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".
If you read Monday’s post Zip Zip Zippers!, you saw that I now have a lot of zippers for bag making thanks to my generous friend Wendy.
Well I used one of those zippers to make another bag from a pattern by The Netherlands based designer s.o.t.a.k. handmade – Boxy Tool Pouch.
The pattern comes in three sizes and I made the medium sized one:
The fabric is a printed in Japan canvas which I bought years ago because it had a schnauzer in the print:
However I accidentally cut out the schnauzer while making the bag! (Don’t tell Mike my Miniature Schnauzer, ha!)
Here are my supplies to make the bag (minus the ribbon tape I discovered I needed for the side tabs later while working through the pattern):
Here is her YouTube video on making the pouch:
Here are some photos from my bag making process:
In the first of the images above you will see that I am pressing on a sleeve board, which I recently bought online after seeing the pattern designer Svetlana Sotak use it in several of her YouTube videos she has on bag making. It’s one of those things I never knew I needed until I got it!
Here are images of my completed boxy tool pouch:
It did not come out perfect but I was pretty pleased. At least it was not a “Misadventure in Bag Making” (see post Misadventures in Bag Making).
So what to do with the completed pouch?
Well tierneycreates Beastie changed from her Winter wear of her sweater, hat and scarf:
To her Spring wear of her t-shirt:
So I needed a place to store her clothes as well as her accessories:
And now her accoutrements are easily accessible on my bookshelf in my studio!
Next post the tierneycreates Beastie will guest blogger post and tell you about her latest accommodations in my studio as well as some other changes (“Mr. Woodworker” has been busy!)
An awesome find I discovered during a recent thrift shopping adventure and immediately put up on my studio wall!
After reading my posts (Misadventures in Bag Making and If at first you don’t succeed…) my wonderful friend Wendy Hill (IG – @wendyquilter) offered to send me some of her HUGE collection of zippers to support my future adventures (or misadventures, ha!) in bag making. I of course took her up on her offer!
So a couple of weeks some “GOOD MAIL” arrived – a bag of zippers in various sizes from Wendy!
So how did Wendy come to have all these zippers in her stash and what had she done with all these zippers in the past? Well she was kind enough send photos and a summary of the story so I could share with you in this post.
“Zipper Mania” by Wendy Hill (edited by tierneycreates)
Around 2007 I wanted to make things with zipper but they too expensive to even buy used at a thrift store considering how many I needed.
So I put out a request for zippers in the Ruralite Magazine (Western USA, Midstate Electric Co-op) and many zippers arrived to my home!
The smallest package I received: 1 zipper
And I received many zippers in the mail which I sorted by color into bags – it looked like a spice bazaar!
I thought of all these zippers as a “material” for my art projects. Here is what I made below.
String piecing using flat zippers
“Autumn Textures” is my favorite. It has been in exhibits.
I did make several quilts with flat zippers between 2008 and 2011)
Coiled Bowls using half zippers
In the photos below are two different bowls- left zip pulls in as decorative elements)
3D Art – Zipper Cones – Sea Anemones
I have more zipper ideas— but I have not followed up on them in a long time.
Postscript
Thanks to Wendy for sharing her story and art related to her donated zipper collection. And thanks to Wendy for sharing some of her collection with me. I am pretty sure there will be some “GOOD MAIL” in her future when I send her a little something I’ve made with one or two of the zippers she sent me.
Next post I will show you the project I just finished using one of the zippers she sent me – another bag – this time a different pattern by s.o.t.a.k. handmade.
If you do not want to listen to the entire podcast, you can catch a snippet of what I had to say on a blurb from the podcast episode on my Instagram feed – @tierneycreates.
image credit: screen capture from IG, from Lisa Woolfork
I have not made baby quilts in many years and now I am making baby quilts back to back (see post Baby Quilt for An Adventure Baby!)
On my studio’s design wall is a colorful baby quilt in progress for a special baby who lives in Portland, Oregon, who has recently joined us on earth (new Earthling!)
As Spring is sort of here (at least it is teasing us in the Denver metro area with periodic snow vs. 60+ degrees F days) I decided not to make a flannel quilt with flannel backing quilt like I did with the previous baby quilt. Instead I searched through my ridiculous collection of jelly rolls and found this colorful jelly roll from Maywood Studios:
In case you are not a quilter, “jelly rolls” are collections of 40 precut 2.5 inch strips that run about 42 – 44 inches long, are color coordinated (usually from the same fabric line) and can be used to make a small to larger quilt (if you add additional fabrics).
For a while, in my earlier quilting days, I was obsessed with jelly rolls and amassed quite the collection. I also had a collection of quilting books with quilt patterns using jelly rolls.
I only have one of those books left from those days – Jelly Roll Quilts: The Perfect Guide to Making the Most of the Latest Strip Rolls by Pam and Nicky Lintott, and used this book for the pattern for the baby quilt.
Besides using a jelly roll to make a quilt which I have not done in years, I made “strata” (sewing strips together to then cut into sections) to create the pattern for the quilt – something I have not done since the early 2000s when I first began quilting.
I felt like I was in my early days of quilting as I pressed each section of strata and it felt kind of nostalgic and sweet!
I have the center of the quilt assembled now and I am going to put a lightweight denim colored fabric as the border and use the extra blocks as cornerstones.
I’ll have some better photos to share after I get it all assembled and quilted.
