Kindle and paperback format on Amazon.com (links at the end of this post):
Screenshot from Amazon.com
I wrote an essay for the anthology on creativity titled “Limits Expand Creativity”, and my quilt Flying Triangles is on the back cover of the book.
Image courtesy of Dr. Yvette Prior
Below is a graphic on the overall themes of the book:
Image courtesy of Dr. Yvette Prior
This book is part of Yvette’s How To series which includes the books that she edited that are also multiple contributor anthologies:
I cannot wait to hold a copy of the book in my hand! I’ve reviewed the various drafts with the excellent collection of essays about creating but there will be something so special to read it as a physical book (though Kindle is awesome too!)
I figured some of you would be interested in seeing the completed quilt since you’ve joined me virtually on the journey to see a new quilter make her first quilt from start to finish as shared in these posts:
Here is the quilt that D completed while J and I mentored her, for her 1 year old great grandson (previously I stated “grandson” but realized its her “great” grandson – her granddaughter’s son) who loves trucks:
We are so proud of her! Soon she will deliver the quilt to her granddaughter’s family! I included an image of the back of the quilt so you could see the cool truck themed quilting patter J used when she did the longarm quilting.
The three of us meet again this Friday to plan our next projects for our weekly meetings, which might be separate or group.
It’s been a busy Labor Day weekend, with several get togethers with friends and various events. One of the events we attended was a neighbor’s 65th birthday party which she had catered and the caterer went ALL OUT on the Charcuterie Board.
She had a Charcuterie Table! As I mentioned in that post Correspondence, Charcuterie, and Cute Roses, I am fascinated/obsessed with Charcuterie Boards. The photos do not capture the overwhelming awesomeness of this Charcuterie Table, and people at the party would have thought me a bit strange if I spent a lot of time trying to get the perfect photo while they were waiting to serve themselves!
The caterer covered a section of my neighbor’s kitchen island with butcher paper then laid out the Charcuterie (which was delicious…at least everything I tried to sample…I think I gave myself a stomach ache…)
Flower Arranging
Over the course of several weeks, I’ve been helping a neighbor friend with creating a flower arrangement to go beneath the welcome sign on an easel to greet wedding guests. The wedding is this upcoming weekend so it was time to get very serious about finishing up the project!
With the help of her visiting sister, we finished up the flower arrangement (that we designed from scratch using the colors of the bride’s bouquet) this weekend. None of us had any background in or experience with flower arranging (especially not for a wedding!) but we were fairly pleased with ourselves!
This project took several trips to 2 different craft stores and lots and lots of auditioning potential layouts on an available table at the craft store.
The wedding will be held in Boulder, CO which is a beautiful mountainous location and we wanted the arrangement to have a “Colorado vibe” look as natural as possible even though we were using artificial foliage.
(The wedding sign looks like the text is backward but that is the back of the sign with the protective film covering it, not to be fully removed until the wedding)
Ready for Dot Painting
Just a little follow up to the post Dot Painting Class – after the fabulous class I don’t want to lose momentum in my potential new craft – dot painting. So this weekend I went to the sale a local craft store was having and picked up a set of the type of acrylic paints our instructor recommended and put myself together a “Dot Painting Kit”:
There we so many colors to choose from at the craft store but I tried to select colors I might actually use. I always have the dot painting tools (like the glass rods you use) from the set I purchased from the instructor.
Now I just need something to paint! I would love for my first solo project to be a rock mandala like the examples below from the Etsy Shop Rock Designs by Amanda.
I’ve already started watching YouTube videos like the one below:
Bourbon Tasting Club
John and a friend he met in our new community started a Bourbon Tasting Club. I am helping them with administrative tasks and this weekend I created these Bourbon Tasting sheets (inspired by examples I found online) for the club.
How this tasting sheet will work:
Each person is issued a Glencairn Whiskey tasting glass and 4 small paper cups of a 1 oz whiskey sample for tasting labeled 1 – 4. The person using the tasting sheet will place their Glencairn glass on the sample number they are tasting and pour the paper cup sample into the tasting glass.
