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".
It’s been a while since I posted about one of my husband John’s woodworking projects.
I set up a website/blog for him for his Mighty Moe Creations – but I never got the posts from my tierneycreates blog on his woodworking transferred over so it is not really a functioning blog yet.
So for now I will continue to share his crafts on my blog 🙂
John was tired of his desk which he bought used like 15 years ago from a neighbor:
He wanted a smaller profile “Mission” style desk and found images like this one on line to inspire him:
With no formal project plans or any instructions, John figured out how to build himself a desk. First he had to learn a new skill – using little dowels for joining the railing on the side pieces of his desk:
He was pretty proud of himself for making it through that which was the most challenging part of the build.
From there he went on to build the rest of the desk:
Then stain and polyurethane it:
And finally to add era/style specific handles to the drawers that he had to special order:
Here is John very happy at his new desk!
Now he plans to build a coordinating station for his printer with an attached 2-drawer file cabinet.
(In case you are wondering what the sign behind John in his bar “Pog Mo Thoin” means, it is Gaelic for “Kiss My Arse” – we picked it up in 2022 while in Ireland. John’s nickname is “Moe” and so he got a kick out of the sign!)
Things have been mighty strange, sad and stressful here in “America-land” and this summer I decided to combat the ugliness I would see in the news (when I could bear to check it) with BEAUTY.
I decided to try to always have a bouquet of flowers on our kitchen table. I’ve continued the habit into the Autumn and plan to take this practice through the Winter and beyond.
I started with pulling flowers this summer from my garden and putting them on the upstairs patio table:
By the way here are our last roses of the season in our rose garden in the front of the house (I had some of them in a bouquet but didn’t photograph it):
Then I moved to purchased flowers each week (or every other week if the bouquet was especially hardy) and here are some of those bouquets:
The bouquets really make my kitchen table happy and add some happiness to our lives!
I got John’s T-Shirt Quilt assembled and I am shipping it off to the long-arm quilter. Not sure if I’ll have it back for Christmas as she is of course backlogged this time of year!
Just a reminder from my previous post on this quilt – I will have red binding to it to frame it and pull in the scrap red flannel I used in the center to make the center T-Shirt fit with the others.
Oh and here is a photo of the basketball themed flannel (John loves basketball and was even playing in an intramural league where he was the oldest guy and the referee nicknamed him “Old School” – ha!) that will be on the back:
I got all 11 rows of 12 sunflower granny squares each, connected vertically. I also began connecting them horizontally.
It seems like I am so close, but so far away from finishing. I have many horizontal rows to single crochet together and then I need to do a border around the whole thing to “square” it/neaten it up.
Then I have all the ends I did not already weave/crochet in to weave in 😦
But I try to focus on far how I have come and how much closer I am to being able to snuggle under my sunflower blanket!
Weather is weird in my part of Colorado and it is at time trying to be Spring, then Summer and then switches back to Fall. To encourage Fall to come to us in full force (bring on 40 degree days!) I made a batch of yummy Pumpkin Cream Cheese Muffins:
I think I’ve posted about these muffins before but here is the link to the recipe by Sally’s Baking Addiction:
The recipe looks tedious because you have to make 1) the streusel topping, 2) the cream cheese filling, and 3) the pumpkin muffin BUT it is totally worth it. I put on some good music and before I knew it I had to components assembled and they were baking the oven.
John was naughty and have two once they cooled down but they were VERY tasty with our coffee/tea!
It feels like I floated far away from a regular quiltmaking practice and I’d like to return to it.
I’d like to always have some quilt, whether traditional or art, in progress on my design wall.
So I am easing back in by making a simple T-shirt quilt for John for Christmas (it’s not a surprise as I wanted him of course to have a say in what T-shirts he gave up for the project!);
I took 17 of his old T-shirts and backed them with interfacing and trimmed them to 12.5 inches by 12.5 inches.
The one in the middle, “Beards Turn Laziness Into Awesomeness” is not actually one of his old T-shirts but a joke T-shirt my friend S found for John while she and I were thrifting.
I am setting the interfaced T-shirt squares with a tartan looking flannel I found a couple years ago at a thrift shop.
I will bind the quilt once it is quilted with red flannel binding to “frame” it/coordinated with the scrappy red flannel I put around the center T-shirt to make it large enough to fit into the design.
Happy to have a quilt in progress up on the design wall!
It should come together quickly so I hope to soon have an update on this quilt!
I love New York City (NYC) and I’ve been there many many many times. This is a continuation of the post Time in Times Squareabout the couple days that my sister, John and my nephew L spent in NYC in October 2025. This post is a little bit about our wander from Soho to Chelsea one day, with most of the time spent in the West Village.