Not sure what came over me but I somehow quickly finished the recycled denim quilt I shared in the post What’s On The Design Wall, and got it hung on the wall.
Here is the backing I selected for the quilt, I picked it up a couple of week ago at a thrift store:
Like the pattern designer/author of Wise Craft Quilts, Blair Stocker did, I wanted to hand tie the quilt (see cover of book in image below):
It’s been many years (maybe 16 or more?) since I hand tied a quilt – I forgot how meditative and pleasing it was to hand tie the three layers together with a large needle and yarn:
Once the hand tying was complete, I used the same fabric as the backing for the quilt’s binding.
Over the past couple weeks I’ve been working to turn this pile of recycled denim jeans,
into this:
I borrowed from the public library the book by Blair Stocker: Wise Craft Quiltsover and over again, until I finally broke down and bought the book, all because of the quilt on the front cover:
That was several years ago and finally I decided to actually just make the quilt I’ve been love struck over.
The quilt is comprised of 30 blocks (5 x 6) and when fully assembled will tentatively measure 50 inches x 54 inches (1.27 meters x 1.37 meters or 127 cm x 137 cm).
I am going to hand tie the quilt like the author did in her sample, I like the rustic look it gives to this recycled denim quilt.
Here is the first layout on my design wall when I got all the blocks completed:
But I had my partner John take a look at the layout and do some tweaking (since tentatively I am going to hang the completed quilt above our bed) and this is the final layout:
I’ll share an image of the completed quilt in a future post. I am so excited to finally be making this quilt!
Before I get into this post, which is a continuation of my ongoing series, The Library Stack (in which I share my stacks of borrowed books from my local public library), I would like to say thank you to the very talented Mariss @ Fabricationsfor also nominating me for an Outstanding Blogger Award. In the Postscript section of this post I will answer the questions she posed to her nominees.
It’s been a while (November 2020) since I shared my latest “Library Stack” and I thought I would just catch you up on several stacks over the past several months.
And here are the previous library stacks that I have not shared before:
As you can see there appears to be a limited number of general themes of the types books I borrow from the local library – home decor and crafting. These are my fabric subjects for a book browsing over a pot of tea!
You might have noticed that I have The Shopkeeper’s Home by Caroline Rowland in two different stacks – if I really enjoy a home decor or crafting book I just borrow it again and again!
I’ve been reading a lot (well “a lot” for me) of fiction books but those I am reading from my home library (see post Curating a Home Library) or library borrowed audiobooks; and I might share some reviews in a future post. You can follow me on Goodreads@tierneycreates if you’d like to see what I’ve been reading fiction wise and read my reviews.
For how long have you been writing a blog? Since October 2013 – over 7 years
What made you start? Originally it was a vehicle for my soon to be opened (and eventually opened) tierneycreates Etsy shop – I closed the shop after a couple years but kept the blog
Why do you continue to blog? I enjoyed sharing my experiences with others and reading their experiences on their blogs – I get inspired
Have you ever met any of your fellow bloggers face to face? If so, how did it feel? Yes I’ve met the lovely ladies from Gray Barn Designs when they attended a show opening of one of my pieces – see post Visioning Human Rights in the New Millennium, Part I
Do you write regularly? If so, why? I go in spurts – where I write regularly and then take a break, it all depends on my mood
If you’d like to see my other nomination and the questions answered (by my tierneycreates Beastie) check out the post Outstanding Blogger Award (and snow).
Tierney here, writing to you from the “Snowpocalypse” in Colorado, buried under quite a bit of snow.
“It so bad their (snow) plows are getting stuck or tipping on to their side…”
Any of my blogging friends live in Florida or anywhere warm? May I move in with you?
I’ve spent the weekend inside working on a new quilt, which I will share in a future post. For this post I wanted to thanks Helen @crawcraftsbeasties for nominating me for the Outstanding Blogger Award, get the questions answered that come with the nomination, and throw a couple nominations out there myself.
Helen the maker of Beasties, like my tierneycreates Beastie, had her Beasties Paddy and Plunkett answer the questions for her Outstanding Blogger Award nomination and so I thought I would let my tierneycreates Beastie answer the questions for me.
Outstanding (Beastie) Blogger Award
Hello, my name is tierneycreates Beastie and I am a Monster, but the good kind of Monster. I was made by Helen of CrawCrafts Beasties in Dublin, Ireland. You can read my story at I’m A Monster!!!. You can also check out the other posts I’ve had to guest blog on (i.e. when the human Tierney falls off the blogging-wagon and I have to help) in the series of posts: Beastie Adventures.
Right now I am holed up in the house with Tierney during our “Snowpocalypse” in Colorado. I did go outside today to look around and here is what I saw:
Snow, snow and more snow. I had Tierney take a photo of me on the front porch as I nearly froze to death (I kept my dog Mikelet inside as it was way too cold for him):
I think it is appropriate for Tierney to let me handle the questions for the Outstanding (Beastie) Blogger Award nomination since I am sure it is my guest blogger posts on her blog that got her this nomination. Thanks to my maker, Helen @crawcraftsbeasties for recognizing my excellence as a Beastie blogger!
My answers to the questions Helen posed:
Coffee or tea? (Or no hot beverages at all?) TEA OF COURSE, ALWAYS TEA.
