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".
First I want to clarify – this is not a political post but a post about a secret dream of mine being realized – to have a piece of my art shown in New York City.
The art piece, Seeds (2017), inspired by a Mexican proverb, could be considered political as it is a banner from the Women’s March. But let’s put all this aside and let me share this moment with my blogging community, no matter what your political views.
Seeds is showing as part of the exhibit Still They Persistfrom the FemFour at the LMAKgallery on the Lower East Side in Manhattan, New York City from October 17, 2018 – November 3, 2018.
What I did not realize until today, when I discovered it on social media, is that the exhibit had opened in New York City!
I am originally from New York and for me as a native New Yorker (well semi-native, I was actually born in Pittsburgh, PA) it seems that one of the ultimate achievement as an artist would be to show a piece in a major city such as New York City (or Paris, or London, or Tokyo, or Melbourne, etc.).
Although my piece of art is a banner I made for a protest march, I am going to embrace this moment as a realization of a secret dream!
Below is my piece in the center in a promotional photo of the exhibit on the LMAKgallery’s facebook page.
Image credit – LMAKgallery facebook page
Thanks for sharing this moment with me!
Postscript
This is a quick follow-up to the 10/12/18 post Impromptu Quilt Gifting. My colleague’s daughter received the quilt earlier this week and she sent me a picture of her daughter snuggled under the quilt.
The best thing is my colleague stated “The quilt is amazing, she has been sleeping with it since it arrived!” I cannot put into words how happy I am that a quilt I made will keep a child warm and cozy during her ongoing hospitalizations.
I have the makings of an art quilt simmering on the large design wall in the hallway (see yesterday’s post What’s Simmering on the Design Wall), so on one of the smaller design walls I have in my studio, I’ve put up the blocks I made during the Tula Pink All Stars fabric retreat I had with my quilting friends a couple weeks ago:
Yesterday I pulled out my “box of Tula” with fat quarters and scraps from the retreat:
Now that I have the fourteen 12.5 inch x 12.5 inch blocks up on the design wall, I’ve decided I am going to create 36 blocks for a 6 blocks x 6 blocks quilt. My plan is to make 12 blocks of each of the 3 types of blocks I’ve made so far as shown below (all with “fussy cut” centers).
1) Square within a square within a square within a square with:
2) Square within a square within a square with a larger square in the middle:
3) Little boxes: 4 squares within a square block:
The Tula Pink All Stars collection has six creatures in the feature fabric collection:
Racoon
Squirrel
Owl
Bee
Frog
Fancy Bird
Coordinating with the feature fabrics are coordinating stripes, dots and solids.
Here is my original stack of fat quarters before I started making the blocks:
I plan to set the blocks using the various blocks as sashing with some type of cornerstones like the example below:
Image credit: The Martingale Blog
Now that I have a plan on where I am going with the blocks, I am going to start cutting out blocks in preparation for a quilt retreat I am attending the latter part of next week.
If the quilt top works out, I might try my hand at writing a pattern for the quilt and offer it to my readers as a free download of something like that. It is going to be a very colorful quilt!
This post is a continuation of my ongoing series “What’s on the Design Wall”, featuring my latest project up on either one of the small design walls in my studio or the large design wall my hallway.
Before we go any further on the post I need to give you some background to explain the low light and less than stellar photos. In 2016 I decided to embrace “whole house crafting” where I decided to expand my crafting space beyond the little studio in the back of my little house. This included turning part of the only hallway in my house into a large design wall, The only problem is that the hallway is narrow and so I have to take photos at odd angles.
Okay now back to my ramblings about my what is on the design wall…
Art Quilter Play Date – Earlier this year I went to a fabric printing workshop held at the studio of one of the artists in the art quilting group I belong. Here are the 5 pieces I printed.
Quilt Retreat Inspiration and Projects. – Last year during the annual May retreat with my quilting friends, my friend Lisa was working on an old UFO from a machine embroidery class she took but was losing interest in finishing the piece. I offered to take it off her hands.
Her blocks looked like this:
I took them apart and along with the extra fabric end up with a nice package to become a challenge bag (see post Basket of Challenges):
I was rummaging around in my Basket of Challenges the other day and came across this bag. Looking at the fabrics in taupes, browns, golds, creams, and silvers, I realized they might look great with the fabric printed pieces I made earlier this year.
I decided to put everything up on the large design wall, and let them “simmer’ until I decided what type of piece I want to make (most likely some type of improvisational art quilt):
In addition to these fabrics, I put up on the wall this home decor remnant I picked up from Mood Fabrics during a trip to New York City:
I also have the 5 blocks that my friend Lisa did machine embroidery on, to work into the piece:
I am not going to work on designing the piece yet, I am just going to keep the fabric up on the design wall and let it “simmer”!
If you have recently joined us on this blog, the title might be freaking you out right now. You might be thinking: “I thought this was a nice quilting/crafting related blog…is this some type of ghoulish or macabre journal?!?!?”
No, this is a follow up to the 10/10/18 post Mysterious Package, in which I received my 6 year old nephew’s favorite, alas decapitated, bear Marseille for repair:
Well I am happy to report Marseille had his surgery yesterday and he is “recapitated” and all better!
I used a doll needle for the first time, to repair Marseille. This is a very long needle (over 5 inches/2.5 cm). Here is a comparison between a doll needle and a regular needle:
Here is Marseille posing with the needle and the thick thread that I used to put his head back on:
Marseille also had a loose arm so I reinforced the stitches on his arm so he did not suffer any spontaneous amputation of his limb!
Today Marseille flies back to the Eastern Coast of the U.S. to be reunited with my nephew (via the U.S. Postal Service Priority Mail).
I already texted a photo of “recapitated” Marseille to my sister-in-law who shared this with my nephew who is very excited to get his beloved bear back (with a head)!
I must admit, repairing Marseille and working with a doll needle got me interested again in the idea of making “softies” someday. I will put that into my backlog of craft projects I want to work on someday.
Postscript
In addition to repairing Marseille the little teddy bear, I also had to repair Mike the Miniature Schnauzer’s favorite toy “Lamby”.
We do not usually let mike have stuffed/soft toys as he tends to tear them up (his main toys are usually chew-resistant balls). However when my sister-in-laws visited this summer for the Sisters Outdoor Quilt Show (see post Sisters Outdoor Quilt Show 2018, Part II: Visiting Crafters) they brought his a toy that was allegedly rugged and could handle his chewing – a toy lamb.