I grew up in Long Island, NY and Albany, NY. I remember when I was 14 years old in the late 1970s taking the train from Long Island to NYC with a high school friend. We were two teens wandering around NYC unsupervised. Perhaps not the safest idea nowadays but it seemed okay (maybe back then).
Because I’ve been to NYC so many times, when I visit, which is usually with my sister who loves NYC also, we like to focus on a specific neighborhood(s) and just enjoy our times like locals. We are very “un-touristy”.
Some Background on NYC and How I’ve Visited Over the Years
If you are not familiar with New York City, it is comprised of five (5) boroughs: Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, The Bronx, and Staten Island. The boroughs are then divided into neighborhoods.
For examples some of the well known neighborhoods in Manhattan are Greenwich Village, Soho, Tribeca, Chinatown, Upper East Side, Central Park, Hell’s Kitchen, Harlem, Meatpacking District, etc.
Image credit: Wikipedia
The challenge with visiting NYC is there is SO MUCH TO DO and SO MUCH TO SEE that you have to narrow your visit to just a specific section to really enjoy it (at least in my opinion). Here are some examples:
Back in 2017 when I attended Quilter’s Take Manhattan (see posts from my blogging category Quilters Take Manhattan), I pretty much only spent time in the Garment District and Central Park area (I spent the most amazing day on my own at the Metropolitan Museum of Art one of the most magical places in the world in my opinion).
When my sister and I attended New York Fashion Week in Manhattan in 2021 we primarily hung out in Soho and accidentally discovered the “Little Paris” micro-neighborhood that we didn’t even know existed (a cultural heritage project and micro neighborhood occupying the stretch of Centre Street between Grand Street and Broome Street – Wikipedia).
So what I am trying to explain in a very long-winded manner is when I visit NYC I focus on a small part of NYC each time I visit.
And that’s what we did in October. We stuck primarily to the Manhattan neighborhoods of West Village, Soho, and Chelsea.
The Tiniest Yarn Shop
While in West Village we discovered what I call the “tiniest yarn shop I’ve ever seen” – West Village Knit & Needle. There maybe smaller ones but was impressively small!
We took the narrow stairs down to the shop in a brownstone’s basement:
There was barely enough room for John, my sister, my nephew and I to maneuver around (they were great sports stopping at bookstores and craft stores whenever I came upon one) but here is a little tour:
The staff was very friendly and one of them was working on an amazing cabled cardigan:
That is some serious cable knitting. I tried to learn to knit cables when we were visiting Ireland in October 2022 in a class taught by Helen of Knit with Helen but I have yet to finish the cabled knitted headband project she gave me to take home!
Helen is the one who knitted the tiny cabled sweater worn by the tierneycreates Beastie:
tierneycreates Beastie with Mattie Beastie (both wearing tiny cable knit sweaters by Helen) and John Beastie in Dublin, October 2022
(By the way we are returning to Dublin in 2026 on our way to visit London for the first time. Aer Lingus flies out of Denver now and we can fly directly, for a reasonable price, to Dublin and then hop on an hour and a half flight to Heathrow. We had such a wonderful time in Ireland 3 years ago we want to stop there again for a couple days before heading to the UK)
I am all over the place in this post, what was I originally blogging about? Oh yes – wandering around the West Village in Manhattan.
We Snuck in Some Thrifting
While wandering around West Village we came upon a charity thrift shop – Housing Works Thrift Shops and just had to peek in.
My sister and I love thrifting (we usually find a thrift shop or two on our sister vacations) and I seem to have corrupted John, who at first appeared to be tortured whenever asked to accompany me into a thrift shop. He now seems to enjoy them and was excited to pop into this thrift shop for a wander.
Yes that’s John in the photo above buying something at the thrift shop.
And a Couple Other Places
We didn’t just torture John to thrift stores and yarn shops, my sister surprised him with a visit to the famous Garber Hardware a family owned and operated hardware store in business since 1884.
John was happy wandering this cool hardware store!
We also visited a couple independent bookstores and this one was my favorite – Three Lives & Co.
I had a wonderful chat with the bookstore staff who told me that surprising a lot of people from Colorado has visited there store recently (what?!?! are a bunch of fellow Coloradans all sneaking over to NYC?!?!). John bought a book as did my nephew but I just bought some postcards and bookmarks, as I need another book in queue to read like I need a hole in the head!
We also ate our way through the neighborhoods we visited picking up little treats, snacks and tastes here and there. There is SO MUCH GOOD FOOD in NYC its difficult to even put into words.
For example while wandering we stopped at a wonderful little tiny sushi counter and got a little sushi roll snack to fortify us for our continuing adventures.