Where in the world would you most like to visit, and why? TIERNEY WANTS TO GO TO NEW ZEALAND, BUT I WANT TO GO TO IRELAND AND SEE WHERE I WAS BORN/MADE AGAIN
What is the most delicious meal you’ve ever eaten, and where did you have it? THE PLATE OF SPAGHETTI AND MEATBALLS MADE BY MY FIANCE JOHN BEASTIE (see post Guest Blog Post: Mail Order Groom).
What have you made that you’re most proud of, and why? I AM STILL LEARNING TO SEW ON MY NEW “BEASTNINA” THAT HELEN MADE ME, BUT I THINK TIERNEY IS PRETTY PROUD OF THE QUILT SHE DISCUSSES IN THIS POST – The Lesson and The Equation.
What’s your plan for today? STAY WARM AND NOT GO OUTSIDE AGAIN UNTIL THE SNOW MELTS!
Speaking of staying warm, when Tierney helped me back inside after I nearly froze to death in the blizzard. However when she helped me back to my new home on the storage unit in her studio (more in a future post), she neglected to remove the snow from my shoes!
Luckily I caught her as she was leaving the studio so she could help me remove the snow and I would not get frostbite!
Nominations & Questions
As part of being nominated for the Outstanding Blogger Award, Tierney and I need to nominate some other bloggers for this award and pose some questions to them. Helen @crawcraftsbeasties in her post Outstanding Blogger Award, already nominated a bunch of our mutual blogging buddies such as: Handmade Habit, Tammie Painter, Fabrications,and Quiet Water Craft (and I see that Mariss @Fabrications also nominated some additional mutual blogging buddies), so here are our nominations trying not to overlap:
If you choose to participate, here are a couple of questions for you to answer:
What has blogging added to your life?
Share the link for one of your favorite blog posts that you have written.
If you were stuck in the house for the entire weekend due to a snowstorm, what would you do with your time?
What household chore do you most enjoy, and what do you least enjoy?
What did you learn from surviving 2020?
We’ll close this post with a picture of Mike (big Mike as opposed to Mikelet, the Beastie dog which is a “miniature” Miniature Schnauzer) who actually went out in the Snowpocalypse today and played ball in the backyard, running around in the trench/”racetrack” that human John created for him.
Here he is in a quilt, trying to get warm after being outside.
I was not going to give up, zipper foot issues be darned, I re-attempted making the Devon Pouch by s.o.t.a.k. handmade last night, and made a second one this morning.
This time I kept my dastardly zipper foot tucked away and just used my normal sewing foot.
Here is the first pouch redone with different center fabric:
I was so pleased with it, compared to my first attempt, I gave it its own section in my studio!
Sort of an homage to trying again and not giving up (smile).
This morning I decided to make the second one as my friend Dana had sent me enough supplies to make two:
In the third image above you will see there are trains at the bottom of the pouch. I plan to take this pouch with me when I do one of my “Bucket List” items in the future and take the transcontinental train across Canada (someday when they allow us Americans with cooties back into Canada…).
I am so happy with my two pouches! They are not perfect of course but they are MUCH better than my first attempt!
Oh and thanks to everyone who provided kind comments on the post of my first attempt as well as resources for learning how to use a zipper foot.
My friends Cody and Cici are expecting their first baby. They are two adventurers and world travelers, and many of their adventures involve traveling around the U.S. in their awesome Sprinter van which they customized for travel.
For their wedding gift in 2019 I gave them one of my late husband Terry’s flannel fishing and outdoor adventure themed quilts (see post A Quilt for the Road…) to keep them warm while adventuring in their van.
So I figured their baby is going to need their own flannel blanket for adventures!
Cody and Cici live in the Pacific Northwest and I made a Pacific NW themed outdoor adventure baby quilt from flannel scraps and fat quarters I had in my stash:
I put flannel fish themed fabric on the back as the new baby’s father is an avid flyfisherman.
Here it is all packaged up and ready to be sent off (they have since received it):
In case you are curious I used one of the patterns from the booklet – Three Times the Charm!-7 Quilt Patterns by Me and My Sister Designs Using Precut Charm Packs (2011).
Amazon.com
My friend Judy (who got me into quilting) introduced this book to me years ago at a quilt retreat. It is a great book for quick small quilts made out of charm (5″) square packs, like baby quilts! I modified one of the patterns to make it work for how I wanted to design this quilt.
I pre-washed the quilt after I quilted it. I usually do that for baby quilts so the parents know the quilt is easily machine washable and should not be treated like some “precious thing”. It is not an heirloom – it is a utility quilt meant to be (hopefully) heavily used.
I am hoping the quilt I made them will get lots of use, go on many adventures, and get many washings in the future!
Postscript
A humorous blurb on Mike the Miniature Schnauzer (though it was not immediately humorous at the moment it happened):
Last weekend we had Starbucks for breakfast one morning (my partner John went and picked it up for us). Starbucks gave John the wrong hot beverage for me (a Chai Tea instead of a Green Tea Latte) and he went back to our local Starbucks to exchange it.
While he was doing that I left half my breakfast sandwich on the coffee table to check on something. When I returned my sandwich was missing and a very guilty looking miniature schnauzer was staring at me.
When I exclaimed: “Mike did you eat my sandwich!??!” He immediately put himself in a “time out” in the corner of the room! I laughed so hard I could not be mad and any longer, grabbed my phone and took this photo below.
He stayed in the “time out” for a couple minutes until I summoned him out for a cuddle (his cuteness led to instant forgiveness for stealing 1/2 my sandwich!).