We named the lamb “Lamby”. Well Lamby, despite losing two limbs, was holding up and Mike adored his lamb and would nap with it:
Mike cuddling with Lamby (I think he feels bad he ripped off his arms)
But then we discovered Lamby had a terrible and unsightly injury: his crotch was ripped open!
Oh the horror!
I immediately repaired Lamby’s crotch injury and said to Mike: “You must be gentler with Lamby or he has to go away”. I think Mike understood me as here he is keeping post-operative Lamby company:
Yay! Tango Stripe (pattern by Jean Wells), is finally done!
It took a while to match all the seams of the rows in the diagonal/”on-point” setting:
But finally – it was done!
Okay it is not actually done as it still needs to be quilted. I will be giving it to my Washington state based quilting sisters I see at the end of the month to take to a long-arm quilter I met many years ago when I lived in Seattle – Krista Moser.
A couple of years ago I attended a quilt retreat with her and was reinforced on what a lovely and talented person she is (Little Miss Muffet, Made Her Own Tuffet). My quilting sisters Judy and Dana have used her services for years and she has done beautiful work on their quilts.
It is fun to see Krista who started as a teenager on a long-arm, move from making purses and long-arm quilting in her small garage to try and make a living, to building a quilting empire (her patterns are now sold in quilt shops are around the country as are her custom rulers)! She is like “local girl makes good”!
I’ve already put together the backing for the quilt and have it all packaged up to give my friends to take to Krista. I feel so free that this quilt (which was an old “UFO”) is done!
By the way, it was the imaginary pressure of you all expecting me to finish up the quilt soon since I kept sharing posts about its progress, that really pushed me to finish it. Living in a fantasy world can be really useful at times – ha!
I’ve already started working/planning/playing with my next UFO to work on but that will be a future post. But here is a preview/tease – it involves pieces from these two posts: Art Quilter Play Date and Quilt Retreat Inspiration and Projects.
I love all seasons in Central Oregon and I feel blessed to live in a place where I can experience all four seasons.
Our mid-summers are often hot and for the past couple of years we’ve had to deal with residual smoke from forest fires from Northern California, Washington state, British Columbia or even Oregon forests. Usually by late summer and early summer, the forest fire smoke has cleared and the weather has suddenly cooled.
As the weather cools, suddenly the beautiful colors of Autumn appear as the leaves Central Oregon deciduous trees change into spectacular shades of green, gold, yellow, orange, red, and purple!This is not the first time I posted about Autumn in Central Oregon and how it inspires me. Here are a couple previous posts for you to check out, filled with images of the beauty of our Fall:
I even love the falling leaves, strewn about everywhere:
Of course Terry the Quilting Husband (TTQH) is not a huge fan of Fall leaves as he is the one who spends time gathering them together to put into our yard waste recycling!
I could ramble on at this point about the beauty of Autumn, but let’s turn the rest of this post into a “photo essay” and let the photos speak for themselves…
As you can see in the photo above, I appreciate the beauty of the bare trees once all their leaves have fallen. Autumn is glorious and full of color inspiration!
Postscript
I knew I loved trees but recently I realized just how much I love trees – the “Welcome” sign at my front door is even tree themed:
I ordered it online and there were many “Welcome” signs to select from. I guess subliminally I was attracted to the one that had to do with trees!
Study nature, love nature, stay close to nature. It will never fail you. – Frank Lloyd Wright
I am on Day 12 of daily posts as part of the challenge I set for myself for the month of October in celebration of my blog’s 5th anniversary to post everyday for the 31 days of October.
If you count the post I made on Sept. 30th then I am actually at 13 days straight of daily posts!
So far I haven’t had to pull from my 5 years of post archives as I thought I might have to by now. Today I originally planned a semi-follow-up to yesterday’s post Shinrin-Yoku: The Japanese Art and Science of Forest Bathing, but then something cool happened yesterday afternoon that I wanted to share: Impromptu Quilt Gifting.
When the Moment Feels Right…
6 or so years ago I made this quilt from scraps and leftover blocks from flannel quilts I made during my early years of quilting:
2 years ago I took it out of “quilt rotation” at my house and put it away in the closet. You see after 18 years of quilting I have a lot of quilts in rotation at my house!
Earlier this year I took the quilt out of the closet to decide what to do with it – I did not want it to just live in the closet – it is a nice cozy quilt that someone could enjoy. It was not the style of any of my family members or close friends. So I put it back in the closet.
Well yesterday this quilt discovered its new forever home at the spur of the moment.
I am a full-time telecommuter for my pay-the-bills-job. Yesterday afternoon I had a virtual meeting with a new colleague (the unit I work on recently transferred into her department). She mentioned during our meeting that she heard I was a quilter and wondered if I she could commission me to make a quilt for her daughter.
Her 12 year old daughter has a complex illness and is continually in and out of the hospital or extensive ongoing outpatient visits and treatment. While in the hospital or in outpatient treatment rooms, she is cold and the blankets they provide never really keep her warm plus they are impersonal communal blankets.
What she wanted for her daughter is her own quilt to take with her to keep her warm and cozy while she endures extensive ongoing medical treatments and evaluations.
I wanted to help but I do not have the bandwidth or interest at this point to do a commission quilt and offered to refer her to one of my quilting friends who might be interested. Then I remembered that I had a quilt currently available. So I asked her did she need a custom quilt and she replied no – she just wanted a cozy quilt for daughter.
I texted her a photo of the quilt and offered it as a gift for her daughter to keep her cozy during her treatments. My colleague immediately said yes and was overwhelmed with my impromptu offer. The amazing thing was that the quilt is in her daughter’s favorite colors!
I sewed a special label on the back of the quilt with her daughter’s name to reinforce that this was her very own quilt and it is packaged up for shipping out today:
The cool thing about this quilt is I think it has a lot of “love energy” contained in it because it is made from scraps and leftover blocks from quilts made for people I love in my life.
I hope that positive energy is felt by my colleague’s daughter as she is wrapped up in the quilt.
This make me think of the Artist Statement I wrote for my art quilt, The Recycled Love (see post The Recycled Love) that summarizes how I generally feel about quilts:
The first law of thermodynamics states that the total amount of energy in a system cannot be created nor destroyed, it can only be changed from one form to another. A quilt is made from changing the existing “love energy” from the quilt maker’s heart into a pieced textile; ultimately recycling that love energy into the quilt’s recipient heart
The moment felt right yesterday afternoon for some impromptu quilt gifting.
…shinrin-yoku is the practice of walking slowly through the woods, in no hurry, for a morning, an afternoon or a day.
I listened to this amazing audiobook each morning as I walked through the trees lines streets of surrounding neighborhoods.