Okay you might be asleep now but that’s the end of this post 🙂
Postscript
I misled you, there is a little bit more to this post.
In this post I mentioned the tierneycreates Beastie (Beastie Adventures). I realized she has not “guest blogger post” for a long time on my blog. She used to be quite active. I used to also have Mike the Miniature Schnauzer (who passed in July 2024) “guest blogger post” quite a bit. I think when he passed I just stopped with the “guest blogger” postings.
But in the future I will be bringing back the tierneycreates Beastie as a guest blogger. She has been primarily hanging out in her “apartment” in my studio and I realize it’s time to take her on some adventures again (I have to give her stuff to blog about!) 🙂
Update on the post 48 Granny Squares Now Connected – I now have 84 sunflower granny squares joined together vertically! I am plugging along 🙂
So 7 out of the 11 rows of 12 granny square each, are done and just 4 more rows (48 granny squares) to go.
Then I am of course going to single crochet them together horizontally and add a single crochet border all the way around to anchor everything. After that I will decide if I want to make a fancy border, etc.
Revisiting a Hat I Started Last Winter
I made 137 sunflower granny squares while riding in cars, planes, trains and sitting at events beginning May 2024. Now that the making of the individual sunflower granny squares is done (and the blanket is finally being assembled) I needed another portable project.
I used a variegated ball of yarn I found thrifting with little idea of what the different colors would be since it was already rolled into a ball and I could only see a little of the color changes!
It was my leap of faith hat!
So on Friday John’s son Z was visiting and we took him to the Denver Film Festival and saw the premiere of the film Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery, starring Danile Craig, I brought my hat and worked on it in the car on the way to the event and at the event before the film showing began (we arrived early to get good seats and had a bit of a wait before the movie started).
Here’s some additional images from the festival including the lovely Chihuly chandelier that hangs in the Ellie Caulkins Opera House where the film was premiering.
The film was really fun and I recommend it when it premieres on Netflix in December.
I was so inspired by your awesome comments on my post 137 Sunflower Granny Squares Completed that I decided to make a big push yesterday to start getting the blanket assembled from a year’s+ of granny squares made while on the road (as a passenger of course, it’s difficult to crochet while driving, ha!).
“Fantastic! A truly graphic representation of the miles spent on the road”
“All those little squares of sunshine!”
“It will be so beautiful to sleep in a field of flowers!”
“Miles of travel and happy memories, a field of flowers to keep you warm.”
“A certain amount of serendipity seems to fit in with the carefree sunflower theme.”
I searched YouTube for the best method to put them together and decided to go with single crochet. I looked at a bunch of videos and went with this simple one:
So here are 48 of the blocks joined into 4 rows and laid upon the “Design Carpet”.
I have 137 as I mentioned in the previous post on this project, and I am thinking instead of using 120 for a 10 by 12 block layout, I should use 132 for a 11 by 12 block layout.
In case you are curious of what my plan is, first I am crocheting vertical rows and once all those are together, then I was connect the horizontal rows with single crochet. So it will be a bit unwieldy until that part but it will make less ends to weave in.
It was actually very relaxing once I got my rhythm to join the granny squares together. While joining them I fell into some sort of strange YouTube rabbit hole and ended up binge watching Barry Manilow performance videos.
Okay so I shared a little about this back in 2016 in this post Shameless “Thrifting” (wow I have been blogging so long) but when I was 12 or so I was OBSESSED with Barry Manilow.
While other kids of my demographic were obsessed with the Jackson 5/Michael Jackson, I was totally in love with Barry Manilow. I remember having a giant poster of him in my room (not sure where I got it) and my father walking into my room and being appalled (my parents were more traditional R&B and Jazz music people).
So I remember when I was around 12, Barry Manilow had his first TV special. It was like 1977 and there were no VCR, TiVo, etc. recording options and most things were not replayed from live telecasts. My parents made my sister (my brother wasn’t born yet) and I go to a party with them on the night on the Barry Manilow Special.
I had a complete meltdown and thought my world was ending because I had to miss the Barry Manilow Special. My parents were not understanding and I was made to go to the party.
(Note this is not me but image from web)
While working on the blanket last evening and falling into the “Barry Manilow Rabbit Hole”, I did search YouTube for any videos/clips from that special I missed back in 1977 (which Barry Manilow ended up winning at Grammy for so it must have been good!) and I found a couple but could not find the full special. That would have been fun to sit back all these years later and finally watch it.
My musical tastes have changed quite a bit over the years but whenever I hear Barry Manilow I get nostalgic for that innocence of a 12 year old girl who thought his songs were all that love and relationships were about.