John had some errands to run (he bought a new bike in Fort Collins and had to go pick it up) so he left me unsupervised for an hour at a quilt shop!
Here are some images from my leisurely wander about the shop:
It has been a long time since I wandered around a quilt shop, I cannot begin to tell you how delicious an experience it was! They shop also had a friendly staff and I enjoyed chatting with quilt shop staff.
While wandering I came across a quilt I absolutely wanted to make. The image does not do it justice but it is an awesome relatively simple pattern with a panel in the center:
I could not control myself and bought most of the fabrics (and the panel) as well as the pattern card:
I also bought a couple extra items like a some cool canvas fabric with Edison-style light bulbs; some random Cotton + Steel fabric yardage; a random fat quarter on sale; and a fat quarter set (that I absolutely did not need!).
The Fig Leaf Quilt Shop is also a furniture store! I guess they went with a multipurpose shop concept!
We did more than visit a quilt shop while visiting Fort Collins for the weekend, we also went new bike for John (who is an avid cyclist), visited some of the awesome craft breweries, visited some thrift shops (I love thrifting, see my series of posts Thrift Shop Adventures), and we had some wonderful meals.
One of the most memorable restaurant visits while in Fort Collins was to The Farmhouse at Jessup Farms. I love farm-to-table restaurants and this one was wonderful. In addition to the main restaurant (and farm of course), they also had an onsite brewery, smaller eatery areas, and gift shops.
Here are some photos from the complex and our delicious meal at the main restaurant (which included pork belly on grits which was 1000 times more delicious than it sounds!):
I love the scenery on the drive from Denver to Fort Collins (we took back roads to make it even more scenic), and I will close this post with an image from my passenger seat:
My friend Dana* (@chambersdalix) is always inspiring me to stretch my sewing/craftingskills and try new things. These new things in the past have included such techniques as English Paper Piecing (see post From the Basket – English Paper Piecing), and using fabrics I would usually never select on my own (see post The Tale of Three Tulas, Part I).
*Note – Dana is one of those people who can merely look at an image of a handmade item on Pinterest and figure out how to make it from the image…and then make it perfectly!
So when she talked her daughter, me, and our mutual friend Kathy into working on an Instagram based “bag of the month” project to build our bag making skills I was excited. For February the bag was the Devon Pouch by s.o.t.a.k. handmade. You make the pouch and then post the image to Instagram.
If you go to the hashtag #devonpouch on on Instagram you will see some GORGEOUS versions of the pouch:
I was like: “Wow! I want to make this pouch!”. Sure I have not made very many things with zippers but I can follow a pattern; and the designer has a time lapsed YouTube video of her making the bag so you can see all the steps demonstrated in addition to have the pattern.
So I thought I was safe.
Plus Dana was so sweet and sent me cute fabric from her stash and some zippers to make 2 of the pouches. So what could go wrong….?
Excited to get started, this past Saturday I cut out the pattern pieces, applied the interfacing and prepared to make two pouches:
The elements of a wild Saturday night
I put on some yummy music (my favorite Denver radio station KUVO which is also a streamable Public Radio Station from kuvo.org), opened my laptop to the video of the designer making the pouch, sat down at my sewing machine and got to work.
Ready to sew!
In addition to materials to make the pouch, my friend Dana had also sent me scraps from when she made me a quilt (see post Mind Blowing Mail) and I incorporated some of these scraps into the front zipper pocket for my first pouch that I worked on.
Yummy scraps!
I was feeling very clever.
A couple hours later, I was not feeling so clever.
The written pattern stated to change to a “zipper foot” whenever you were working on the two zippers in the pouch. I found the zipper foot to my Bernina, which I’ve only used once before and I think that was in 2006 in a class when I first bough my Bernina sewing machine.
The pattern told me to switch between my regular foot and my zipper foot. Problem: I am very inexperienced using a zipper foot. Wait let’s just say it plainly: I did not know what the heck I was doing.
I will spare you the full saga, but my seams were off and once multiple seams are off in a pattern you know you are in the middle of a serious freaking sewing misadventure!
Here is my quite ugly version of the finished pouch:
Ugh
Here’s an even better image that might make you suspect I was under the influence of mind altering drugs while sewing (Nope, the bottom of the pouch is NOT supposed to look like that):
Gasp
Please look away if the image above is too grotesque. My version of the pouch does not appear to even be remotely related to the examples of the beautiful pouches on #devonpouch that I shared earlier in this post.
I did post the completed bag to Instagram and people were very kind but I was quite embarrassed over how lopsided and poorly constructed it was (the photo actually does not do justice to the sewing abomination!)
As a bonus, I accidentally stuck myself with pin (yay, that is always so pleasant) during final construction and bled on the back of the bag. I did not catch the spot of blood of course until I pressed/ironed in the blood (is this pouch doomed or what?):
A little of me permanently ironed into the pouch…
At first I decided to just keep the pouch and use it to store the fabric scraps Dana sent me:
Trying to create a purpose for the abomination made
But finally I decided to un-assemble it and salvage the nice zippers that Dana sent me; and reuse the zippers in my next attempt.
So when I feel up to it, I am going to start over again and make my first pouch again, before moving on to the second one. I am going to stay away from the zipper foot this time as I discovered towards the end I could sew the zipper just fine with a standard foot.
