It is time to finish my series of posts about the annual May quilting retreat I attended with my Quilting Sisters in Vancouver, WA May 17 – 20 at Sew N Go Retreat Center. To read my previous posts about quilting retreats I’ve attended, see my post category – Retreats.

If you’d like to read my previous posts on my May 2018 retreat (it is hard to believe that was over a month ago now) here they are:

Late Night Quilting

Have you ever attended a quilting retreat? If you are not a quilter but another type of crafter, have you ever attended a crafting retreat?

Sure, I could take a couple days off work and stay at home and sew all day for free. But it would not be as fun as hanging out with a group of other quilters, having all meals prepared for you, having no responsibilities (except any pressure you give yourself to complete projects you bring), and the opportunity for Late Night Quilting!

Here is our Quilting Retreat Center during the day:

And here it is at night when there is Late Night Quilting going on inside:

I am not sure why I took the above photo at an odd angle, except it was late at night and perhaps I had been quilting too long and needed to go to bed.

Inside the Quilting Sweat Shop (aka The Quilt Retreat Room)

Whether during the day or late night at night, the sewing machines were humming and churning out projects:

And on the design walls were quilts in progress such as this one by the Quilting Sister Judy:

Sewing was not limited to making quilts, there were other projects such an adorable tote bag by my Quilting Sister Lisa:

A Cozy Place to Sleep

After a long day of quilting, and perhaps a late night marathon of quilting, you need a cozy place to sleep. Here is the bedroom I stayed in which had quilts on every wall and several on the bed I slept in:

Although the room had several beds in it, as we were a small group of 5, I had the room to myself.

Here is a detail of a lovely medallion quilt that was on the opposite wall from my bed:

Getting Exercise

I knew it was a poor choice health wise to just sit around all day and sew, so I found time each day to walk around the rural farmland area of the quilt retreat center, sometimes with another Quilting Sister and sometimes alone. We had beautiful weather!

And like last year’s May retreat, we visited with friendly horses we met on our walks:

Good Thing I Went On Daily Walks…

As usual we had delicious meals at the Sew N Go Retreat. Each meal was a delightful surprise. Here are a couple images – a yummy main course of the most addicting chicken wings I’ve ever had; and a delicious piece of apple cake:

And yes that is vanilla ice and caramel on top as there would not have been enough calories with just the cake!

And of Course There is Abbie

One of my favorite treats at the Sew N Go Retreat is spending time with Abbie the Quilt Retreat Kitty:

Abbie is getting older and is not as active as she was when I first started attending the retreat many years ago. I was actually trying to read a magazine and Abbie ended up laying on top of the magazine so I could pay attention to her instead.

Here is a “vintage” photo of Abbie and I cuddling during the May 2016 Quilting Retreat:

A Wonderful Reminder

The room I stayed in during the retreat had a wonderful needlepoint sampler that I woke up to each morning and served as a beautiful reminder of how I want to face each day.

I am trying to keep these words in my heart now that I am back home.

Beastie Adventures

Beastie Outing: Trip to the Library

June 15, 2018June 22, 2018 tierneycreates: a fusion of textiles and smiles

Okay next post I am going to finish up sharing stories from the annual May quilt retreat with my Quilting Sisters, but I cannot resist sharing another post about my new tierneycreates Beastie that I introduced to you in the 06/13/18 post I’m A Monster!!!.

Last post we left off with my new tierneycreates Beastie getting ready to head to my beloved public library with her new library card:

As my library does not allow pets inside except for Service Dogs, her miniature schnauzer Mikelet had to stay at home. We could have snuck Mikelet inside the library since he is only a couple inches high but I didn’t want to encourage her to break any rules! (Also she left her knitted hat at home as it was a warm day.)

My blogging buddy, Tammie @tammiepainter.com also has a Beastie (she even took hers to Ireland to meet her Beastie’s maker Helen @crawcraftsbeasties.com) and she warned me that Beasties can be mischievous!

At the Library

The tierneycreates Beastie thought the Book Return area in the library’s entry was fascinating.

However before I could slip my books into the book return, she started reading them:

I promised her I would pick up new books for us to read together, so she closed the book and helped me put it in the return slot (she had to be careful not to fall in the slot herself):

Trying not to fall in while returning books

I took her to the Holds Section for books that library patrons have reserved. As I was trying to locate my holds, she thought it was a cool place to explore:

I convinced her to leave the other patrons’ holds alone and we headed to the Self-Checkout area to scan my books.

She pulled out her Beastie library card, ready to scan it for the books:

I had to gently explain to her that we needed to use MY library card instead to check out the books I had on hold:

I thought she had accepted this as she tried to figure out the keypad to help me enter my account PIN:

But then I found her trying to get her Beastie library card under the scanner and make it work:

After some discussion, I got my books and a movie scanned with my library card and checked out:

A new little stack of library books (and a movie)

The “Holds” and “Checkout” area are downstairs in the library when you first walk in, so I thought I would give her a tour of the upstairs library. She tried to work her way up the stairs but finally agreed that I could carry her.

When you are only 6 inches tall, steps can be daunting

When we got upstairs I took her to one of my favorite sections – the quilting book section:

While I was flipping through a quilting book, she wandered over to the next shelf to the left and up – to the knitting books!