This is to reduce the number of Glencairns needed and the amount of dishes the club would have to clean. Here is an example of a traditional whiskey tasting in which you have a glass for each whiskey sample:
I was planning on catch you all up on my summer travel but I’ve been in the mood to share some crafting and quilting related posts (oh yeah my blog is called “tierneycreates” so I have to pretend…).
In the middle of August I got together again with my quilting buddies J and D to help D complete her first quilt – a lap-sized truck themed quilt for her 1 year old grandson.
Wow – I’ve been quilting for 25 years and I forgot the learning curve with learning how to make quilts. There are a lot of steps to learn!
If you are just joining us and want to see the other related posts here 4 previous posts in order:
How quilts are quilted via a longarm machine (so help a quilter understand why their are specific requirements to prepare a quilt for longarm quilting).
On her own D finished sewing her blocks together (which she began during our session shared in the post Quilter Playdate: Learning to Piece.
(It was fun to see the fabric that J and I helped her select during our Quilt Shop Hop in June become a quilt!)
It was time to measure the quilt in order to piece the back to the correct length and width:
After that was figured out, D pieced the yardage for the backing together, reserving some of the backing yardage for the binding. J then taught her how to cut strips for and then piece together the binding strips:
Sometimes I wonder how on earth did I originally learn what I can now do in my sleep after 25 years of making quilt bindings?
J had her do a 1/8″ stitch around the edge of the entire quilt to protect from block edges separating during longarming:
Then J, who is a professional longarmer, treated us to a “behind the scenes” of how a longarm machine is loaded, programmed (for pre-program stitch patterns), and monitored. Wow it’s a lot of work!
It is pretty physical – we saw J climb under her machine and check adjustments, etc. but first we were fascinated with how the quilt top is zippered onto the machine:
And all the physical work of aligning the quilt top and quilt backing; and adjusting:
J and D had selected a truck quilting pattern for the truck themed quilt! It was fascinating to see how the computerized longarm machine “read” the pattern and progressed with stitching it onto the quilt!
We peeked under the machine frame to see the underside of the stitching on the quilt back – the pattern really shows on the solid color of the backing:
(Watching the entire setting up a quilt to be longarm machine quilted really help me understand why longarm quilters request that your backing is at least 4 inches (some request more) beyond the size of your quilt top.)
At our next together I will see the completed quilt – and see the conclusion to the journey that J (who did most the teaching) and I went on with D! Then the 3 of us will decide what project is next and we might work on the same quilt (or maybe a bag) together during our future Quilter Playdates 🙂
Since in yesterday’s post you saw “crocheted Tierney”, I figured you should in the next post see what Tierney is currently crocheting.
This is an update on my blog post Starting a New Granny Square Blanket and here is where I am at with the 100 flower block blanket I’ve been working on since April 2026.
I’ve made 100 centers in three different yarn colors:
I’ve turned about 40% of those centers into “centers with a second round” (there are 4 rounds in this granny square block total):
I had a third round to go and then a fourth round in order to finish/square out each block and I was getting impatient, so I went ahead and finished all 4 rounds on six blocks to get a better idea of what the blanket will look like:
I have 6 different combinations with the 3 yarns as you can see in the image above. I will stick with these combinations unless I start to run out of yarn. I have 3 back up yarns (1 is the same yarn and the others are different shades of the same colors) that I will bring into the mix if needed. I think to be safe I will make as many full blocks as I can with the centers that have a second round on them; and save the centers with no rounds on them to use if I need the back up yarns.
I guess I could have actually planned, but of well – it will be a surprise to see how many other combinations I need to add to complete all 100 blocks!
And if you are interested in the pattern I am using, I have posted below the instructional video from YouTube:
I had quite the giggle reading my blogging buddy Claire’s post “before the novelty wears off” in which she used Gemini (Google AI) to change herself into crochet/amigurumi.
I was so tickled by her images (which also included her dog turned into amigurumi), I had to do the same with an image I had on my laptop of John and I.
Enjoy my silliness below:
I guess AI left the crochet needle out in the image so we could crochet ourselves some legs – ha!