Postscript
In more successful crafting news, Mr. Woodworker (my partner John) recently finished a remodel of one of our basement closets to become an entertaining supply storage closet with cabinet and coordinating shelves:
Much more successful crafting
This was the first real cabinetry he’s made. He also made a butcher block style counter top of the cabinet!
Oh and John is going to take the advice several of you left in the comment section of the post Handmade Spools, and make more wooden spools for me to sell on either my Etsy shop (if I ever get it reopened) or a craft fair or something.
This is a follow up to the post – Artists Teaching Students. As I shared in that post, Beaverton School District in Beaverton, Oregon invited me to participate in their Art Literacy Program – Artist Teaching Students, by working with their Art Literacy Program Coordinator, Cathy Lamb, to create a slide deck presentation for kindergarten to eighth grade students (ages 5 – 14).
The slide deck is now posted on the Beaverton School District’s Art Literacy website:
If you scroll down, past the smiling children image to the Artist Teaching Students Online Lessons and click on the arrow next to the text, it will open access to the artists’ lessons
image credit – Beaverton School District
If you scroll down to Tierney Davis Hogan, you will reach my slide deck:
image credit – Beaverton School District
Here is a sample of the presentation via a couple screenshots:
There are many more slides in the actual presentation/slide deck on the Beaverton School District Art Literacy Program website including a slide with my (terrible) 5th Grade school photo!
Here is the link again if you want to check out the full presentation:
You’ll have to see the full presentation if you want to check out awkward 11 year old Tierney (I was years from becoming the babe I became at 19 – 20 years old when I met my late husband Terry while I was in nursing school, ha!).
I have to give most of the credit for the awesome slide deck to the work of the wonderful Beaverton School District Art Literacy Program Coordinator, Cathy Lamb. Cathy and I used Google Sheets to collaborate over the phone to develop the slide deck and Cathy selected most of the quilts/images from my tierneycreates.com site that she thought would fit with the presentation.
I so enjoyed my collaboration with Cathy and how she helped me tailor concepts, such as my overall Artist Statement on my Artist Statement page on tierneycreates.com, and the artist statements for the quilts in the slide deck, into words and concepts that would be meaningful to kids. She had me just talk about how I felt about developing different quilts in plain language and she translated that into text for elementary and middle school students. It was a memorable and poignant conversation.
I hope you get the chance to check out the full presentation on the Beaverton School District Art Literacy website to see Cathy’s amazing work and the results of our collaboration!
I’ve added this to my Textile Adventures page which is a chronological summary of the highlights of my artistic journey to date.
Postscript
After the slide deck was posted, a teacher/advisor at one of the schools (Arts & Communication Magnet Academy, ACMA) in the Beaverton School District reached out to me and invited me to meet with a group of students in the National Art Honors Society (NAHS) via Zoom video call.
So sometime in the near future I will be meeting with students via video to talk about textile art.
Yup. So much for my plans to do daily postings to my blog. I even asked Mike the Miniature Schnauzer, who guest blog posted on Sunday 2/21/21, to fill in like he did in the post Guest Blogger: Obsession with Making Crocheted Dishcloths, but he was busy napping and still seems irritated over some dishcloth-crocheting-while-riding-in-the-car incident… (I have a hashtag I use on Instagram sometimes for posted pictures of Mike: #miniatureschnauzerfirstworldproblems).
Rulers Gone Awry
This is probably not unusual but as a quilter I have a lot of different rulers and templates. I have the standard cutting rulers and then I have special rulers and templates I’ve collected over the years for various projects (or being lured by a demo at a quilt shop into buying a ruler/template I thought I might need someday!).
My organization of these rulers and templates was sort of haphazard and irritating to me. I thought that adding pegboard to my crafting studio would help resolve this – so I consulted with my partner John, aka “Mr. Woodworker” and he figured out a solution.
First he installed a floating shelf he built above where the pegboard was to be placed:
Then he cut the pegboard to fit the area of wall; and painted the pegboard to match the wall:
And then he installed the pegboard. Here is my original set up with the pegboard hooks and pegboard baskets were bought:
At first I tried giving tierneycreates Beastie and her dog Mikelet (see series of post Beastie Adventures) their own little balcony on the pegboard wall but they did not like it.
So I moved her to another area on my studio (she will probably do a guest post in the future to show you her new home and other changes to my studio) and repurposed that “balcony”:
The pegboard has been wonderful to organize my commonly used and miscellaneous rulers. For now I still keep my very large rulers (like my 15″ x 15″ ruler) on my cutting table:
“Mr. Woodworker” is building me a new cutting table in the future which will have slots for my large rulers underneath the cutting surface!
Postscript
My friend Dana was inspired by my new pegboard and recently she had her husband install one in her studio!
At first she was going to have the pegboard painted a neutral color like the color of her studio walls, but then she decided she wanted a pop of color:
I think she did an amazing job organizing her pegboard! Thanks to Dana for sharing images of her new pegboard.
I’ve been blogging for over 7 years and throughout 2021 I am going to sporadically share old posts from the 7+ years of blog posts archives.
I lived in Central Oregon for 14 years (and thought I would live the rest of my life until a big life change occurred in December 2018) and somedays I miss it terribly. Here is a post from February 2018 which honors the beauty of my former home – Bend, Oregon; and the wonderful walks/hikes I used to take with my friend Laurie.