I already love trees and this book made me love and appreciate trees even more. Dr. Li discusses their healing powers in depth and the science behind it. Here is a review on amazon.com that provides a wonderful overview of this book:
This book by Dr. Qing Li, Chairman of the Japanese Society of Forest Medicine, describes a medical technology landmark. The description starts with the natural pleasant sensation that many people have, while spending time in a forest. The five human senses can all come into play – sight, hearing, touch, smell and taste. The book then turns to aspects of healing. These include; reduced blood pressure, improved cardiovascular and metabolic activity, lower blood sugar levels, increasing the count of natural killer cells, and increasing production of anti-cancer proteins. These have been scientifically observed by comparing the profiles of people who have engaged in forest therapy with the profiles of control groups. The former significantly outrank the latter. This leads to a fundamental question. Is there a physically identifiable emanation in a forest that carries the healing power? The answer suggested is “yes”. It is called phytoncide and is produced by trees to protect them from afflictions. Scientific studies have shown that phytoncides can be of benefit to humans as well. While research is ongoing we should regard available evidence as pointing to a medical technology landmark.
One of the most magical places I’ve ever visited is the Hoh Rain Forest on the Olympic Peninsula in Washington state.
image credit: sevenwondersofwashingtonstate.com
Dr. Li mentions the Hoh Rain Forest in his book and that it is one of the quietest places on earth. It contains One Square Inch, a sanctuary for silence. According to the website: “It is an independent research project located in the Hoh Rain Forest of Olympic National Park, which is one of the most pristine, untouched, and ecologically diverse environments in the United States”.
“Hall of Mosses”, image credit: sevenwondersofwashingtonstate.com
If you have a moment, “google” images of the Hoh Rain Forest and you will find them amazing.
I feel so lucky to have spent a day wandering around the Hoh Rain Forest many years ago when we lived in Seattle and went on an Olympic Peninsula adventure. Now after listening to this audiobook I am planning a return trip to do some “forest bathing”.
Although I do not have a rainforest or a beautiful Japanese forest to wander through for my “forest bathing”, I have many wonderful tree-lined streets as well as woods to walk in Central Oregon.
Each day I go for my morning meditative walk and audiobook listen among the trees. Here are some of closeups of some of the trees I “bathe in” each morning during my walk (photographs taken as I walked under them):Listening to this audiobook on my walks, I wanted to honor and even touch each tree I passed and thank it for what is brings to the environment.
Trees are so unbelievably important and this book will give you a deep appreciation for Nature’s natural nurturing healers.
Involuntary attention requires no mental effort, it just comes naturally. This is the kind of attention we use when we are in nature. The soothing sights and sounds give our mental resources a break. They allow our minds to wander and to reflect, and so restore our capacity to think more clearly. – Dr. Qing Li
This is what happens when you do not sew your blocks together right away – they start falling to the floor!
I woke up yesterday morning to find blocks strewn about the floor. This was a tad irritating as I had to start over figuring out the layout in several sections (the quilt fits together like a puzzle) – I needed a walk in the forest to calm down (smile)!
So after work today I worked on sewing the piece together (at least large sections so that if they fall of the design wall, they will fall as a unit!) and will post in the future the completed quilt top.
I had a different post planned for today but last night I picked up a package from the mail.
A mysterious package…
The return address was from my brother who lives on the East Coast of the U.S.
He’s bought me fabric before, he’s a world traveler…maybe to celebrate my 5th year blogging he’s sent me some interesting fabric from his travels…
It’s a soft package…feels like fabric…(anticipation building…getting excited…)
So I open it.
It is not fabric..it is a HEAD! A bear’s head!
Is my brother sending me a warning that he has ordered a mob hit on me?!?!?!?
Also inside the package is a body…
Then I remember – this is my 6 year old nephew’s favorite teddy bear.
My brother has sent the decapitated bear to me for repair!
Now normally I do not like to be asked to do repairs (and please never ask me to hem/mend your clothes) as I think asking a quilter to repair fabric items, mend/hem clothing, etc. for you is like asking an artist who paints landscapes to paint your house.
I always flinch when someone asks me this BUT this is for my beloved 6 year old nephew. So I am going to do a complex head reattachment surgery.
If you are a quilter, how do you feel when someone asks you to hem or mend a fabric item just because you have a sewing machine/know how to use a needle?
This is a follow up to the post What’s on the Design Wall: Update on Tango Stripe, as well as the endless other posts over the past couple years about an UFO (Unfinished Object) known as Tango Stripe.
I made it through the endless Y-seams:
And finally got to the point that I could layout the blocks!
Yes it looks like a “hot mess” but I think it is going to be a cool quilt.
Here are the some of the denim setting triangles patiently waiting to be added:
And here is the quilt with all the block in place (not neatly in place but in place) – I will likely move some blocks around before I slowly get it all sewn together:
Next time I update you all on this piece, it will be when it is all sewn together (and not look like such a “hot mess”)!
This is a follow up to yesterday’s post, Heirloom Batik Scraps in the Mail! , where I mentioned I recently received a 4th craft related surprise in the mail.
Last week a curious package arrived from New Panvel, India:
Inside was a collection of samples of embroidered Indian silks in 5 – 6 inch squares:
I was completely blown away by this surprise!
I do not recognize the name of the person who sent it so I assume it is a thoughtful follower of my blog who lives in India (I have readers on every continent except Antartica!) but I did mail them a thank you card as the package contained their return address.
I have not decided what to do with these wonderful fabric samples, for now I will just put them on display in my studio!
It is day 7 of my fifth blog anniversary celebration goal to post daily for the 31 days of October. So far I still have new material and have not resorted to reposting old posts…yet…
Surprise Goodies in the Mail
During the past couple of months, crafting related treats/surprises keep appearing in my mail (it’s a pattern, and I like it!).
First in the mail appeared a surprise of a collection of wool scraps from the Isle of Harris from my friend Kathy’s trip to Scotland (see post Scraps from Scotland):
Well a couple weeks ago, my longtime blogging buddy, Cindy of A Quilter’s Corner with Cindy Anderson (inastitchquilting.com) surprised me with a collection of Heirloom Batikscraps that she picked up at a quilt show!
Heirloom Batik
As it mentioned on their website handloombatik.com, Heirloom Batik batiks are exquisitely handmade batik fabrics. They are exotic and beautiful fabric that begin with ,with Indian block prints; and many are one of a kind.
They are only available at craft shows/festivals, you cannot purchase them directly online.