I think she wanted to learn more about how she was made…

As I was leaving the section, I next found her over at the Library Catalogue computer trying to reserve her own books!

I think she had a great time on her first outing even though she could not check out her own books. She had me stop and take her photo by this poster on the way out of the library:

She did stop and visit with some of the Deschutes Public Library’s awesome staff who took a photo of her and put her on their Instagram (@deschuteslibrary):

Beastie Adventures

I’m A Monster!!!

June 13, 2018June 21, 2018 tierneycreates: a fusion of textiles and smiles

(I am interrupting my planned post to share someone really exciting that arrived in the mail.)

Yes, I am a Monster. Literally. A Beastie Monster!

Blogging for the past 4.5 years has given me the opportunity to connect with people all over the world. I actually now have readers in every continent except Antarctica (hey Antarctica blogger peeps where are ya?).

I have many blogging buddies in the U.K. including the awesome person who made me into a Monster – Helen of Crawcrafts Beasties (crawcraftsbeasties.com) in Dublin, Ireland. Helen makes amazing custom knitted monsters (the cutest monsters ever) known as “Beasties”.

After following her blog for a while and following the adventures of various Beasties, especially Paddy & Plunkett, I knew I needed my own tierneycreates Beastie.

Monday’s postal delivery brought the tierneycreates Beastie all the way from Ireland!

Here is one of the photos of me on my blog that obviously Helen used as inspiration:

Here was the original drawing Helen sent me to approve earlier this year:

And here is my dreadlocked tierneycreates Beastie, with her little knitted hat and her miniature schnauzer:

She is approximately 6 inches tall, nearly 6.5 inches with her hair and hat!

The tierneycreates Beastie has some serious dreadlocks, very creatively done with wool:

She also has a nifty QUILTED BAG with her laptop (so she is ready for blogging) and Beastie Library card inside (because if you have followed my blog for more than a couple weeks you know about my love of my local public library!):

Her miniature schnauzer “Mikelet” (the tiny version of Mike) is ready for his walk:

But first he has to check out the very cute little tierneycreates felted booties:

In addition to her adorable boots, the tierneycreates Beastie also has for colder weather a little hand knit cable Irish Aran sweater!

I must have giggled for an hour after opening the package on Monday not to mention the time playing with her and arranging her in various poses:

She is ready for her first outing: a trip to my public library to try out her library card (hopefully the bar code on her library card works).

It’s time for my own Beastie Adventures!

A Crafter's Life, Special Events

A Presidential Artistic Journey

June 9, 2018June 12, 2018 tierneycreates: a fusion of textiles and smiles

This is not a political post, but this post is about a former political figure, now a private citizen – former U.S. President George W. Bush, Jr.

Suspend for a moment any political leanings you hold and let me share a very special opportunity I had to see a former U.S. President speak in person in early May and to learn of his artistic journey.

A Once-In-A-Lifetime Opportunity

April 30 – May 4th, I attended a national conference for the industry that I am employed , in Orlando, Florida. One of the keynote presentations at the conference was a conversation with former President George W. Bush, Jr. and the president of a national organization hosting the conference.

No photos were allowed and there was strict security so unfortunately I have no photos from the experience to share (when I first discovered that President Bush would be speaking I had hopes of a “selfie” with a former U.S. President!). I’ve never seen a U.S. President in person so just the experience to see a historical figure in person was very exciting to me.

To be honest, I was not a huge fan of President Bush during his Presidency, but I put those thoughts aside and approached the presentation with an open mind.

He was absolutely amazing and spoke with much wonderful humor, insight, inspiration and Texas twang! He shared the experience of recently losing his mother, Barbara Bush (who I always greatly respected). He also spoke candidly about 9/11 (September 11, 2001/World Trade Center bombings) and other challenges and his Presidency; and about what’s going on in the world and in the U.S. today.

As I do not want this to be a political post I will not share all the specifics of what he said but let’s just say he might not fully support the current choices and political environment of the current U.S. Presidential Administration. He said that the U.S. cannot become isolationists, we have to stay connected to the world and shared specific reasons, in his opinion, why it is important that the U.S. stay engaged.

He did encourage those of us who might feel currently discouraged not to give up on democracy; and that the office of U.S. President is greater than the behavior of any one individual.

He also talked about what he has seen in the world and that those that live in the U.S. should remember just how blessed we are to live in this country (in regards to all the freedoms and opportunities we have available to us that are not available in all parts of the world).

Interestingly during his talk I learned that he is close friends the Dalai Llama and Bono (lead singer of the band U2 who is heavily involved in humanitarian causes) – who would have known?

Overall his talk was very inspirational, spiritual (he is a man of strong faith) and hopeful – he brought many of us to tears several times during his talk.

A Former President’s Artistic Journey

For me the best part of his talk was when he shared how he became a painter and his evolution as an artist/his artistic journey. He talked about the fear he had to overcome to start painting and bouts with self doubt of his painting ability.

He also talked about the moment when he realized he was not too bad at painting. I wish I could have taken notes as there were many gems in his discussion of his artistic journey and I could relate to many of those experiences in my journey.