Well I am sure that is more about me than you wanted to know but occasionally we overshare while blogging, ha!
The other night John and I decided to try something different in the evening.
We both have miniatures to assemble – he has a miniature wooden antique car 3D puzzle to assemble, and I have a miniature bookshop that my stepson bought me as a gift to assemble.
So after dinner we went to my studio and sat at my studio table with the Denver Nuggets basketball game on and perhaps a whiskey (sometimes you need a “crafting cocktail”) and got to crafting for the evening!
Here is John working on his project (which had like a million pieces, ha!):
And here I am with mine:
Luckily we had our new glue gun we found at Costco as we had several incidents where tiny pieces broke as were were trying to connect them.
The Glue Gun saved our sanity!
It was a pretty fun evening, I think we crafted for like 4 hours. We are going to do this on a regular basis during the late Fall and Winter season.
I don’t seem to be able to control my attraction to fabric scraps – various little bits of tasty fabrics. I’ve culled/curated my collection over the years and have donated the scraps I’ll never use to the charity thrift shops to sale in bundles.
I tell myself that I must use up what I have before I pick up more scraps, but new fabric scraps keep finding their way into my life.
I was doing pretty well controlling my obsession until we went on a day trip to Fort Collins, CO last week and stopped at the relatively new retail location of Pink Door Fabrics in Frederick, Colorado on the way to Fort Collins.
And they had toward the back of the store a SPINNING BIN OF FABRIC SCRAPS!!!
They had organized the fabric scraps (which were fat quarter to nearly half yard sized scraps!) by color and/or fabric line. The spinning bin was some type of industrial organization bin that was repurposed into a fabric scrap bin.
They had a “fill a bag” for a flat rate set up and I filled…two bags.
I started out filling only one bag but the staff was so friendly and got a kick out of how excited I was about their spinning fabric scrap bin and one staff member decided to go out to the Pink Door Fabrics Warehouse behind the shop and see if there were scraps for me to choose from.
She brought back this plastic tub of scraps:
So I ended up filling two bags. Very full. They even let me have fabric overflowing the bag. (I am pretty sure they were happy to get rid of the scraps).
I know I should show you my haul but I forgot to photograph it before I put it away in my already ridiculous collection of fat quarters and fabrics scraps.
If you’d like a little tour of the quilt shop here are some additional photos:
Pink Door Fabrics has an amazing collection of well curated fabrics with a focus on modern quilting style fabric lines such as Ruby Star, Tula Pink, AGF Studio, Riley Blake, Alison Glass, Tilda Fabrics, Anna Maria, Tara Faughnan, Moda, etc.
They also have a nice little seating area in case you have someone with you that doesn’t want to wander the fabric stacks – ha! (hint John)
I really loved this quilt they had displayed:
Postscript
After the “spinning scrap bin” incident, we headed on to spend the day in Fort Collins (which is about 1.5 hours from our home) and found a delicious Ramen place we never tried before (we love Ramen); as well as stopped at one of our favorite Fort Collins breweries – New Belgium Brewery and had a tasty sampler!
Well they are at it again and they keep winning Halloween in my opinion!
The other day on my neighborhood walk I took another series of photos of the annual Halloween display of one of the area houses. Posting again for those of you who love Halloween (of course my photos do not do their display justice, it is so awesome and epic in person!)
Postscript
Bonus photo: John loves Maple Leaf cookies from Trader Joes and they finally had them in stock at our Trader Joes. He posed with this cookies in the pumpkin display in front of the store!
After lots of time on the road during various roadtrips in 2025 I’ve exhausted my supply of “center flower” yarn for the Sunflower themed Granny Square blanket I’ve been crocheting while riding in the car.
So it is time to make it into a blanket!
There are a total of 137 granny squares!
This might seem tedious but I counted and photographed how many of each different mix of yarns squares (21 different versions of the square*) of the 137 squares I made (the count of each type in lower right hand corner):
I’m not using all 137 squares in the blanket. I figure I will make a 10 square by 12 square blanket and use 120 squares and save the rest (17) for a couple small projects like a pillow or something like that.
I decided not to use the “design carpet” to lay out the sunflower granny squares. Instead I separated them into VERY ARBITRARY “light” and “dark” piles, trying to make the piles as even as possible:
So I’ll post my progress as I crochet together alternating “light” and “dark” squares to make the blanket!