I first learned about them when Cindy was using them in her amazing improvisational quilts such as in her piece Bits & Pieces which you can view on her 09/13/18 post FUZZY, AP # 62.
I’ve admired the fabrics she uses in her pieces for a long time and asked her what specific fabrics she was using and she told me about Heirloom Batik.
I was so disappointed when I learned I could not order them online and they did not appear to come to quilting shows/festivals in Oregon. So you could imagine my surprise and utter delight when a collection of Heirloom Batik scraps showed up in my mailbox!
The scraps are amazing and I unfolded each scrap and pressed it out, then reorganized it by color into the bag. Here is a photo of all the scraps laid out for me to admire and daydream about using in a future project:
.Cindy also included a lovely handmade card by a fiber artist featuring the State of Wisconsin (her home):
I felt very very very lucky to have received such a thoughtful surprise.
Surprises Continue!
The surprises in the mail are not over, tomorrow I will share the 4th mind blowing craft related surprise that arrived in the mail earlier last week!
I am behind in continuing my ongoing series, The Library Stack, sharing my stack of borrowed books from my beloved local public library.
Two library stacks (and a mini stack) have been browsed and returned to the library since my last post (luckily I remembered to take photos) and I have a current stack I will post about after I finish my reading/browsing.
Stack 1
Here is the oldest of the stacks that have been enjoyed and returned:
The book that really stood out in this pile was Faux Appliqué (2008) by Helen Stubbings:
image credit: amazon.com
I loved the idea of the Colourqué® technique: using colored pencils to re-create the look of intricate appliqué.
Stack 2
After returning this stack to the library, I accidentally discovered a new section to browse while looking for a cookbook – the Sewing Section!
I did not realize there a separate sewing section in the library’s Non-Fiction collection. I usually browse in the quilting, needle arts (knitting, crochet), general craft, and home decorating sections. I was pleasantly surprised to discover a new treasure trove of sewing/crafting books!
Trying to be reasonable in my selections, here was the resulting library stack after my new discovery:
The book that really stood out for me in this stack was 50 Little Gifts: Easy Patchwork Projects to Give or SwapPaperback (2018), Compiled by Susanne Woods:
image credit: amazon.com
There were so many projects I wanted to make in this book that I just broke down and bought it.
Another book that intrigued me was DIY MFA: Write with Focus, Read with Purpose, Build Your Community (2016) Paperback by Gabriela Pereira:
image credit: amazon.com
8 years ago I finished my MBA (Masters in Business Administration) because it was an appropriate graduate program for the work I am employed. However my dream would have been to get my Masters in Fine Arts (MFA). If money were no option and I did not have to work for a living, I would love to get my MFA!
Then I discovered this book which teaches the concepts of the MFA condensed into one book. I started the book, reading about a 1/4th of the book but then had to return it because another library patron had it on hold. I am going to borrow the book from the library again when I have more time to read/work through it.
Stack 3 (Mini Stack)
I picked up a miniature stack (one book) when I stopped by the library to return the above stack (are you impressed with my self-control?):
The title of this book cracked me up and the cat themed crafts were over the top (there is a cat head skirt pattern that only someone truly obsessed with cats would make much less wear).
Okay so those are the stacks that I forgot to post and stay tuned for a future post on my current library stack.
My neighbor Carole, a retired nurse, recently created a room in her house just for herself. I got to tour the room on Monday afternoon when I popped over for tea and to share my homemade apple cake (yes I made apples cake with left over rescued apples, see post Apple Rescue and Pre-Fall Cooking).
She let me take photos so I could share with you images from her “nest“.
Creative Space: The “Sacred Nest”
In the April 2018 post “The Toe Saga, Library Stack Catch Up, and Your Sacred Nest“, I shared a quote from the book our Creative Work Space: The Sweet Spot Style Guide to Home Office + Studio Decor by Desha Peacock from the section “Your Sacred Nest: Everyone Needs a Creative Sweet Spot Space“:
A mother bird doesn’t complain that she doesn’t have time or space to create her nest, she just makes do with the resources available to her at the time…Her job is not finished when the nest is built. She still needs to protect it until her babies are strong enough to go out on their own…think of what would happen if the momma bird neglected to actually build the nest because she couldn’t find the perfect materials. Don’t let your creativity suffer or, worse, die because you can’t find the perfect lamp…don’t worry if it’s not perfect. Use the resources you have around you and allow them to blossom with age and use.
Carole’s Nest
Carole’s home looks like it was ripped from the pages of the magazine Country Living. She has a wonderful sense of style.
When you first arrive at her home, here is what greets you at her her front door. In addition to her front door, her front porch always has seasonal decor:
Carole has a three bedroom home and previously one bedroom was the master bedroom, one bedroom was her husband’s office (he is a consultant), and the third bedroom was the traditional guest bedroom.
Carole has adult children and adult grandchildren that live out of state and visit occasionally, however she realized that a high quality blow up mattress (that can be kept out of sight when she did not have visitors) would work for their visits. So she was able to get rid of the bed in the guest room, open up the space and create her Sacred Nest!
Decorated with antiques and country charm, here is a photo tour of her room:
The table in the middle of the room has leaves and opens up to a fairly large table that provides room for laying out a quilt or other projects needing additional space. When she has overnight visitors, she moves the table and sets up the air mattress in the middle of the room for the guests.
She has many sweet items in the room, many tied to special memories. Next to her sewing machine she has a little metal drawer cabinet her husband made in high school shop class 60 years ago!
Oh and I made this little pillow that hangs on her armoire a couple years ago for her as a Christmas present:
Here husband also loves her room and is amazed with the warm cozy and inviting feel to the room. He even invited himself over to hang out in her room and watch a movie with her!
Do you have your own nest/sacred space in your home – a room of your own?
Postscript
I’ve featured Carole’s decorating talents in a previous post from December 2016 –Seriously Cute Holiday Decorations. Here is one of her amazing holiday decorations from her endlessly creative mind:.
The tierneycreates blog is 5 years old this month! I cannot believe other humans have been reading my musings for 5 years (and have maintained their sanity).
My very first post was October 27, 2013, introducing myself.
I used to have this post as a “sticky post” on at the top of my blog posts, so I’ve edited over the years and updated the photo in 2015, but here is that first blog post in it’s current state:
Welcome to tierneycreates!
Thank you for visiting and I look forward to your comments and thoughts on my posts.
My blog focuses on the many aspects of a “Crafter’s Life” and discusses topics such as sources of creative inspiration, my artistic journey, what’s on my design wall, quality of life, quilting retreats, artistic growth, outside adventures, books that inspire me and all things related to handmade textile crafts!