He eventually combined his love of painting with his post-presidency humanitarian efforts, which include working with Veterans especially those dealing with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). He painted Veterans for his book Portraits of Courage: A Commander in Chief’s Tribute to America’s Warriors (if you click on the link you will see an image of former President Bush painting a portrait) and proceeds from book sales, according to the website, “helps post-9/11 veterans and their families make a successful transition to civilian life and addresses issues of veteran wellness, including post-traumatic stress and traumatic brain injury”.

Screen Shot 2018-06-09 at 10.07.56 PM.png — Image credit: bushcenter.org

He shared a couple of amazing stories about the friendships he developed with several Veterans dealing with PTSD while working on their portraits. He tried to capture in their portrait painting not only their physical features but what the individual was dealing with internally at the time, he made an effort to get to know each Veteran he was painting.

I’m so thankful to my employer for the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity they gave me in sending me to the conference in Orlando. I also appreciate the opportunity to share this experience with you all and ask for you to be moderate and thoughtful in your comments on this post as fellow readers have differing political views, thanks.

Postscript

The weather was beautiful in Orlando during my visit and I enjoyed 70 to 90 degree F. weather (21 – 32 C. for my readers outside the U.S.). I brought my work laptop and had to keep up on my work when not attending conference session so I did not get much time for fun in Florida.

Here is the view from my hotel room balcony where I bought my laptop out to work between conference sessions:

I went on a walk around the hotel/conference center property each morning (early before it got too warm and before the conference sessions started) and I wondered why the air seemed to smell so good. Then I realized there were Magnolia trees everywhere! What an incredible fragrance!

The climate, geography and flora is very different than Central Oregon (which is known as a “high desert” area and at 3500+ feet above sea level elevation). It was amazing to see palm trees everywhere!

Although I did not get time to play while I was in Orlando, it was still wonderful to enjoy the warm and tropical climate!

Feature image credit: bushcenter.org

Outside Adventures!

Horsing Around

June 7, 2018June 8, 2018 tierneycreates: a fusion of textiles and smiles

This post is another entry in my series Outside Adventures!,

Monday I went on a hike with my friend Laurie and her Bernese Mountain Dog Luna on Horse Butte in Central Oregon. But first she took me on tour of Healing Reins where she works as a Physical Therapist providing therapeutic equine based services to children with special needs to begin our “horse themed” adventures.

I met several of the therapy horses in the outside areas. There was a group therapeutic session going on in the large indoor barn riding area with most of the horses and I could not take photos there because of client confidentiality. However here are a couple photo of the horses used for therapeutic riding and Laurie helping them get to the hay at the bottom of their feeder:

Here is Elvis, who is used for therapeutic interventions but not for riding, as he is a miniature horse:

There are also farm animals at Healing Reins that are very tame and used for therapeutic interventions with children. The farm animals include chickens, goats, pigs and a slightly grumpy duck named Michael and his partner:

I had a blast petting the farm animals and got to watch a therapeutic interventions with a pediatric client and the animals:

The staff at Healing Reins clearly love animals as evidenced by their current use of a side door to enter their indoor therapy center as there is a robin’s nest on the electrical meter near the front door (and they do not want to disturb the nesting bird!):

We kept the horse theme going and left Healing Reins to head to Horse Butte/Arnold Ice Cave Trail for a hike with Luna in tow. Note that on the trail sign below “Horses have the right of way“!

While hiking the base of Horse Butte we came across a woman riding one horse and leading another horse (who did not have a saddle). It was like she was taking the second horse “for a walk”. Laurie, who has extensive experience with horses, explained that likely she was acclimating the other horse to the trail.

The base of Horse Butte was scenic but we were lured into the possibility of awesome vistas at the top of Horse Butte and decided to climb to the top.

Unfortunately we could not find a suitable path, only sections of loose lava rock (Central Oregon is region formed by ancient volcanoes). But we decided to try it anyway. You will see in the photo below Laurie headed up and I am lagging behind (I’d like to use the excuse that I was lagging behind to take photos but in truth I was just lagging behind!)

Even more unfortunately on the way up the loose lava rock gave way and I took a spill and banged my knee, but I was able to continue to the top.

Although I had a sore knee, I got to enjoy some beautiful vistas at the summit:

Sometimes you have to suffer for beauty.

Then it was time to face the scary hike down on the loose lava rocks:

Obviously I made it as I am able to write you about it. My knee is still sore but I will survive.

(There was a funny moment on the trip back down where Laurie, who is very fit and sporty, was trying to guide the clumsy me back down the mountain, so I would not take out my other knee. She would preview where I should try and gain a foothold. At one point she yelled: “walk over here, this is best” and then proceeded to wipe out herself on the loose rocks. We had a good laugh about it!)

Luna, the Bernese Mountain Dog (note the word “Mountain” in her breed name) had no trouble scaling up and down Horse Butte!

After the hike we rewarded ourselves with a tasty lunch and microbrew at a new food cart station in the area (there were no horses in the food cart area to continue the day’s theme!)