A Beautiful Monday
Originally posted February 7, 2018
I do not work on Mondays and this past Monday I went for a lovely hike with my friend Laurie and her Bernese Mountain Dog, Luna along the Deschutes River Trail off of Farewell Bend Park.
We are having “Sprinter” (Spring-like Winter, yes I totally made that up) in Central Oregon. Monday was in the late 50s to early 60s degrees F (14 – 15 degrees C for my blogging friends outside the US). It was truly like a sunny blue sky Spring day (minus the Spring foliage).
We had a wonderful hike along the Deschutes River. Luna got to play in the river so she really happy and as a bonus for her and the humans, we ran in the puppy/”mini-me” version of Luna – an adorable Bernese Mountain Dog puppy named Willow.
Well, instead of me telling you about the hike, why don’t I just share photos and let the photos speak for themselves!
The Deschutes River Trail and Farewell Bend Park connect you back into the Old Mill District, an outdoor shopping and dining area built around an old lumbar mill, hence the name (www.oldmilldistrict.com/about/history/).
Laurie and I got a kick out of the app-based rental bikes parked at the Old Mill. You sign up and pay for the rental using a smartphone app!
We plan to rent them someday to explore the surrounding area by bike without having to haul our bikes down to the area!
Actually we are planning monthly hikes to explore our town. I have lived in Central Oregon 13 years and there is so much I have not yet explored, or I just want to explore again!
This is Mike the Miniature Schnauzer who lives with the human Tierney.
I am overdue for a haircut so I currently have the constant “bed-head” look
I was reading Tierney’s posts (yes Miniature Schnauzers can read, duh) and I was wondering how she was going to keep up her current practice of daily posting to her blog (since February 11, 2021).
I guess she’s trying to make up for taking a several week break from blogging…
She was having difficulty getting motivated today and I don’t want to break the streak, so I offered to guest blog for today’s post.
Miniature Schnauzers are very confident in their abilities even if they are sorely in need of a haircut
I thought I would combine discussing a crafting project and me (as it is important that I am one of the main features of this post) for this post.
Obsession with Crocheted Cotton Dishcloths
For years Tierney has a huge stash of cotton yarn that a friend gave her over 20 years ago:
A small sampling of the large stash
Well Tierney decided a couple of months ago that it was time to do something with this stash. She needed new dishcloths in the kitchen, so why not crochet them herself out of her old stash of cotton yarn? Additionally it was a great portable project when in the car or waiting around, etc.
She put together a little zippered bag of yarn, crochet needles and supplies:
She’s been taking this bag everywhere with her, especially on car rides, and I am not sure I like this.
Why? Because when she is the car her primary responsibility is to pet and cuddle me while the car is moving.
Instead, I’ve had to cuddle with the yarn:
Sigh, resorting to cuddling with yarn instead of getting the head rubs I need and deserve
Also she has mocked me with the yarn and placed it on my head while crocheting as if I were some live furry yarn holder!
Absolutely humiliating! (and unacceptable)
Finally, I’d had enough and resorted to just cuddling with the dishcloth she was working on to block her progress and make her re-evaluate her priorities!
Choose me – I am more adorable than a dishcloth!!!!
She did laugh and stop crocheting to love on me (how could she have refused?)
She even had me pose for some selfies in the car with her but as you can see I am still a little perturbed that I was ignored for part of the car ride:
I am sure in time I will emotionally heal.
Oh I should probably close this post with an image of what the washcloths look like completed and you will see on the left one actually in action (wet from being used to washed dishes!)
Wait. I think I hear you all saying that you wished another image of me would close this post. Your wish is granted – here I am finishing up the post. Hopefully my human will get her act together for tomorrow’s post.
And to schedule me for a desperately needed haircut!
The Universe never fails to surprise me. Last week I received an inquiry through my website/blog from the Program Coordinator for the Art Literacy Program, Beaverton School District, in Beaverton, Oregon.
image from beaverton.k12.or.us
She invited me to participate in the Beaverton School District’sArtists Teaching Students Program by working with her to develop a slide deck to teach students about my art and becoming an artist.
Here is an excerpt from her original inquiry to me:
I coordinate Art Literacy for the Beaverton School District. Art Literacy is a program that brings artists and art lessons to our students. A few of our artists – Faith Ringgold, Monet, Lois Mailou Jones, Romare Bearden, Picasso, Deborah Butterfield, Michelangelo, Grandma Moses, Vermeer, etc. When schools closed in March, I began writing a new curriculum called Artists Teaching Students. I feature local artists and their work, lives, studios, childhoods, etc. through a slide deck. The slide deck is sent out to all of our elementary and middle school students. I wanted to bring art to our kids during a really hard time.
– Program Coordinator Art Literacy, Beaverton School District
If you look at the Beaverton School District Art Literacy page – Art Literacy Beaverton Schools, and scroll down to the section “Artist Teaching Students Online Lessons” you will see examples of the presentations by other artists, geared towards elementary and middle school students, who have participated in this program.
Last evening I worked with the Program Coordinator to draft up a slide deck for the middle school students and she is adapting that for elementary school students. I will share the link to this slide deck in the future once it is complete if you’d like to see my online program for students.
The Program Coordinator does any amazing job developing these decks in collaboration with featured artists.
I am very honored to be invited to participate in this program.
I smile because although I no longer live in Oregon or Washington State, these states keep reaching out to me in some way, whether it is through the City of Seattle inviting me to have a solo show and purchasing my art for their Portable Works Collection; or an Oregon school district reaching out to participate in their Art Literacy program.