*(Why so many different versions for the granny squares? Well I was using up miscellaneous yarn I had thrifted over the years)
It been countless years since I visited Port Townsend, WA…not since when I lived in Seattle, WA for 8 years and would stop there on the way to British Columbia (which we visited as much as possible)…. Port Townsend is a city on the Quimper Peninsula in Washington state known for its beautiful waterfront and natural scenery at the northeast tip of the Olympic Peninsula; and many historic Victorian buildings remaining from its late 19th-century heyday. It is also a hub for numerous annual cultural events, and a maritime center for independent boatbuilders and related industries and crafts. (Wikipedia).
John and I had a delicious lunch at thr Sirens Pub with a wonderful view of the water:
Then we wandering around the shops in downtown Port Townsend including a fiber shop – Diva Yarn & Trim.
A shop with yarn and fabric is always my kind of place.
While walking in the waterfront area we came across two ladies playing guitar and accordion and singing in French. Their music was so wonderful I tried to find their tip jar to give them a little something but they said they did it just for fun not for any money.
They didn’t mind if I filmed the area with their music in the background:
It was a glorious day in Port Townsend, WA!
Postscript
When we first arrived in Washington State via the Seattle (SeaTac) airport, we stayed in Olympia and the next day drove to Port Townsend and then on to Port Angeles to take the ferry to Victoria, BC. On our way to Port Townsend, we stopped in Shelton, WA and visited one of my favorite Washington state quilt shops – Annie’s Quilt Shoppe.
I bought some very reasonably priced fabric to support this awesome shop (that perhaps I did not. need, ha!).
I always get a kick out of this sign in front of the shop that some of the quilters reading this post might have seen in front of other quilting shops:
Now that my year of travel has slowed down (only one more trip to go this year), I am easing back into my studio to make things. (Perhaps someday there will be more “tierneycreates” posts vs. “tierneytravels” posts in the future…)
John and I are obsessed with U.S. National Parks and ended up visiting 6 this year (I’ve only blogged about 2 of them so far as I am quite behind in my travel posts – Badlands and Wind Cave National Parks) and when we redecorated our basement guest room we did it in a Colorado and National Parks theme (see post “Pieces of Colorado” Now Hung in the Guest Room):
What you can barely see in the image above is some of the art on the wall are framed pages from a book I found thrifting for $2.99 (retails for $34.99) of 63 of the iconic Anderson Design Group National Park Posters on individual pages:
Image Credit: Anderson Design Store website
I took this amazing 9″ x 12″ book apart and framed 16 or so of the 9″ x 12″ to use as art in the basement and in the stairwell leading to the basement.
So when during our trip to South Dakota we stopped at a quilt shop in downtown Rapid City, SD (see post A Wander About Downtown Rapid City, SD) and they had the Riley Blake Designs National Parks Poster Panel featuring miniature U.S. National Park Posters by the Anderson Design Group, I had to have it!
Image Credit: Riley Black Designs website
Instead of letting it gather dust in my “impulsive-purchase-quilt-panel-collection”, I decided this week to actually make it into a wallhanging and hang it 🙂
I decided to use strategically placed fusible web tape between the panel and the batting, and the batting and the backing to hold it all together for quilting instead of thread basting or pinning it:
Here the wallhanging hung in the stairwell from the 1st floor to the basement:
Here is a close up of some of the miniature U.S. National Park posters on the panel which mirror some of the posters I hung on the wall from the Anderson Group book I thrifted:
My machine quilting on this quilt was very simple – I followed the lines in the panel and outlined the individual states, the miniature posters, and the longitude and latitude lines. The finished wallhanging measures 33″ tall by 43″ wide.
Of course now the MANY other panels in my “impulsive-purchase-quilt-panel-collection” are envious of the National Parks Map panel as they would also love to be completed wallhangings and hung (or made into quilts). 😉
Thought I share a little on a recent travel before I work on catching up on my blogging buddies’ posts.
My epic year of travel continues and just a couple of days ago I was in New York City for a couple days with John, my sister and nephew. We had a blast during our 2 day trip to NYC and I will blog more about the trip at a later date, but here are some photos from our couple hours in Times Square.
I hadn’t been to Times Square in like 10 years. We used to stop there every we went to NYC but then it lost it’s excitement for me (super “tourist trap” to the max) and on my annual (or biannual) trips to NYC with my sister in the past we would skip it and just visit places like Brooklyn (see post Springtime in Brooklyn).
We spent about 3 hours in Times Square including our time to eat and I think I am now good for another 10 years – ha! (It is so many people and non stop overwhelming visual stimulation).
We visited John’s cousin in Bremerton, Washington in July 2025 and made an impromptu decision to take the ferry from Port Angeles, Washington to Victoria, British Columbia (Canada) for an overnight adventure.
The ferry ride was smooth until we crossed into Canadian waters and then it got pretty rough but luckily I had taken Dramamine for sea sickness and was okay.