Quilt Retreats, Studio

The Tale of Tango Stripe

June 4, 2018June 5, 2018 tierneycreates: a fusion of textiles and smiles

Continuing my series of posts about the annual May quilting retreat I attended with my Quilting Sisters in Vancouver, WA May 17 – 20. To read my previous posts about quilting retreats I’ve attended, see my post category – Retreats.

In the post The Pillow Project I mentioned that for this May’s annual quilting retreat I pulled out some old unfinished objects/projects (UFOs); or as my blogging buddy Shirley @ handmadehabit calls them – “stranded” projects.

Well another “stranded” project that I brought to the quilt retreat was the Tango Stripe (pattern by Jean Wells of the Stitchin‘ Post) project.

This quilt is made with Kaffe Fassett stripes fabric and coordinating solids. I’ve wanted to make this quilt for years after falling in love with the store sample when visiting the Stitchin’ Post.

I’ve nearly started it a couple times as evidenced by these posts:

Diving into a quilt (and other stuff) (January 2017) and Quilt Seating! (December 2016)

A couple of months ago at the monthly art quilter group I attend, our group leader brought in her completed Tango Stripe quilt, set in olive green fabric instead of denim colored fabric, and it was fantastic. This reminded me how much I want to make my own.

So I brought my collection of Kaffe Fassett striped fabrics and solids to the retreat and finally started cutting the blocks with the templates from the pattern:

I got this far in my progress on the quilt top during the quilting retreat:

I know it does not seem like a lot but there is a lot of template work to create the effect of the quilt. You do not cut the whole quilt out at once per instructions but you design as you go.

I did not finish it as you can see but I made a lot more progress than I had in the 5+ years since buying the pattern!

For now it is put away as I need my large design wall to finish it up and currently my large design wall has a quilt in progress for a future WCQN exhibit that I cannot yet share. But once I finish that piece, Tango Stripe is going up on the design wall and is going to be finished!

It is a tale whose story needs to end (with a completed quilt!)

Postscript

During the retreat, one of my quilting sisters gave me a sweet Moda fabrics Frivols quilt kit for my birthday:

This section of the insert inside the tin made me smile as I think it describes many of us well:

Hope you have a great week of “making” if you are a “Maker“!

More stories from the May quilt retreat are coming.

Fabric Scraps Obsession, Quilt Retreats, Studio

Pillow Power!

June 2, 2018October 29, 2018 tierneycreates: a fusion of textiles and smiles

I’ve completed the Pillow Project – 5 pillows are made: 4 for my living room and one for my studio. Several of the pillows I began at the recent quilting retreat I attended (see post The Pillow Project).

If you are just joining us, this post is a follow up to these five posts (as well as various other older posts as I procrastinated through some of my projects):

Yikes Tierney, it sure takes you a lot of posts to stop talking about a project? Yes, true…and? (smile).

So here are the completed pillows.

Studio/Office Pillow

Made from recycled 2.5 inch x 2.5 inch fabric scrap squares that were turned into half-square triangles (it took 196 half-square triangles to complete!), this pillow measures approximately 22 inches x 22 inches:

Living Room Pillows

These pillows measure appropriately 23 inches x 23 inches and were made from batik fabric scraps pieced into improvisational (“log jamming”) log cabin style blocks:

Here is what the back of the pillows looks like – made with recycled quilting fabric trimmed from a quilt after long-arm quilting:

We have two sofas in the living room that face each other – I usually hang out on one and Terry the Quilting Husband (TTQH) hangs out on the other.

My sofa with two of the cushions:

TTQH’s sofa with the other two cushions:

Yes, we have a crazy amount of color in our house (our house is not for the bold color faint-hearted!)

To close this post, here is a random gratuitous photo of a lovely purple iris from my walk yesterday:

I still have more stories to share from he annual May quilting retreat I attended with my Quilting Sisters in Vancouver, WA May 17 – 20, 2018. I just wanted to share the follow up on the whole pillow making saga 🙂

Oregon Coast Adventures, Quilt Retreats, Quilt Shop Tours

The Road to Retreat (Via Cannon Beach)

May 29, 2018August 14, 2023 tierneycreates: a fusion of textiles and smiles

A Different Way to Quilt Retreat

Each year when posting about the annual May quilting retreat I attend, I include a “road to retreat” post on my journey to the retreat at Sew N Go in Vancouver, WA.

Examples of such posts include The Road to the Retreat on my solo car road trip and The Road to Retreat (Via Bus!) about my first time taking the Central Oregon Breeze bus to the retreat.

A couple weeks before the retreat I was trying to decide whether to drive to the May quilt retreat or to take the bus again. Terry the Quilting Husband (TTQH) offered to drive me this time to the retreat with Mike the Miniature Schnauzer joining us for the road trip.

Instead of having him drive 4 hours to the retreat and then back, we came up with the idea of driving to Cannon Beach, Oregon the day before the retreat. We would spend a day in Cannon Beach, stay overnight and the TTQH would drive me to the retreat and head back home.

I Love Cannon Beach

We’ve been visiting Cannon Beach for many years – I think we visited the first time in the early 2000s. In my post A Case for Buying Tings You Have No Plans For At The Time, I share my love for Cannon Beach and a special Cannon Beach themed wallhanging I made for my friend at work Nancy.