I also turned the original image into a colored pencil drawing using Gemini; and I think it came out pretty cool (even if you can see every wrinkle on my face highlighted, ha!):
Somewhere in the middle of August, between trips to Canada (see post The World Needs More Canada) I took a Dot Painting class at Pinspiration in Loveland, Colorado with my friend J and her granddaughter P (who is 28).
I was inspired to take the class by this display in J’s amazing quilt studio (see post Project Linus Mini Retreat, Part II) at her window well (basement window):
J and P had taken several Dot Painting classes before and most of the pieces were made by P who has become very adept at Dot Painting!
The class was taught by amazing Lori Wilson of Made for You Creations and the class attendee were painting a small “lazy susan”/turntable. She brought in some examples of her turntables and the class sample:
If you remember how much I LOVE SUNFLOWERS, I loved the sample in the second image!
So first we learned Dot Painting techniques and practiced with the color palette we selected from the available acrylic paints:
But here is my practice sheet (first image) vs. the instructors example (second image):
I was either too heavy handed or too hesitant but I got more comfortable with practice 🙂
Then it was time to put paint on my turntable (a little bit of fear setting in), but the instructor had marked the turntable with chalk markings to guide us.
And then I progressed from this:
To this:
Here are examples of some of the other students work in class including my friends J and P who are the first two images:
In the last image, the student deviated from the sample pattern we followed after making a mistake on one of the rounds and instead created a masterpiece!
It was such a fun class with lots of laughs, special adult beverages, and snacks!
J and I went thrift shopping in Loveland before class with some great finds, and P met us for a yummy dinner at PF Changs before class. A very good afternoon/evening!
The next day after returning home I bought a can of shellac and shellaced my turntable to seal in the paint and protect it.
I did buy one of the inexpensive toolkits the instructor was selling and some blackboard paint (the base layer for whatever you want to dot paint) and I want to try making something on my own someday. I am waiting invest in paints when I am actually ready and I’d like to do a mandala on a rock (and I recently found a book on doing just that at a second hand bookstore!)
As I threatened (ha!) in my previous postThe World Needs More Canada, I’m going to start catching up on sharing my summer travels.
Back in May, which is “pre-summer”, we traveled to Northern California to visit our friends K and M who live outside of Sacramento and went on a road trip to see the John Muir Woods (see my post Visiting the Muir Woods), enjoy some of the Northern California coast, see a quilt show (see my postLoomis Quilt Show): and to do some extensive quilt shop hopping in the Bay Area (my friend K is a quilter and we have very patient husbands, her’s acted as chauffeur to all those shops!).
In this post I thought I’d share some highlights from our quilt shop hop! (And yes, there was some fabric and pattern purchases from this shop hop, but I’ve since filed them all alway, so no photos, sorry
Bay Quilts
Our first stop was Bay Quilts in Richmond, CA, which I’ve been to before – 7 years ago when I visited K and M and their new pup for the first time in Northern California, right before I moved from Bend, Oregon to Colorado to start a new life.
This shop is not a quilt shop (although they carry quilting fabric), they are a general fabric store with a focus on garment making fabrics and some quilting fabrics. Those of you who make clothes would love this place and they have a spectacular garment making fabric selection!
I really like their window displays like the one above!
The fourth and final shop in our shop hops was In Stitches quilt shop in Dixon, CA.
In Stitches
The previous shops were awesome but this one was my favorite of the shop hop. (I don’t remember visiting this shop before so it was a fun new experience.)
What made the shop my favorite was it had a sweet beautiful Golden Retriever in it – a Guide Dogs for the Blind Puppy in training!
We got to pet it, with permission, and a dog always makes a quilt shop a better place!
So that concludes the shop hop, thanks for virtually coming along!
I fell off the “blogging-wagon” again as I’ve been involved with summer travel, most recently it’s been a couple Canadian Provinces in August – Vancouver, British Columbia and Toronto, Ontario. We also had cool train rides from Seattle, WA to Vancouver, BC; and from Buffalo, NY to Toronto, ON.