So I am celebrating my fifth blogging anniversary this month in two ways:
Daily Posts for the 31 days of October: I have challenged myself to post every day for the entire month (we are at day 4 so far). I will likely mix in some reposting of my favorite old posts from the tierneycreates archives on days in which I have no new material to share – I do have 5 years of posts to pull from!
A Blog Anniversary Giveaway: Sometime around the middle of the month I will make the giveaway announcement and details on how I would like to thank my readers for joining me on my blogging journey so far! I will do the drawing around the actual blog anniversary 10/27/18 and announce the winners by the end of the month.
Right now you might be thinking: “Daily posts, yikes!”
I know you all have lives and I do not expect anyone to read my posts daily. I just have such a backlog of stuff in my mind to post about I thought this would be a great time to challenge myself to get caught up (and hopefully not to bore you all to death)!
This post is a continuation of my ongoing series “What’s on the Design Wall”, featuring my latest project up on either one of the small design walls in my studio or the large design wall my hallway.
After fun with Tula Pink fabric during a recent quilt retreat (see recent posts), I’ve returned to working on the Tango Stripe (by Jean Wells) quilt with Kaffe Fassett stripes and coordinating solids that I discussed in my 09/13/18 post What’s on the Design Wall: Tango Stripe.
As I shared in that post, here is an example of what Tango Stripe will look liked completed (except mine is set in denim):
Kristin C.’s Tango Stripe
I’ve completed all the small blocks (they were simple piecing) and now I am grouping some of them together in groups of 4 to create larger blocks per the pattern design:
Working on the larger blocks is going much slower as I am having to sew Y-seams (ick) but I’ve started to master them (if you are not a a quilter and are curious as to what Y-seams are, here is a link – Y-Seams – to read about something you will quickly discover you do not want to read about!!!).
My guess is if you are bad in life and go to the “Underworld” when you pass, you are forced to do Y-seams for eternity (either that or complex paper piecing…) for your punishment – so for goodness sake – live a good life!
A pile of larger blocks and their Y-seam party
I did finish cutting out all the large blocks and they are just lined up waiting to be Y-seamed:
At first I was doing one large block at a time and pressing it, hoping all the seams would lay flat and that I did not screw up my 1/4 inch calculations on the Y-seam. After a while I started to relax and I can do 3 – 4 before running over the the iron to see if they will press out okay!
But the piece is moving along and I’ve already cut out all the setting triangles which are made from a quilting weight recycled denim I found at a thrift shop (the liner of a high quality denim duvet).
Once I get the large blocks finished, I can start to lay the entire quilt out on my large design wall in the hallway.
Postscript
If you’ve followed my blog for a while then you know about my obsession with fabric scraps (a near pathological level of obsession).
Well cutting/piecing this quilt has lead to a nice little bag so far of Kaffe Fassett stripes scraps that will be a fun future project to play with:
I made my first four (4) recycled silk art quilts in 2012 and in 2013 I had them professional photographed. For the past 5 years I had the high quality files of these photos and have only used them for images on my blog.
A couple of months ago one of my art quilting buddies, Kristin Shields of Kristin Shields Art and @kristinshields on Instagram shared images of professional printed cards of some of her art quilts and she began selling her cards at Dudley’s Bookstore (a bookstore featured on my December 2016 post Independent Bookstores (wonderful & magical places)) and I was very inspired!
After consulting with Kristin on resources I decided to have 5″ x 7″ blank cards of my first four art quilts professionally printed!
Kristin also shared the clear plastic envelopes to individually package the cards that she buys in bulk with me so I could have a professional finish to packaging the cards and their envelopes:
On the back of each card is “The Story of This Piece” (Artist Statement) and details on the piece.
I do not have plans to sell these cards but to give them as gifts; and I’ve given out a couple sets already.
Here is how I am packaging up the sets:
You can view images of these first four art quilts, part of my Color Story collection, and their Artist Statement on my Art Quilt Stories page.
It is pretty exciting to be share these cards with special people in my life!
Postscript
Guess what? It is time for my Fifth Anniversary Blog Celebration!
This year I will be offering a set of these cards in my blogging anniversary giveaway in addition to two handmade items.
More details to come in a future post as well as what I am doing in the month of October to celebrate completing my 5th year of blogging!
So where did we leave off? Ah, yes – a couple crazy quilting friends decided to create their own quilt retreat in a rented vacation townhome to focus on making Tula Pink All Star collection sampler quilts together.
One of my quilting sisters fondling her Tula Pink All Stars collection
But before we get to the endless images of quilt blocks we made (warning: it might get mind-numbing for non-quilters reading this post), let me share some of the non-sewing adventures we had during the retreat.
Non-Sewing Adventures
We did not just lock ourselves in a rented townhome for four days of non-stop quilting, we did do non-sewing activities…though some of these activities did involve fabric.
I took Judy and Dana on a mini Central Oregon Quilt Shop Hop over two days. This was exceptionally fun because Dana had never been to Central Oregon before, much less our quilt shops. I took them to the following quilt shops:
At Sew Many Quilts we discovered a very cool antique sewing machine on display:
At QuiltWorks we had a wonderful time visiting with the owner Marilyn Forestell who I’ve known for a long time. We also congratulated her on her shop being featured in the Spring – Summer 2018 issue of Quilt Sampler:
If you’d like to watch a video interview with the owner and more about one of my favorite Central Oregon quilt shops, here is the link on allpeoplequilt.com – www.allpeoplequilt.com/magazines-more/quilt-sampler/quiltworks. This behind the scenes video has a nice walk through of the shop.
We had a blast at BJ’s Quilt Basket, the third quilt shop we visited. They have a delightful and very friendly staff. While at BJ’s, OH NO – we discovered a new Tula Pink fabric line was just released: Zuma.
Judy and Dana could not leave BJ’s without the fat quarter collection (I was good as I currently have more Tula than I can handle right now!):
As if some of us did not already have enough Tula…
The next day we headed to Sisters, Oregon to go to the Stitchin’ Post.
I never tire of wandering around the Stitchin’ Post
While at the Stitchin’ Post, my quilting sister Dana and I did a “Hand-piecing Intervention“.
I overhead a woman tell her friend that she had recently retired and wanted to take up quilting but did not want to do machine quilting. Instead she was interested in hand quilting, but did not know how to get started on learning how to piece quilts by hand.
Her conversation was none of my business but I could not help myself, I had to be helpful. I introduced myself and told her all about English Paper Piecing (see my series of posts – Adventures in Paper Piecing). I grabbed Dana who was nearby wandering about and had her join me in sharing the joy of English Paper Piecing (EPP) as an option to create a quilt by hand.