Wandering Around Cannon Beach

Let’s begin with images of the beach, the sea, and the iconic Haystack rock at Cannon Beach. We enjoyed talking the coastline with Mike and here are images from Day which was fairly sunny.

The next day, before heading to retreat, it was overcast but the beach was still wonderful:

I love Central Oregon but it is far away from the sea. Every so often it is nice to be at the sea, smell the sea, and listen to the sea.

Cannon Beach has a wonderful quilt shop, Center Diamond Fabrics. If you check out my post A Case for Buying Tings You Have No Plans For At The Time, you will see a link to a YouTube video by the Quilt Roadies with a tour of Center Diamond Fabrics.

We’ve had a doggy backpacks for years that we carry our miniature schnauzers around in when traveling (most shops unless they are restaurants will allow a dog in a backpack in the shop) so we do not have to leave them in the car when sightseeing.

TTQH had Mike in his backpack as we wandered around Center Diamond Fabrics and Mike appears to be advising TTQH on fabric selections:

2018-05-16_16-17-56_002 — Mike: “TTQH look at the fabrics over there!”

2018-05-16_16-17-41_689 — Mike: “I am not too sure about those fabrics”

2018-05-16_16-17-22_472 — Mike: “Hold on, slow down, I want to check this rack”

2018-05-16_16-18-14_953 — Mike: “Okay let’s get all of these…”

After the quilt shop, it was off to the yarn shop at Cannon Beach, Coastal Yarns, where Mike also advised from his backpack:

I was naughty at this shop and bought a skein of this ridiculously expensive variegated silk yarn that I fell hopelessly in love with it:

We stayed at the inviting and dog-friendly McBee Cottages where they had a welcome basket for Mike and a wonderful collection of handmade bird houses.

Wished I Lived in Cannon Beach, But Wait…

Every time we visit Cannon Beach, I daydream about moving there.

There are beautiful beach houses everywhere in the wonderful neighborhoods around the coastal area:

There are beautiful coastal gardens:

And of course there is this – the beach and the Pacific Ocean:

But then there is this:

(If there is a Tsunami, do not stop – RUN this way!!!!!)

We do not worry about Tsunamis in Central Oregon. So I will stick with just visiting Cannon Beach (hopefully never during a Tsunami) for now!

Yes, this is the Tsunami Evacuation Route WALKING PATH (you better be walking very fast)

Fabric Scraps Obsession, Quilt Retreats, Studio, What's on the Design Wall

The Pillow Project

May 27, 2018October 22, 2018 tierneycreates: a fusion of textiles and smiles

Pulling Out the Old UFOs

For this May’s annual quilting retreat I pulled out some old unfinished objects/projects (UFOs) or as my blogging buddy Shirley @ handmadehabit calls them – “STRANDED” projects.

Those of you who have followed my blog a long time (I mean a long time) – do you remember this project and post from August 2016 “What’s on the Design Wall (Need Your Help)“:

As well as the follow up post: “What’s on the Design Wall: Your Ideas“.

So many readers provided great suggestions on the color of setting fabric for these “log jam” (freestyle log cabin) blocks. Alas, I could not make up my mind and eventually put the blocks away.

I bought the blocks to the retreat to make them into pillow covers!

In Need of Pillow Covers

We have four (4) cozy fleece pillows in the living room that we used in the late Fall, Winter and early Spring but they would be strange to use in the late Spring and Summer:

I decided to use the log jam blocks to create Summer pillow colors for the four pillows and started assembling the pillow tops at the retreat:

Between the retreat and last week, I completed four pillow tops:

Next step is to quilt the pillows tops and then add envelope backs.

I have some already quilted fabric left over from another project to use in the back:

Here is one of the pillow tops awaiting quilting:

I used up all my already pieced blocks from 2016 and used the rest of the remaining batik fabric scraps from the project to make additional blocks for the four pillows, each made with 16 blocks.

I will of course share photos in a future post of the completed pillow covers, covering the existing fleece pillows!

UPDATE 05/29/18 – one reader asked the size of the pillows – they are approximately 23″ x 23″ each.

Postscript

Another pillow in the “Pillow Projects” – here is a follow up to the posts Pillow Popping with the Untethered Soul and The “Planning Fallacy”.

I completed the pillow top from scrap 2.5″ squares:

I decided not to quilt the pillow top but instead added fusible interfacing. I made an envelope style back and here is the completed pillow on my studio chair:

Quilt Retreats

Sasquatch Sightings

May 26, 2018May 26, 2018 tierneycreates: a fusion of textiles and smiles

Finally a series of posts about the annual May quilting retreat I attended with my Quilting Sisters in Vancouver, WA May 17 – 20. This series of posts on the quilt retreat actual began with these posts: Please Vote On The Color! and The Votes Are In! .

Sasquatch? What is a Sasquatch?

For my readers who do not live in the Pacific Northwestern section of North America, “Sasquatch” is another name for “Bigfoot” and one of our most beloved “urban legends” (actually more like a wilderness legend).