I was pretty happy when the ferry docked after the 90 minute trip from Port Angeles to Victoria!
We stayed at the lovely Chateau Victoria Hotel and wandered around the Inner Harbour area/Downtown Victoria during our 24 hours in Victoria before taking the ferry the next day back to Port Angeles.
They had an amazing tea shop attached with lots of beautiful tea pots and tempting teas. I did bring some tea home!
We went to several “tourist trap” shops and John enjoyed having his photo taken in with various shop mascots:
We spent a couple hours at one of my favorite museums in the world the Royal BC Museum (where many years ago when I lived in Seattle and would visit Victoria, BC I saw the most amazing Leonardo DaVinci exhibit).
Back in June I experimented with making a golf shoe bag using a modified version of the pattern I use to make drawstring bags (see June 30, 2025 post Experimenting with Making Golf Shoe Bags). The bags are lined with vinyl so that if grassy/dirty golf shoes are put in it the bag can easily be wiped out.
I made one for John and one for his cousin M who we went to visit in Washington State in July:
I wanted to make another golf shoe bag for another golfer in my life but this time I wanted to add a pocket to the front of the bag. So I used a front zipper pocket pattern from Noodlehead’s pattern for the Firefly Tote (see December 28, 2021 post Adventures in Bag Making: Firefly Tote is done!).
I forgot to take a photo of the bag back in my studio and here I am balancing it on my lap as we are driving to meet up with my golfer friend to give him his gift.
My golfer friend happens to be in the financial services industry so as a little bit of humor I added a money fabric liner to his zippered pocket:
He loved the bag and said previously he was just throwing his grassy golf shoes into the back of his car when he was done golfing. Now they can be in a nice vinyl lined bag!
Recently my friend K reacquainted me with an old quilt with emotional ties I had forgotten about.
I’ve been quilting since the late 1990s and I’ve made a lot of quilts, most of which I’ve given as gifts or in some cases sold, so you kind of forget some of the quilts after a while; and sometimes the emotional connection you had with a particular quilt.
One of the quilts I had forgotten about was a blue and white quilt that I made from a pattern many years ago (10 years ago?) and ended up sellling (for basically the cost of the fabric and the professional longarm quilting) to a quilting friend L who fell in love with it.
Last week my friend K was staying at L’s home in New Hampshire and ended up sleeping under that blue and white quilt I made (and had forgotten about) and sent me photos:
It was nice to see the quilt but I forgot the emotional connection I had with the quilt until K mentioned that the quilt had a spectacular backing.
I gasped as I suddenly remembered the backing I put on the quilt and asked K to send me a picture of the back of the quilt so I could see it again:
On the back of what one might consider a “quiet quilt” (blues and white in a traditional setting) I put what one might consider a “very bold” fabric!
At the time I made the quilt I thought the front of it was “boring” and decided to spice it up with a colorful backing fabric I found in my stash.
That fabric was from my friend Tracy who suddenly died a couple years after giving me the fabric which she found at a thrift shop.
I met Tracy at work back in the 1990s when I lived in Houston, Texas and we stayed friends for many years, occasionally losing touch but finding each other again. I started quilting while livingi in Seattle, Washington and she, unknown to me at the time, had also started quilting! When we reconnected a couple years after each of us becoming quilters we were very elated that we now shared the same hobby.
I however have some intense regret related to Tracy. Over a year before she died we were supposed to go to the International Quilt Festival in Houston in October, and I cancelled and said it would work better for us to go next year.
There was no next year quilt festival for Tracy as she passed away the following year before the festival. I had missed a glorious opportunity and memory with my friend because I delayed going to the event with her a year. I also missed an opportunity to spend time with her before she left this existence.
Perhaps this is why many years ago I decided to sell the quilt to L. L loved the quilt and the quilt was just making me sad, reminding me of Tracy’s passing and my regret on not going to the quilt festival with her.
Now of course I wish I’d kept the quilt and honored Tracy’s memory by still having a quilt a made with a backing she gave me.
However, all I can do now is be grateful that is being used and not in a closet somewhere tucked away; to remember not to wait to do special things with special people; and tomorrow is not promised.
After seeing the Toward 2050 exhibit and walking the labyrinth at the Desert Botanical Garden in Phoenix, Arizona in February, I knew I wanted to contribute to the project in someway and ended up volunteering to sew one of the “blankets” (what they were calling the quilts, ouch) to be made from 30 of the flags that people around the world created inspired by their feelings on Climate Change.
So I turned this pile of 30 – 9 1/2″ by 9 1/2″ flags:
Into this quilt top per the detailed instructions provided:
It was challenging as the flags were really more individual art pieces and likely not originally created to be incorporated together into one piece*.