We even brought over the store sample of a EPP hexagon pieced pillow to show her an example of the cool stuff she could make:
Luring innocent victims into EPP
After our intervention, the woman gleefully left the shop with a package of EPP hexie templates in hand. She plans to begin by practicing with fabric scraps (and hopefully she was going to follow our suggestion to check out YouTube videos on EPP).
Dana and I felt pretty darn proud of ourselves (either we helped someone on their road to a fun retirement hobby, or we got her to totally waste her money, ha!)
In addition to our miniature Central Oregon quilt shop hop, we also dined at some wonderful restaurant in Sunriver, Oregon.
After shop hopping and dining adventures, it was time to buckle down and piece our samplers!
Blocks, Blocks, Blocks
We pieced a lot of blocks during our four day retreat from our Tula Pink All Stars fat quarter packs!
I’ve never fussy cut (selecting a specific section/motif in printed fabric) for a quilt block in my life, but inspired by Dana, I fussy cut the feature fabric for all my blocks.
BLOCKS BY DANA
Dana, who already pieced 10+ blocks so far since our annual Quilting Sister May Quilt Retreat (see posts Please Vote On The Color! and The Votes Are In!). She focused on piecing star blocks in honor of the name of the name of the fabric collection – All Stars (the title of the collection is based on the prints in the line are updated reproductions of some of Tula Pink’s most popular retired fabrics). Here are some samples of her blocks:
BLOCKS BY JUDY
My quilting sister Judy was very adventurous and did not follow any set type of block pattern. She had fun using an old quilt block sampler book and randomly selecting blocks to piece with her fabric. Below are some examples of her blocks:
BLOCKS BY ME
Now I did not want to do a quilt with a white background. Instead I wanted to only use the fabrics in the Tula Pink All Star collection. I decided to create a sampler called “Tula in a Box” and use two different block patterns that feature boxes or boxes inside of boxes.
Here are the first 12 blocks I completed using a “Box inside a box” block pattern:
Tentatively I am planning to set the blocks using the Tula Pink All Stars stripes fat quarters.
By the end of the retreat I completed 14 blocks including these two blocks in a different block pattern called Little Boxes:
The upper right and left hand corners have the “Little Boxes” blocks
I will feature more on my “Tula in a Box” quilt blocks in a future post after I complete additional blocks.
Again, here is the “design sofa” I mentioned in the first post, with all our blocks:
FUN WITH COMBINATIONS
A very fun part of making our blocks was deciding the color/fabric combinations:
Here is another one of Judy’s cool blocks that came out of fun with putting together fabrics:
We spent of a lot of time consulting with each other on combinations.
Okay, so dear readers, are you sick of looking at blocks and Tula Pink All Star collection fabric now? No worries, we are nearly at the end of this post series.
Special Guest
On the third day of the retreat we had a special guest stop by – my friend Marie Bostwick – New York Times bestselling author.
Marie Bostwick next to a Pile-o-Tula
Marie’s bookThe Second Sister is an upcoming Hallmark Hall of Fame Christmas Movie: Christmas Everlasting that airs on the Hallmark Channel on November 24th and stars Patti LaBelle.
Here is more information on Marie’s blog Fierce Beyond 50: The Best News Ever.
If you get the Hallmark Channel be sure to watch the movie based on the awesome book!
After the quilt retreat my friend Laurie (who owns the vacation rental) stated that Marie Bostwick was the first famous person to ever visit her vacation townhome rental. I teased that I should have had Marie autograph one of the walls – ha!
Postscript
As if we were not already having an immersive Tula Pink experience, one afternoon we watched on YouTube Episode 1 of the series Tula’s House:
This episode provided some insight into the brilliant and creative mind of Tula Pink and you get a tour inside her awesome studio and sections of her home.
If you are a maker, you’ve likely heard of a “Design Wall”, but have you ever heard of a “Design Sofa“?
This is what happens when a couple quilters get together for a quilt retreat weekend at a rented vacation townhome that was not designed for quilt retreats: you improvise…
But let me back up and explain what the title of this post means and how a Tula Pink All Stars Quilt Retreat happened.
It’s All Dana’s Fault
I’ve seen Tula Pinkfabrics in the past and I’ve appreciated the designer’s creativity, use of color and quirky sense of humor. However, except for a couple fabric scraps given to me by other quilters, I’ve never had an interest in purchasing any of her fabric.
Until our May 2018 annual Quilting Sisters retreat and one of my quilting sisters, Dana, brought collections of Tula Pink All Stars fat quarters (coordinated collections of 18″ x 22″ cuts of fabric) to the retreat and began piecing a sampler quilt:
I had a couple posts about the fabric and her blocks during the retreat, including one in which Dana and I asked my readers to vote on which color combination to use when we were stuck:
When I returned home from retreat I could not get out of my mind the utterly deliciousTula Pink All Star fat quarter collections of main prints, dots, stripes and solids.
The next thing I knew (and I think it was a fabric-induced-out-of-my-mind-experience) I was ordering 4 sets of fat quarters from the DawnNeedhamQuilts Etsy shop that Dana recommended:
Honestly, I am not sure what happened, it was if I could not control myself. I’ve never bought 4 fat quarter sets of fabric at once, and I’ve never purchased Tula Pink fabric before!
Still cannot believe I bought all this at once!
I was not alone, Dana had infected another quilt sister with the Tula Pink All Stars bug, Judy (my original “Quilt Sister” who got me into quilting!) and before she knew it, she had also purchased all 4 sets of fat quarters in the Tula Pink All Stars collection!
So What Do We Do With All This Tula?
Dana has never visited Central Oregon and Judy came up with the idea of a road trip to Central Oregon to visit me. A group of quilters….coming together for a weekend…
Hmm…sounds like an excuse for a quilt retreat!
I have a small house which would not comfortably accommodate a quilt retreat, so I came up with the idea of renting my friend Laurie’s vacation townhouse in Sunriver, Oregon.
Dana, Judy or I (do not remember who) came up with the idea that since now we all had these Tula Pink All Star fat quarter sets why don’t we all work on piecing Tula Pink All Star sampler quilts?
Armed with my Stack-o-Tula I headed to the retreat!
Vacation Rental Townhome into Quilt Retreat
Terry the Quilting Husband (TTQH) helped bring all the stuff over to the rental townhome to transform it to a quilt retreat including a folding table, iron board, etc.