Wikipedia does a great job of explaining Sasquatch:

In North American folklore, Bigfoot or Sasquatch is a hairy, upright-walking, ape-like being who reportedly dwells in the wilderness and leaves behind large footprints. Strongly associated with the Pacific Northwest (particularly Washington state and British Columbia), individuals claim to see the creature across North America.

Here is the iconic Patterson-Gimlin film clip that really popularized the lore (courtesy of YouTube):

Who knows if it is someone in a suit or an actual ape-like being!

Additionally here is a link to an interesting post on the Oregon Public Broadcasting website about this iconic footage:

Film Introducing Bigfoot To World Still Mysterious 50 Years Later

Sasquatch and Quilting: The Legendary Pattern

Pattern maker Elizabeth Hartman created the Legendary quilt pattern which has been very popular in the Pacific NW and it is affectionally known as the “Sasquatch Quilt“:

Screen Shot 2018-05-26 at 10.07.27 AM — Image credit: elizabeth hartman.com

Two of my Washington state based Quilting Sisters Judy and Dana have already made this quilt in flannel; and my California based Quilting Sister Kathy is finishing up a Sasquatch quilt of her own.

Sasquatch Sightings

During our annual May quilt retreat, Dana worked on a second Sasquatch Quilt for a charity auction and Kathy worked on her quilt. Judy and Dana’s quilts were some of the first ones to use flannels (which gives an extra yummy Pacific NW feel) and to use multiple fabrics for the trees. Kathy followed suit with the same concept for her Sasquatch quilt.

Here is Dana’s second Sasquatch quilt top in progress:

As you can see below, Sasquatch mysteriously moved to a new location on the design wall:

Here is Dana’s completed quilt top:

After Dana was done, she took her quilt top down and Kathy worked on assembling hers:

Getting there – Kathy nearly done getting all the trees pieced/assembled; note her Sasquatch is a lighter brown flannel:

Kathy took her Sasquatch back home to California. Kathy and our other California based Quilting Sister Lisa, had fun in the Portland airport photographing her Sasquatch on various adventures at the airport:

“Sasquatches” are for Cuddling

So what does a Sasquatch flannel quilt look like completed and quilted? Well my Quilting Sister Dana was kind enough to share a photo of the one she made her husband (and I have seen it in person and it calls to you to nap under it!):

Well, I Want a Sasquatch Quilt Too!

My Quilting Sister Kathy was kind enough to share her scraps from her Sasquatch quilt which are also scraps from Dana’s quilt too! I have this huge bag of flannel scraps for my future personal “Sasquatch Sighting!”

A Crafter's Life

Antique Singer Fabric Surprise!

May 22, 2018May 22, 2018 tierneycreates: a fusion of textiles and smiles

Sunday evening I returned from the annual May Quilt Retreat in Vancouver, WA with my Quilting Sisters from Oregon, Washington and California.

I am so behind in blog posts (posting and reading the blogs I follow) as I had a partial “social media break” for four (4) days. The WiFi at the retreat was out and we only had the option of using our cellular phone data. I am a spendthrift and have a small cellular data plan (2G a month) so I sparingly used it for those couple of blog posts during the retreat (Please Vote On The Color! and The Votes Are In!); as well as visiting with Terry the Quilting Husband via FaceTime during the retreat.

I am not sure whether to start at the beginning of the backlog of stories I want to share or just randomly share them. This post is a random sharing to get me started back with posting.

A Very Thoughtful Surprise

A couple weeks ago I decided to separately post the “Postscript” section of a post from May 2017 about a $10 antique Singer sewing machine I purchased at a flea market – Impulse Buy: Antique Singer Sewing Machine. Although I back dated the post it still showed up as a new post for those who follow me.

Well the wonderful Sarah @ thecookmanlife contacted me and said she wanted to send me a surprise. I was blown away when this awesome Robert Kaufman Fabrics panel of antique Singer sewing machines!

Is this not awesome! Now I have an antique Singer sewing machine and fabric with the same machine on it!

Please check out Sarah’s lovely crafter blog @ thecookmanlife. I was blown away by her kind thoughtfulness!

Postscript

Couple other random follow ups.

Lost In Space

Luckily, as I ended up not having access to WiFi for four days, I downloaded the first couple episodes of the Netflix series Lost In Space. I am doing a “watch and stitch along” with Tracy @ itsatsweetsday.blog where we watch each others Netflix suggestions for hand stitching and binge-watching and compare notes!

I love how Netflix now lets you download some of their shows and movies for offline viewing on your smart phone or tablet (I watched on my iPad).

The series is awesome so far and is a different spin on the series I watched on TV as a kid (‘Danger Will Robinson!”).

Oh and if you do not already follow Tracy’s blog (It’s a T-Sweets Day) I highly recommend it, she is a Renaissance Woman of Crafting (baking, quilting, crochet, etc., etc.).

Another Cool Block

Oh and this is an additional follow up to my previous posts: Please Vote On The Color! and The Votes Are In!.

Well before I left the quilt retreat on Sunday to get my bus back to Central Oregon, my Quilting Sister Dana was working on another star block with the beautiful Tula Pink All Stars Fabric and the coordinating solids and dots fabrics. I thought you might like to see it:

Looks pretty yummy to me!