I ran into issues of trying to sew through very thick materials; and dealing with flag original construction and design issues such as sections within a flag not fully stitched together.
*I am not sure if the original participants knew their flags would become “quilt blocks”:
But I got it done(and so appreciated sharing my challenges with my friend W who was also working on piecing a different set of 30 flags) and will mail to the Toward 2050 project team tomorrow for them to send it on to their volunteer longarm machine quilters to finish.
Well he was in heaven in the rose garden in front of Victoria’s Parliamentary building!
Here are some photos of the other beautiful roses/rose bushes that we spent time admiring:
As it was July it appeared everything was in bloom in this glorious Pacific Northwest City!
In addition to roses there were flowers all about the Inner Harbour section of Victoria, BC.
It’s such a beautiful place and I was so happy to return again after so many years. John and I now plan to visit every summer, he fell in love with Victoria (maybe it was the roses…).
Well we’ve finished up the endless saga of our Wyoming, South Dakota, and Nebraska it’s time for a craft shop post – this time in Victoria, British Columbia!
More on this Pacific NW adventure in future posts, but for now let’s focus on the fabulous time I had exploring the Button & Needlework Boutique in the Downtown/Inner Harbour section of Victoria, BC.
John and I were wandering after dropping off our bags at the hotel and we turn the corner and see this:
Skipping around in my Summer of Travel stories to share a recent story (this past weekend).
I recently returned from a 3-day weekend in Portland, Oregon. I went with John to visit his son Z and decided to take a craft class in Portland one day so John and Z could have time on their own one day.
At first I looked into classes on crafts I already know – quilting, bag making or knitting/crochet. I couldn’t find any class that interested me on the weekend I was in Portland.
Then a crazy idea came to mind: I’ve been interested in learning to paint using Watercolors (not sure why I am so drawn to Watercolor but I am) – why not find a Watercolor Painting class?
I found two options at Wildcraft Studio School: 1) Introduction to Watercolor Painting; or 2) Color Theory: Watercolor.
I am very interested in Color Theory (see my post about my Colour Wheel Quilt – The Colour Wheel Quilt is Done) and the class said it was for beginner and experienced Watercolor artists.
So I selected this class. I figure I can watch YouTube videos to learn Watercolor painting techniques but I’d really like some hands on instruction with how to mix colors using the Watercolor paint medium.
Arriving to class this past Saturday I was greeted with a lovely courtyard in front of the studio as you enter (I ended up enjoying my lunch in that courtyard during our break):
I felt very intimidated as I sat down at my table – what was I thinking dabbling in Watercolors?!?!?
The class was comprised of women in my age group, one young woman and one man. They were a friendly and engaging group and I really enjoyed chatting with the two women who sat at the table with me.
The class was taught by the Seattle-based Watercolor Artist Robin Bundi who was kind, patient and an excellent instructor!
The class was focused on understanding color and color mixing and our primary class exercise involved creating color wheel mixing samples using different sets of primary color palettes.
The instructor had many amazing examples of how just a couple primary colors (some version of red, blue, yellow) can make an endless assortment of colors, tints and shades.
Here’s an amazing sample piece created by the instructor demonstrating how you can just use two colors (Ultramarine and Brick) to create a palette:
So I got to work and finally (sort of) got the hang of mixing colors.
And at the end of the class she had us each paint a small piece with basic shapes/improvisational design, using what we learned of color mixing as well as color washing techniques.
Here is the piece I made (yes, not ready for a solo exhibit in Watercolors yet, ha!) but I forgot to erase/lighten the original pencil lines I used (and then ignored) when sketching the piece.
I joked with the instructor when she critiqued the piece that it looks like I took some mind altering substances before I began painting – ha!
Now when I catch up on my sewing projects I am going to work through an Introduction to Watercolor book I found a couple months ago thrifting as well as watch YouTube videos on painting techniques.
I think my goal is to be able to make Watercolor cards to send to friends (for them to recycle – ha!)
Well I will close out my serious of posts about our ambitious roadtrip in July 2025 to Wyoming, South Dakota, and Nebraska with a post about where the roadtrip adventures began – in Cheyenne Wyoming.
Before we headed to Frontier Days in Cheyenne, we wandered around downtown Cheyenne, stopping at the famous The Wrangler western store.
And being met with the largest cowboy boot selection I’ve ever seen:
John was a sport and tried on some boots which went so nicely with his shorts (not! ha!):
No sorry, as fetching as they looked, he did not leave the store with them.
Back outside there was a giant cowboy boot on display painted with western scenes:
To give perspective of how big the boot is here I am standing next to it and I am around 5′ 11″:
Then we headed to Frontier Days and ate our way through the Fairgrounds, ha!