We just returned from a week in Toronto and I made several trips to Indigo – Canada’s largest bookstore, specifically one at Eaton Centre, where they had this awesome (and so true) display on the wall from the first to second floors:
It’s difficult to read but it lists some of the great Canadian writers, musicians, artists. etc. But all I could see were the words I was definitely feeling: “The World Needs More Canada“.
Yes I am currently having a love affair with Canada (can you tell?). I appreciated being welcomed with open arms by the kind people of Canada even though I am from a neighboring country that is not too popular in the world right now!
This short post is just to wave hi to my blogging buddies. I think I am going to backtrack to May on my pre-summer travels and catch you up on our travels (the tierneycreates Beastie even came along on one of the trips).
For now here is a cool photo of John and I from our travels. He used a photo editing feature which turns the photo into a pen drawing!
So I thought I’d just share something from my blog archives that I came across recently – the story of a very scrappy quilt created by my friend Wendy and a group of 4 boys ages 2 to 8 years during the COVID pandemic. I posted a little bit about this quilt in the Postscript section of my August 12 post Celebrating 25 Years of Quiltingbut I’ve removed it from the Postscript section to share in this post.
I have several new blog readers since 2020 when The Quarantine Quilt Project story was first shared over 5 guest posts by my art quilter friend Wendy Hill.
I think this story to truly ScrapHappy and worth sharing again. Not only did the quilt that came out of this project result in major family “ScrapHappiness” but the journey to complete this quilt brought a lot of happiness to a family struggling with four rambunctious boys stuck at home full time during the COVID quarantine.
Wendy distracted the four boys by working with them to create a scrap quilt for their parents. (And what an amazing and very personal quilt it turned out to be!)
I thought I would share for this month’s ScrapHappy post some highlights, in Wendy’s own words, about this project. The original 5 guest blog posts by Wendy Hill are linked at the end of this post.
The Quarantine Quilt Project
Below are section of text and images from Wendy Hill’s 5 guest posts about this project (All images and works are property of Wendy Hill, and cannot be used without her permission):
This is the story of two neighbors who banded together when the state government ordered a lock down because of the first Global Pandemic in over 100 years.
One day, I sent over a note which read “I have a bit of a crazy idea….”. I sent over a Big Bag of Fabric Scraps with instructions to fill up blank 8 1/2” by 11” pages with fabric pieces. Overlaps of fabric were okay but no gaps. I explained I’d sew the fabrics together to make “quilt blocks”.
The Boys had fun playing with color & texture, and they enjoyed seeing their fabric arrangements get transformed into blocks. As the number of blocks grew, they played with layouts on their floor. We agreed to make enough blocks for a quilt.
(Wendy had permissions from their parents to share images of the 4 boys on line)
Some arrangements were easy to sew together. I could sew pieces into smaller units, then assemble the units into a block. Other arrangements required me to be inventive. Sometimes the seam allowances created gaps, so I had to add fabrics. I added a solid pink to this block. I looked for fabrics that would “go” with fabrics in the arrangement.
Then this happened: The Hand Blocks! I surprised “The Boys” with machine appliquéd fabric hands (from outlines of their hands taken by their parents). I embroidered their name and age on each hand.
Since I refused to do anything more than trim (or square-up) the precious blocks, I had to find another way to unify 65 blocks of all sizes. I sorted the blocks by height, the first bit of “magic”, to layout 8 rows of 8 blocks, saving the extra block for the quilt back.
I’m eager to show off the Quarantine Quilt and The Big Giveaway where “The Boys” and their parents see the quilt for the first time.
Here are the full view photographs of the front and the back. (The quilt, with no sleeve, wiggled a bit being clamped to a bar for the photos.)
Finally the day for the Big Giveaway came. David and I spread out several sheets on our back deck. As we watched the kids scramble around the quilt (while staying 10’ apart), some of us burst into tears while the rest became teary. This project was definitely a good thing.
For the compete story about this “scrappylicious” quilt, see the links below to the series of 5 guest blogger posts written by Wendy for my blog about this extremely “ScrapHappy” project!
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/Publicationspages 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 Workspage.
At the end of July we met in J’s studio (she is my neighbor and I can walk over to her house – I now live in a community of quilters!) to continue to help D, a new quilter, make her first quilt.