I will be sure to bug Dana to send me a photo of the completed quilt to share with you on this blog!

More random posts to come, if I post everyday for a couple weeks I will catch up with all the posts in my head 🙂

Quilt Retreats, Tula Time!

The Votes Are In!

May 20, 2018December 2, 2018 tierneycreates: a fusion of textiles and smiles

Thanks so much to everyone who voted on the setting triangle color for the fussy cut Tula Pink All Stars block my Quilting Sister Dana has been working on at our annual May Quilt Retreat!

Here were the options to vote on:

We cut off the voting at 10am so Dana could get the block assembled before I leave to take a bus back to Central Oregon.

Votes were tallied from the previous blog post comments, from people at the retreat and from my personal Facebook page.

It was very close but Teal won by two (2) votes!

So Dana made up the block with the winning color:

And here is the whole group of. blocks so far:

Dana plans to make 18 blocks from the 6 different animals in 3 colorways.

The six (6) animals that she will fussy cut are: bees, squirrels, owls, frogs, raccoons, and a fancy birds. According to Dana the fabric line is called Tula Pink All Stars because Tula Pink brought back her most popular retired lines and updates the colors.

Several of you suggested yellow and Dana said that would been a great idea but she did not have that as a fabric option in the Tula Pink solid fabric line.

Thanks for playing along 😀

Oh and I am super behind in blogging – I have a backlog of stories to share, stay tuned 😀

Quilt Retreats, Tula Time!

Please Vote On The Color!

May 19, 2018December 2, 2018 tierneycreates: a fusion of textiles and smiles

OK this is a quickie post!

Right now I am at my annual quilt retreat with my Quilting Sisters and for fun we would like your opinion on which is the best coordinating color for a block one of my Quilting Sisters is working on (during our late night quilting marathon).

We have been debating it for 30 minutes and I thought – why don’t I throw it out there for the tierneycreates readers 😀?

Okay this is a 12″ x 12″ finished block that is part of a fussy cut center star block quilt using Tula Pink All Stars fabric line.

Here are some completed blocks:

And here is the one for you to vote on:

Should the inner triangles around the fussy cut Tula Pink square be:

Light gray?
Minty Teal?
Pinkish Lavender?

Thanks for giving your opinion in the comments!

Books, Music, Podcasts, What's on the Design Wall

The “Planning Fallacy”

May 15, 2018May 15, 2018 tierneycreates: a fusion of textiles and smiles

Continuing my latest binge of nonfiction self improvement audiobooks, I am currently listening to Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness by Richard H. Thaler and Cass R. Sunstein.

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In this book the authors discuss the concept of a “Planning Fallacy” in their section on “cognitive bias”.

Wikipedia defines a planning fallacy as “a phenomenon in which predictions about how much time will be needed to complete a future task display an optimism bias and underestimate the time needed.”

Well, I recently made quite the “planning fallacy” in relation to the pillow top I’ve been working on (and discussed in the post Pillow Popping with the Untethered Soul).

Using 2.5″ x 2.5″ scrap squares, I made an endless batch of half-square triangles (HSTs) to create a pillow top based on a pattern from the book Pillow Pop: 25 Quick-Sew Projects to Brighten Your Space by Heather Bostic.

I assembled the HSTs into this layout:

I thought I could sew all the half-square triangles together in an afternoon, no problem. Not just one pillow, I thought I might get a second pillow top done too (as I had a zillion HSTs).

However, as I began to sew them together, the pillow top started to significantly shrink and I had to add on more and more rows of HSTs to make the pillow top large enough for my intended pillow form:

This photo illustrates the difference of how wide I thought the pillow top would be compared to reality:

How my planning fallacy occurred: Based on the original pattern I thought I only needed 50 HSTs per pillow and I had nearly 200 HSTs – so I thought I could make FOUR pillow tops! However I discovered I needed like 196 HSTs for just ONE pillow and I spent most of the time I planned for sewing the HSTs together, to add on MANY more HSTs to make the pillow top wide enough.

What happened during my original planning? Well I never paid attention to the size of the original squares to create the HSTs in the original pattern (much larger than the squares I used, and if I was motivated I would get up from the sofa, find the book and give you the actual dimensions…).

As you can see from the photo above, I have half the pillow top pieced and I cannot believe how long it took me to just get half a pillow sewn together!

I will only be making ONE of these pillows. Next time I work with HSTs and a pattern, I will pay more attention and do better planning!

Postscript

On a more pleasant note, my lilac bush/tree is full bloom and my backyard smells wonderful!

During an intense Spring weeding session in my backyard this weekend, I paused for a “lilac break” and stood in front of the lilac bush and inhaled the incredible fragrance.

The scent of lilacs reminds me of being in my grandmother’s backyard in Pennsylvania as a young child. Lilacs smell like sweet childhood memories.

Special Events

Quilt Retreat Animals

May 14, 2018 tierneycreates: a fusion of textiles and smiles

This morning I thought it would be fun to share a post from the tierneycreates archives from my annual May Quilting Retreat with my Quilting Sisters from Oregon, Washington and California.

It is nearing the time again for the annual May Retreat and just realized I need to start preparing and thinking about what projects to bring!