It all began with a corn dog (I think I literally squealed with delight when I saw the corn dog booth as I hadn’t had one in like 8 years):
Then we found a booth with VERY amazing brisket birria tacos! They were so good we shared a second serving.
We of course had to get some lemonade to share in a commemorative cup when this booth, shaped like a lemon lured us over:
Yes we were on the verge of needing to roll ourselves out of the fairgrounds if we kept going, so we just admired the rest of the food from afar. Here a little gallery of some of the POOR NUTRITIONAL CHOICES we could have kept making 😉 :
Some of the foods sound like serious indigestion but they are probably fun to eat…
Fair Food makes me laugh – there is definitely some sort of competition to serve the craziest food that you’d never eat in your daily life. And of course they had things like deep fried Twinkies and deep fried Oreos. I am curious about the Pickle Pizza – I wish I could have sampled just a little of it to satisfy my curiosity!
After filling our tummies we headed to see the some of the annual Cheyenne Frontier Days Rodeo. I was good for about an hour and that was enough rodeo for me, I am not a big rodeo person. I can’t help myself I always start feeling bad for the animals like the little calves getting roped and tied. I know, I know, I’d never make it on the American Frontier! The bull riding was fun to watch for a while but then I started thinking about the bulls who didn’t want humans on their backs.
When I lived in Houston, Texas in the late 1980s to late 1990s, we used to go to the Houston Livestock and Rodeo once a year. I mainly went to see the livestock and I enjoyed seeing all the 4-H farm kids showing off their animals.
Then one year we went I absolutely fell in love with the cutest cow with fluffy ears. I was obsessed with this cow. I wanted to move to a farm and have a cow like that.
What a vaguely remember the cow looked like (image credit Depositphotos)
My late husband Terry said to me: “Yes we could adopt it and name it ‘Hamburger'”.
Oh no I realized – my sweet fluffy eared new friend was going to become a yummy burger someday! After that I stopped wanting to go to the livestock show – ha!
(I was a Vegetarian for a while when I was in my late teens/early 20s but bacon and the smell of burgers on the grill made lured me back to being an Omnivore…)
Oh so back to the Cheyenne Frontiers Day Rodeo – there was one moment during my brief time at the rodeo that captured by heart. The competition opened with a Native American/Lakota horse blessing by Mo-Brings-Plenty, a member of the Lakota Tribe who was also the Grand Marshall for the 2025 Cheyenne Frontier Days.
I took a little video of the end of the presentation as I was too enthralled at first to think to film it, but here is what I have:
I wish I had captured the whole thing.
Well that continues this series of posts. If you are just joining us, here are the other posts about our travels in Wyoming, South Dakota and Nebraska.
While on our ambitious Wyoming, South Dakota, Nebraska road trip in July 2025, we stopped at the iconic Wall Drug.
From Tripadvisor.com:
Once a humble small-town drugstore that offered free iced water to weary travelers, Wall Drug is now a buzzing 76,000-square-foot roadside attraction that draws travelers to this small city in South Dakota. Here, you can shop for Western-themed apparel at the shopping mall, snap a photo with an 80-foot brontosaurus in the kids’ area, and grab a 5-cent coffee and one of the best donuts in the U.S. at the restaurant. And don’t leave without getting the iconic Wall Drug bumper sticker—it’s free! Wall Drug is a great stop along a tour of the Badlands National Park. – Tripadvisor Some of our stores and the café may close earlier than our main store.
We ended up spending a couple hours wandering around and eating at one of their restaurants (and we did get a Wall Drug free bumper sticker for John’s toolbox).
John loves to sit for photos on benches with characters and here is John posing on a couple of their benches with their Western themed characters:
I first heard about Wall Drug in 2020 when I saw the movie Nomadland and the main character Fern (played brilliantly by Frances McDormand) stops along her travels to work at Wall Drug.
This movie is really tender to my heart and deeply touched me when I saw it in 2020. The main character Fern is a recent widow who has also lost her job when the town’s factory closes. She deals with her tremendous loss by putting everything in storage and embarking on an epic roadtrip across the US in an old van and exploring nomadic life.
There was a moment before deciding to move from Oregon to Colorado after my husband died in 2018 that I had considered such a journey. I watched a lot of “living in a van/RV” and “nomadic life” videos as I contemplated this option. It would have been Mike the Miniature Schnauzer and I on the road.
I am nearly done with my stories from our ambitious roadtrip in July, one more to go – Frontier Days in Cheyenne Wyoming. Here are the other posts to date related to our trip:
tierneycreates 