With a little temporary furniture rearrangement, we had our quilt retreat center:
We even turned part of the kitchen into an ergonomic cutting table area and ironing station:
Luckily we still had some left over kitchen counter for preparing meals!
In the next post, I will show you details of what we made (more on the blocks on the “design sofa”), non-sewing adventures we had during the retreat, and the special guest that stopped by our retreat.
Originally I had another post in mind but got distracted and decided to instead share some random follow-ups on previous blog posts (the links to the original posts are linked in the headers).
My friend Kathy brought me wool scraps from the Isle of Harris during her trip to Scotland. Today she texted me a photo of what she did with her scraps:
She cut them into hearts using some type of fabric die-cutter and plans to use them in a picture frame. I am inspired by this idea as I have not decided what to do with my Scottish wool scraps yet!
Today was another glorious Autumn day in Central Oregon and during my morning walk I came upon another neglected apple tree, this time at an empty home for sale in the neighborhood.
Hanging and falling from the tree were Nature’s Neglected Bounty of delicious looking red apples.
I grabbed one to eat on the rest of my walk and one to take home and join the rest of left over rescued apples that did not make it into the apple pie I discussed in the post.
It will join its new friends in becoming an apple cake (I plan to try out this Fresh Apple Cake Recipe from allrecipes.com)
I continue to work on the Tango Stripe quilt and recently decided to make a change to my studio to give me more design wall space. I added another design wall next to my sewing machine.
The design wall was made by wrapping a large piece of poster board (from an office supply story) with Warm and Natural batting. I duct tapped it to the back and then screwed the whole thing into the wall.
I now have three design walls: a large one in the hallway; one on my closet door; and one close to my sewing machine.
This third design wall will make it easier to lay out piecing while sewing.
Although my secret project is done related to trees (an art quilt for a future Women of Color Quilting Network exhibit), I am still fascinated with trees and tree bark and continue to take photographs sources of creative inspiration.
They look wonderful in color:
But they are really intriguing in Black & White:
Wouldn’t those all make amazing art quilt inspirations!
September marks the 4th anniversary of our adopting our miniature schnauzer Mike from a rescue organization in September 2014.
Funny he was the dog I said “no way I am adopting him” when I met him due to severe behavioral issues, and now he is one of the great loves of my life.
Here is a recent photo of him, now at 8.5 years old, with his beloved ball!
Well that is enough random following up for one post, talk to you all later, T
While attending a quilt retreat this weekend, I got the most fabulous news from Dr. Carolyn Mazloomi, the curator of Visioning Human Rights in the New Millennium: Quilting the World’s Conscience – My piece, The Lesson and The Equation is featured on the website of the Brussels, Belgium based organization Human Rights 70.
Image credit: humanright70.eu
(If you are just joining us on my blog, you can read background on my piece and the exhibit in these series of posts: WCQN )
This organization’s mission, according to their website:
is to contribute to promote the knowledge and application from individual up to supranational level, of the Universal Declaration on Human Rights, and in doing so contribute to the better living of all beings in the world
This Brussels based organization also has offices in Madrid, Paris, Geneva, Vienna, Amsterdam, Lisbon, Barcelona, Copenhagen, Bogota, and Mexico DF.
Here is a screen shot of the overview of the exhibit on the Human Rights 70 website:
To say I am excited and overwhelmed is an understatement (smile)!
Perhaps The Lesson and The Equation, inspired by Article 1 of United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights, will get to tour internationally someday…
The Lesson and The Equation at the show opening at Fitton Center for Creative Arts 08/17/18
For a high resolution image of the piece and to read the Artist Statement, see my page Art Quilt Stories.
All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood. – Article 1, Universal Declaration of Human Rights
Just a quick post today as I am currently on a quilt retreat with some Quilting Sisters who came down to Central Oregon for a mini retreat to work on our Tula Pink All Stars fabric inspired samplers (yes future blog post to come on that).
I wanted to say how much I appreciate all the supportive, inspirational and thoughtful comments on my previous post Found! At the Thrift Shop! – I feel like I am totally over it now! Who knew blogging could be such therapy to work out your issues – ha!
Treat from the Isle of Harris
My Quilting Sister Kathy visited Scotland this summer and while in Scotland they explored the Isle of Harris (Harris, Scotland) and she brought me back some Scottish wool samples from a wool mill they visited!
If you are unfamiliar with the Isle of Harris here is a link to a Wikipedia article for more information – Harris, Scotland. Visiting Scotland is on my list of things to do someday!
When this delightful surprise arrived in the mail a couple weeks ago and I immediately began day dreaming of the cool piece I could make with the scraps! (But for now they have to wait in my backlog of other interesting projects).
Postscript
The other day I received another surprise package of delightful fabric scraps in the mail, this time from one of my longtime blogging buddies. That will be a future post, but here is a tease:
Have you ever found something you made/gave someone as a gift at a thrift shop?
A couple of weeks ago I had my first experience of finding one of my handmade items at a thrift shop for sale – one of the little wallets I used to make. This experience got me pondering about the handmade gifts you give people and what becomes of them (and how sometimes you have to just let go for the sake of your own sanity and peace).
Found at the Thrift Shop
I was obsessed with making little wallets for a while from fabric scraps and here is one of my posts about my obsession – Little Wallet Madness.
It was serendipitous that I found the little wallet at the thrift shop and it was sort of like the Universe wanted me to find it.
I had just finished having lunch with a friend and felt compelled to visit a local charity thrift shop after our lunch. I wandered around, not knowing why I was there and then felt drawn to the purse and wallet section.
Inside the used purse and wallet section, I found this adorable item for my sister who loves Lululemon – a little zippered wallet made from recycling a Lululemon bag:
My sister has a collection of Lululemon bags and this little wallet was the perfect treat for her. So I thought – “Wow, I guess I was supposed to come in here and find this for my sister!”. Just in case there might be another one, I kept rummaging through the used wallet section and came upon this:
It looked familiar and I thought: “Ah someone else must have made little wallets like I did”
But then after inspection I discovered something shocking: an old tierneycreates business card inside the wallet!
I stood there in the thrift shop, mouth open, feeling like I was having an out of body experience.
What bothered me was not that someone no longer wanted one of my handmade little wallets and donated it (that was better than them just throwing it out); but that they just left my business card inside (note this is one of my old business cards from when I used to have an Etsy shop, etc.)
I may have narrowed it down to who could have done this and at the moment I felt like it was obviously a person without any class – a person with class would have removed and recycled my business card before donating (I’ve since calmed down from my initial reaction…).