This session was laying out the quilt on the design wall! D had pieced all her blocks and it was time to find a layout. I won’t clog up this post with photos of all the different versions we worked through but here is the final version (to my knowledge unless she went home and changed it):
I worked on my EPP project (hand sewing the rest of the rosette hexagon sides together) during our get together:
D was so sweet and had gifted J a brand new ice maker that she bought a couple years ago and never used. J had been wanting an ice maker for her little kitchenette in her studio (for a tour of J’s studio where we are meeting see my post Project Linus Mini Retreat, Part II):
J mentioned she wanted to add some shelves to this area so she could get tea and coffee supplies off the counter, etc. So I decided to call my husband John and see if he would pop over and install some shelves!
And he did!
J later sent me photos of how the area looked after she organized her coffee/tea service:
I am in love with embroidered coasters with cute sayings, my wonderful friend K has gifted me several over the years; and J as a gift for getting John to come over and put up shelves in her studio made me one in a saying I selected.
I choose this one that she already had in her studio:
It was fun select the fabrics and threads and then watch her amazing embroidery machine create it!
I think we are getting together again this Friday so I will get to see D’s first quilt all sewn together!
Here is an update on the English Paper Piecing (EPP) quilt I’ve been working on and off on since 2016.
My late husband, who was also a quilter, helped me make many of the the EPP hexagons for the “rosette” blocks in this quilt and there was a bit of an “emotional curve” to overcome to finish up this quilt.
In my previous update 21 Ready to Applique!, like the title reads, I had 21 more blocks ready to be machine appliquéd (I just couldn’t bring myself to hand applique the blocks as it would have been finished in 2036) to the recycled denim I am using as the background for the 99 blocks (9 by 11 layout) quilt.
I ended up preparing 25 blocks for applique and getting them machine appliqued:
I was quite pleased with myself after quite the bout of procrastination on this quilt (um…started in 2016…)
I trimmed the blocks once appliqued to 6.5 inches x 6.5 inches square and then added them to the other blocks up on the design wall to now have – 90 blocks completed!!!!
Yes I finished up to the 10th row – one more row (the 11th) of 9 blocks to go and then I can start putting the quilt together.
9 more blocks, 9 more blocks, 9 more blocks to go – yay!
I am back dating this post as I’ve been distracted with life and did not post as much as I would have liked to in July. So perhaps you will see more posts for me in August…perhaps 😉
Starting in June, my friend J and I have been helping a new quilter D learn to make her first quilt (for her baby grandson). J, who I think has been quilting since birth, ha, is taking the lead on teaching and I am tagging along and offering occasionally useful advice from my 25 years of quilting experience.
It all began with taking D on her first quilt shop hop (see post Taking a New Quilter on Her First “Shop Hop”) where she learned to select fabrics for a quilt and get yardage cut; then she learned how to rotary cut; and a couple weeks ago she learned how to piece, press/iron, and even chain piece her blocks together.
Here are some photos from that session:
Here is J demonstrating chain piecing (she is working on the same quilt in Christmas fabrics to create examples for D as she progresses):
I love chain piecing and I always laugh when my chain of pieced blocks gets eventually wrapped around my leg/ankle – ha!
It is really cool to be part of seeing a new quilter make her first quilt. I remember when I made my first quilt 25 years ago (I used to think I made it in 1999 but I figured out it was 2000). My first quilt was a traditional “Irish Chain’ pattern, here is a photo I found recently as I was cleaning up old photos:
Weird thing – I no longer have this quilt and I am not sure what I did with it! But I remember taking a nap under it after finishing it and being so pleased!
J showed us this cool little bag that she made for her daughter and granddaughter using a By Annie Pattern and we might get together with D the new quilter and do some bag making after she finishes her first quilt.
D is an experienced seamstress so she is very comfortable with a sewing machine. That has greatly helped her while working on her first quilt.
Hello there, you haven’t heard from me in a while…
This is the tierneycreates Beastie guest blog posting (if you are new to this blog, my story is on this post – I’m A Monster!!! and you can see all my posts at this link: Beastie Adventures).