In my 8th year of blogging I have amassed quite the archive of old blog posts. I will occasionally share from my archives (instead of being productive and writing a new post, ha!)
Across the U.S. many have been hit (or are being hit/still being hit) with a terrible Winter Storm; and I know my friends on the “other side on the pond” are dealing with yucky Winter weather also. Well I thought I’d offer a distraction from the cold and pretend like we are all hanging out in warm Cabo San Lucas sipping out beverages of choice at an outdoor cafe on the beach!
So here is a post from March 2020 and if you like put your bathing suit on and get a “special beverage” from the kitchen to sip on while you read it (smile).
Cabo San Lucas in Black and White
In the middle of February, before the reality of global pandemic became something we would be discussing in our daily conversations, my partner and I went on vacation to Cabo San Lucas.
In my next post I will share stories from our “relaxation vacation experiment” but for this post I will just share some of the photos I took in black & white to continue my ongoing series Life in B&W, in which I pretend I am a photographer (smile).
Postscript
If you are feeling like: “Why Tierney is this post over? I am still sipping my special beverage and want more virtual warm tropical vacation time!”, here is another post about my trip with more images to temporarily whisk you away from the cold:
My partner John (“Mr. Woodworker”) has been busy in his workshop. In the next several weeks I will have some new improvements to my studio to show you.
For now I thought I would show you that he has taught himself to make wooden spools, which I can use for my decorative ribbon.
He has a special drill-thingie (I guess I could ask him the official name but what would be the fun in that) which he used to create the top and bottom of each spool:
And he attaches the top and bottom discs to an oak dowel to create the spool.
The spools are around 5.5 to 6 inches in height and I think they add a decorative touch to my studio!
Before I begin on the topic of this post, I wanted to send WARM THOUGHTS out to my blogging buddies in Texas and other parts of the U.S. where a winter storm is hitting hard. A recent post by @Sleepy Beagle will give you some perspective – Day 4 Still Rolling.
Another Paper Pieced Pincushion
Well after making the paper pieced (foundation piecing) pincushion I discussed in the post Paper Pieced Pincushion, I decided to make another pincushion, this time for my friend Dana who had sent me the incredible quilt I shared in my previous post Mind Blowing Mail.
Dana loves fabric by the designer Tula Pink (you can see some of her Tula Pink fabric adventures in my series of posts – Tula Time!, and she even attended a retreat with Tula Pink herself!). I decided to make her a pincushion, as part of a “thank you” package, with some scraps of Tula Pink’s All Stars fabric line I had in my stash.
Instead of canvas for the background, I used recycled denim as I thought it would go nicely with the colors and designs in the Tula Pink fabric.
It was actually easier working with the denim for the paper piecing instead of the heavy weight canvas scraps I had used in the tote bags I made (see post Tote, Tote, Tote Bags ).
Amazing Thrift Shop Find
Oh and speaking of the fabric designer Tula Pink, do you see that fabric underneath the pincushion in the image above? Well it was part of an amazing thrift shop score from a couple weeks ago. I gave Dana a little bit of the huge stash of Tula Pink’s Homemade fabric line fabric I discovered at a thrift shop.
image credit: tulapink.com
All the fabric was in brand new condition!
There was about 12 – 14 yards of fabric in total spread out in three package bundles for $4.99 each and I bought them all.
I cannot believe this find! For now I have the fabric packaged up and put away for a future project:
So as I close this post I just wanted to mention that I know I’ve been posting a lot (well every day) since I returned to blogging, but I have a lot to catch you up on (smile).
A couple weeks ago an amazing surprise came in the mail from my friend Dana – a quilt!
Not just any quilt, but a quilt I’ve been watching her make via her Instagram posts (@chambersdalix) for a couple months – the Nova Star Quilt pattern by Then Came June, using amazing fabrics from Rifle Paper Co.’s Primera Citrus Collection.
Here are some screen shot images from her Instagram posts while she participated in an online quilt-a-long (QAL) for this pattern:
So for many weeks I’d been following this amazing quilt progress on Instagram and little did I know it would be coming to my house someday.
Dana mentioned she was sending me a surprise (I thought it might be fabric scraps from this quilt as I’d been drooling over it) so I knew I was getting a package, but I nearly fainted when it arrived.
Actually I teasingly accused Dana of “attempted murder” since I nearly fainted dead when I opened the box!
Dana also sent me a beautiful handmade card with the quilt!
I hung it in my home office/upstairs guest bedroom so I can look at it every day. Feeling very loved!
We stitch together quilts of meaning to keep us warm and safe, with whatever patches of beauty and utility we have on hand. ― Anne Lamott
I was looking through my old Google photos this morning looking for some photos for a project I’ve been invited to participate on with a school district (I will share more in a later post).
While browsing my old photos on Google (I no longer use Google, I use Amazon Photos for photo storage) I came across photos from December 2011 of the first hat I knitted!
It was a very big deal for me to learn how to knit a hat. My friend Pam in Central Oregon taught me how to knit a hat. I felt like I was a “knitting bad *ss” because I could now make my own hat!
Here are the images I found from 9+ years ago; and you will see I had braces at the time and I had just started growing my locs.
I was so proud of that hat and myself for actually knitting a hat. Eventually I learned to make hats a bit longer for the shape of my head.