Of course I purchased it (it was only 50 cents) along with the Lululemon little wallet for my sister. I removed and recycled my old business card from it and put it away for now. At a later time I will decide whether to regift it to someone or to re-donate it to the charity thrift shop (but not with my business card inside).
What Becomes of the Handmade Gifts We Give?
Many times you know what becomes of the handmade gifts you give people – either they love, cherish and use them or they do not. They might regift them, they might donate them, they might even throw them away. Or they might just shove them in the closet to gather dust.
This is something I’ve struggled with as a crafter and quilter and had to work on letting go – once you give someone something, it is theirs to do with what they want – even if it might be heartbreaking to you.
People who are not crafters or artists may not understand the love that goes into something that is handmade and how essentially a piece of the maker goes into the piece (and not just if you stuck yourself with a needle while making the piece and bled a little on it like I’ve done a time or two – ha!)
Sometimes my heart breaks for the maker when I see a beautiful handmade item sold for cheap at thrift shop. I’ve rescued lovely granny square afghans from thrift shops (usually sold for $2 – $3) as I know how much work goes into this type of project and I love granny square afghans but have yet to make one myself.
On the overstuffed chairs in our front window where we read (and I work on blog posts) I have rescued granny square afghans from my collection as well as on the bench where Mike our miniature schnauzer hangs out to watch cats, birds and passing dogs out the window (to practice his barking).
Here is Mike napping on one of the rescued afghans:
I do not want to become a hoarder and I know I cannot rescue all the beautiful handmade items that have been donated to thrift stores. I only rescue granny square afghans if they are exceptionally appealing and under $5, that is my guideline, but still how many granny square afghans does one person need?
A friend of mine told me a story of how she discovered a neighbor’s husband using a quilt she made her neighbor to mop up an oil spill in a garage. To me this sounds much worse than finding something you made donated at a thrift shop.
What I’ve learned as I mature as a maker is that I need to be very selective of who receives my handmade items. Also I’ve learned to that sometimes you need to just let go of your attachment to the handmade item when you gift it.
Sometimes it hurts when someone does not fully appreciate the work and time that went into a handmade item but I have to remember unless they are a maker, a crafter, an artist, or any type of creative individual they may never understand.
Life is a balance of holding on and letting go. – Rumi
Several readers expressed concerns that even though the trees were neglected, technically I did not have permission from the home owners (even if some of the houses were empty) to pick the fruit from their trees. Although the fruit was falling to the ground and rotting and no one was picking it, I put these comments in the back of my mind and skipped “fruit rescuing” in 2017.
But recently I’ve noticed several apple trees in front of a business at the edge of my neighborhood where the apples are ripe and are just being allowed to fall to the ground and rot. I couldn’t take it anymore and decided it was time for APPLE RESCUE!
Terry the Quilting Husband (TTQH) felt like an intervention was needed also and helped me pick apples from the trees:
TTQH helping with Apple Rescue
Until we had a bag full of apples:
Saved from just being left to rot on the ground
We took the home and washed them and ended up with a nice haul of apples:
Getting a bathFreshly rescued apples all safe and cozy in a bowl
What to do with out apple haul? Make an apple pie of course!
But as the tierneycreates Beastie mentioned in yesterday’s guest blogger post,Guest Blogger: A Monster Needs Her Sweater, the weather has dipped from late summer weather to early Fall weather.
The cool weather makes me want to start making stews now!
Oh just a note on the linked recipe I provided – the original recipe calls for cannellini beans but I used black beans instead. Also I like to sauté the kale first in the already sautéed sausage and garlic; and if I am using fresh tomatoes as I did this time – I sauté the tomatoes also, before adding the beans (and their liquid) and the broth.
Remains of the tasty stew!
Postscript
Disclaimer: I am not a cooking blog and cannot even pretend to be one.
If you want to read actually cooking blogs I recommend these two that I enjoy:
Hello, my name is tierneycreates Beastie and I am a Monster, but the good kind of Monster.
Tierney of tierneycreates.com has invited me to return as a guest blogger for another post.
If you are new to this blog (welcome new readers, glad to have you join us!) you can read my story and see some of my adventures in the series of posts – Beastie Adventures. I was born in Dublin, Ireland and moved (well was shipped) to Central Oregon to join Tierney of tierneycreates in June 2018.
A Monster Needs Her Sweater
Since arriving in Central Oregon from Dublin Ireland in June, I’ve worn my T-shirt as my regular outfit, but recently the weather has dipped in Central Oregon and it is now in the 30s F (-1 C) in the morning and evening and only reaching a high of the 50s – 60s F (10 – 16 C) during the day.
Brrrrrr!
I finally told Tierney that I needed to change to my sweater that Helen of Crawcrafts Beasties (crawcraftsbeasties.com) made me. Tierney was using it as decoration in her sewing room and I said ENOUGH with it being used as decoration – I need it on MY BODY!
Frustrated, I took my T-shirt off and insisted I get my sweater put on (I need help getting dressed due to my unusual physique).
As you can see, Tierney said Beastie nudity was not appropriate on her blog and edited the photo to cover any special bits.
Not wanting to put up with a nearly naked Beastie running about her house, Tierney agreed to help me put on my sweater:
Then she helped me put on my satchel (which contains my laptop and library card – two very important items!) and my knitted hat (just in case the sweater was not enough to keep me warm…):
I asked if we could go outside so I could see if I would actually be warmer with my sweater on when walking my dog Mikelet:
Success! I am much warmer!
Now I am ready to take my dog Mikelet on a walk in the Central Oregon pre-Fall nippy weather (but it turned out I do not need my hat yet):
We had to retake the photo as Mikelet was checking out something in the distance, maybe a beetle or something.
Postscript
If you would like to check out the adventures of other Beasties, check out these two blogs:
By the way, Autumn is Tierney’s favorite season and she does not mind the chill in the air and the rapidly approaching end of summer.
“To say it was a beautiful day would not begin to explain it. It was that day when the end of summer intersects perfectly with the start of fall.” – Ann Patchett
I love all seasons in Central Oregon and I feel blessed to live in a place where I can experience all four seasons.
This is not the first time I posted about Autumn in Central Oregon and how it inspires me. Here are a couple previous posts for you to check out, filled with images of the beauty of our Fall:
Listening to this audiobook on my walks, I wanted to honor and even touch each tree I passed and thank it for what is brings to the environment.
My blog focuses on the many aspects of a “Crafter’s Life” and discusses topics such as sources of creative inspiration, my artistic journey, what’s on my design wall, quality of life, quilting retreats, artistic growth, outside adventures, books that inspire me and all things related to handmade textile crafts!
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