I told Tierney I would handle putting this post together. She is still trying to finish up that English Paper Piecing (EPP) quilt she is so very tired of…
Well she’s finally got it in order and I will give you a tour!
But first let’s talk about me. Did you know that like Tierney I am a knitter? I like to sit in the chair in the bedroom next to Tierney’s studio and work on my knitting:
So you can imagine my excitement when I discovered Tierney was storing Beastie sized yarn in her studio closet!
That is her mini yarn collection, she also has regular sized yarn.
Oh so I should probably return to the tour of her studio closet…
She stores her fat quarter collection, her yarn for knitting and crochet, precuts…way too many precuts, some of her tote bag collection, the flannel and home decor fabric, her projects in queue; and her Cricut machine and supplies.
Most of the yarn Tierney has in her stash was either found at charity thrift shops or given to her by a friend cleaning out her yarn stash.
So that’s the tour of her finally organized studio closet. I sure hope she makes something with all that stuff…
Oh and more about my life (Tierney’s is so boring)…
My partner John Beastie (if you are new to this blog you can read about him in this post Guest Blog Post: Mail Order Groom) has moved the foosball table and the Skee Ball out of our garage at Beastie Towers and now he has more room in his garage on the first level of the towers.
Yes this post is about random stuff and I am really stretching the alliteration…
Correspondence
During my late teens and into my twenties I had regular pen pals. These pen pals including a friend who was studying in India and she would send me wonderful letters from India; and a friend who was studying abroad in Europe – Italy and the UK. I would get awesome long letters on a regular basis. It was the 1980s and 1990s and e-mailing was not yet a thing (public access to the internet wasn’t even a thing).
Then during the later 1990s into the 2000s and beyond, with e-mail and eventually texting and social media expanding, “snail mail”/postal mail correspondence evaporated from my life except for occasional cards/letters from my friend in Denmark and then Austria.
I missed writing and receiving physical correspondence with different people. It is so wonderful to hold a letter/card in your hand and read it instead of staring at a computer screen.
But over the past couple of years “snail mail” has resurfaced regularly in my life and I love it!
I’ve met a couple people through blogging that I correspond via postal mail with on a fairly regular basis as well as several friends around the US and the world that I’ve known in person. I’ve discovered a community of people who love sending and receiving letters.
I have a friend in Arkansas who is an excellent pen pal with exceptional penmanship (my handwriting is terrible and sometimes I just send typed letters inside a card) who is also very talented at decorating envelopes which makes the card or letter inside even more special.
Here is a recent envelope I received from her (and the dreamy card of reading a book on a train):
The sticker made me laugh – think I want to be a shenanigan enthusiast!:
Another fun envelope by the same friend (enclosed in another envelope with the postal address):
I have a California based pen pal who is an incredibly talented card maker. I’ve dabbled in card making but I am currently trying to use my large stash of purchased/thrifted cards.
Here is one of her amazing cards I was lucky to receive:
I keep correspondence in keepsake boxes and it’s fun to revisit cards and letters!
Charcuterie
I am obsessed with charcuterie boards and I even have a Pinterest board dedicated to charcuterie and I even bought the book The Art of the Board by Olivia Carney:
I’m still learning how to put together a good charcuterie board but I jump on any opportunity or excuse to make one. Recently I had a neighbor (who is a vegetarian) over to lunch and made with with my homemade hummus:
I know, I know, it’s not all on the same board and I am using little bowls which is probably cheating, but I am working on improving my “charcuterie-ing’ – ha! I’d like to get to the point of creating sunflower cheese boards like those pictured in the screen shot above of my Pinterest board.
Cute Roses
Ending this post of random stuff with an update from the July 12th post Agriculture Report: An Evolving Garden. Our roses in pots are now blooming big time. Here is an example of one of the pots which contains cute pink roses:
Canada: 
United States: 
United Kingdom: 
Germany: 
France: 
Italy: 
Spain: 
Netherlands: 
Poland: 
Belgium: 
Sweden: 
Australia: 
Japan: 
Mexico: 
Brazil: 
India: 