Unfortunately the hat got washed and dried in the dryer (long story but it involved not taking the hat out of my pocket when I put a sweatshirt in the wash…) and it FELTED (frown). So that was the end of this hat which had become a tightly felted child hat in the dryer!
But I’ve made 11+ more hats (actually I’ve lost count) since my first hat, for myself and for family and friends. Yes the same pattern – a rolled brim hat.
In case you are interested in this very basic pattern, I did find a similar pattern online on Ravelry: Basic Roll Brim Beanie.
But warning: DO NOT LAUNDER AND PUT IN THE DRYER your completed creation!
I thought in honor of this day, and how far my life has come in a couple of years, I would re-post this Valentine’s Day post from February 14, 2019. This post was also featured, at the end of February 2019, on author Marie Bostwick’s blog: Coping With Grief by Helping Others.
I am in my 8th year of blogging and I have a large catalogue of archived posts and going forward I am going to occasionally share from the archives.
Valentines
A little less than a week ago I began having quite a bit of anxiety over how I was going to face my first Valentine’s Day without my Valentine. In December 2018 my husband Terry suddenly passed away. I’ve been with Terry more than 1/2 my life and we’ve never been apart on Valentine’s Day.
I was anticipating a painful day on February 14th, completely stricken my grief, perhaps not even able to get out of bed.
In the middle of my anticipatory grieving anxiety, I suddenly realized that doing something for others might be the solution to dealing with Valentine’s Day.
For the past 5 weeks I’ve been in a difficult but awesome Spousal Loss Grief Support Group that meets weekly. It suddenly hit me that all the widows and widowers in the grief support group with me were facing the same dilemma of their first Valentine’s Day without their Valentines.
So why don’t I invite them all the be my Valentines?
And that is just what I did.
For My Valentines
For the men in my grief support group:
Terry’s favorite cookies were the Molasses Crinkle Cookies that I loved to make. I’ve done little cooking and no baking since he passed so it was a pretty big thing to open my cookbook and actually bake something.
I made a huge batch of these cookies and it felt good to bake again, so good that I actually experienced a sweet moment of joy as I assembled the ingredients.
I put the cookies in a basket and included little sandwich bags for them to take as many as they wanted home.
For the women in my grief support group:
I gave them each little wallets. If you are new to my blog here is a post about the little wallets I made a zillion of since I first became obsessed with them – “Little Wallet Madness” . If you are not new to my blog then you know all about little wallets and some of you own some of my little wallets you won in my blog anniversary drawings!
For the group facilitator:
I gave her a set of my little heart pillows, as she has been helping us heal our hearts.
I then made “Oregon Healing Hearts” valentines using my circle punch and heart punch from my card marking supplies with Oregon/outdoor themed colored papers:
People had the option of an “Oregon Healing Heart” with a dog in the middle of the heart (as I consider dogs healing) or a plain heart:
Here is the whole set up I surprised them with earlier this week at our weekly Spousal Loss Grief Support Group:
I think it went over pretty well. The facilitator let me present them at the start of our support group meeting.
The men were willing to share their cookies and both the men and women got to take home some cookies if they wanted. There was laughter, smiles and hugs despite the difficult topics we discussed at that support group session.
Feeling at Peace
Today is Valentine’s Day and I feel at peace. I think it is because I stepped outside of myself and my grief and thought of others for a moment.
Day and night wallowing in my grief was not working for me, even if everyone expected and supported it. I had to try something else. That’s where my grief group came in, my unexpected valentines.
Grieving is hard work, maybe the hardest work I’ve ever done. It’s definitely a hobby I don’t recommend for anybody. But, if you’re suddenly find yourself a member of the club that no one ever wants to join, find a grief group. Part of what I have learned from this experience is, don’t try to go it alone.
The purpose of life is not to be happy. It is to be useful, to be honorable, to be compassionate, to have it make some difference that you have lived and lived well.” ― Ralph Waldo Emerson
I mentioned in my post What I Did During My Blogging Vacation, that recently I’d been reading lots of crafting books to include Patchwork Please by Ayumi Takahashi.
I am OBSESSED with the adorable pincushions on the front cover of this book. The pincushions are made from fabric scraps (a plus!) but they are (foundation) PAPER PIECED (a minus).
If you are bad in life and go to the “Underworld” when you die, as your punishment you will be made to do foundation paper piecing all day (so live a good life as that is way too terrible an eternal torture)…
Did I mention I do not like foundation paper piecing?
But I really want to make the pin cushion, so I put my “big girl panties on” and proceeded with the pattern.
I had fun rifling through my modern prints fabric scraps to find some coordinated scraps as well as some interesting selvage pieces for the sides of the pin cushion:
After watching a tutorial on foundation paper piecing, and rewinding like 100 times (okay maybe a little less) to learn every nuance of the torturous technique, I successfully paper pieced the top of the pincushion:
And voila – a pincushion was born!
I used leftover bits of canvas from making tote bags (see post Tote, Tote, Tote Bags) as the background fabric for the top of the pincushion. I loved making the fabric covered button for the pincushion – I think it is adorable!
As much as I wanted to keep it, I decided to send it as a surprise to my friend Wendy (the one who wrote the series of posts last year as a guest blogger on the Quarantine Quilt she made with her neighbors 4 boys ages 2 – 8 – Quarantine Quilts).
She sent me a photo of the pincushion in it’s new home in her sewing room:
tierneycreates 