QUILT RETREAT ANIMALS

May 30, 2017

Continuing my series of posts on the annual Sew N Go Quilt Retreat in Vancouver, WA I recently attended. If you are starting with this post, here are links to the previous posts:

I am not sure if Sassy the Highly Opinionated Miniature Schnauzer would approve of this post as there were on dogs at the quilt retreat, only horses and cats.

THE HORSES

Sew N Go Quilt Retreat is located in a very rural area of Vancouver, WA. The retreat center itself is on acreage and is surrounded by farms. Several times a day some of the quilt retreaters, including myself, would go on walks around the area – up to 4+ miles per day walking!

While walking we would visit with several groups of horses we discovered hanging out in pastures in area farms. The first day we ran into the horses, we were surprised how the boldly they came over to the edge of their fence to see us. So the next day we were ready with apples!

(Several of my fellow quilt retreaters were on Weight Watchers and watching their “points”. We joked as we fed the horses apples: “No worries horseys, zero points!”)

A horse from the pasture/farm next to the one above:

Next thing we knew, we had two horses, from two different pastures side by side visiting with us and greeting each other through their fences:

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The long walks and the visits with the horses were are delightful break from our sewing marathons at the quilt retreat!

THE CATS

On one of our walks, we were invited by owners of a local farm to come onto their farm and chat. It turned out that several of them were originally from NY like my quilting sister Kathy and myself.

On their farm we met “Heshe” (he-she) – a cat of unknown gender. I do not remember the entire story but when they adopted Heshe as a barn kitty, they could not determine if it was a “he” or a “she”! Heshe was a very sweet a friendly orange tabby:

But the cat star of the 4-day retreat weekend was my beloved “Abbey the Quilt Retreat Kitty” (she should have her own blog!)

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During the retreat, Nancy the quilt retreat host, needed to give Abbey some medications.

Cats, as explained by one of my quilting sisters who is a veterinarian, are difficult to get to swallow pills. Cats do not fall for the tricks dogs fall for (hiding pills in peanut butter, cheese, etc.) and so you have to find a way to get the pill to the back of the cats throat so they will automatically swallow it.

So Abbey was made into a “kitty burrito” to restrain her paws as she was given meds. She calmly and quietly accepted her kitty burrito status but still found a way to spit out her pill! It might have been because a group of quilters were standing around cracking up laughing at how adorable Abbey looked as a burrito!

Each year at the retreat I look forward to hanging out with Abbey, and she knows it. She knows I am “one of her people”. I always find time to snuggle with her and give her lots of attention.

Abbey and I took a lovely nap together, with her sleeping behind my pillow and quietly purring against my head. I could not believe how soothing and meditative it was to listen to her purring.

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OKAY THERE WAS A DOG

There was one dog at the quilt retreat, but it was not a live dog. It was a dog quilt – an adorable pattern – “Dogs in Sweaters” by Elizabeth Hartman:

Next post, how about some evidence that actual sewing occurred during the quilt retreat? Maybe (smile).

If you’d like to read the post that followed this one here is the link:

Quilt Inspiration and Projects

A Crafter Needs to Eat, Books, Music, Podcasts, Library Adventures

The Library Stack

May 13, 2018May 1, 2022 tierneycreates: a fusion of textiles and smiles

Continuing my ongoing series, The Library Stack, sharing my latest stack of borrowed books from my beloved local public library.

This current stack is laden with cookbooks as that was the kind of mood I was in during my recent library browsing. I realize this should have been a “Winter” thing, but I am in the mood to use my slow cooker more and wanted some new recipe ideas.

I am curious about Air Frying and might buy an Air Fryer someday so I borrowed a book with recipes for an Air Fryer.

I did just purchase an Instant Pot and I have reserved a huge list of books with Instant Pot recipes. So the next library stack is likely to be filled with Instant Pot cookbooks!

Also I was lured into the New Nonfiction Releases section (okay I am am always lured into that section when I visit the downtown library) and several new crafting and home decorating books just had to come home with me!

Here are some comments and thoughts on the books I’ve dived into so far in my latest library stack:

The Little Book of Lykke: Secrets of the World’s Happiest People by Meik Wiking

“Lykke” according to the author is the Danish word for “happiness” and is pronounced “loo-ka”. Meik Wiking is also the author of the book The Little Book of Hygge: Danish Secrets to Happy Living which I discussed in my 04/15/17 post The Library Stack and Hygge.

I read the first couple of chapters and then remembered how much I enjoyed listening to the audiobook The Little Book of Hygge: Danish Secrets to Happy Living after I read the book and the author’s delightful Danish accent; and I decided to reserve The Little Book of Lykke on audiobook as it looks like it will be another delightful listen during my daily walks.

Denmark is one of the coolest places I have ever visited and definitely had a happy vibe!

The Joy of Hygge: How to Bring Everyday Pleasure and Danish Coziness into Your Life by Jonny Jackson & Elias Larsen

There appeared to be a “Danish Hygge theme” going on in the New Nonfiction Releases section of my library so I added this one to my stack also. This book is more of a lifestyle book with images of decor, activities and crafts to bring “hygge” into your life.

I came across a quote in the book that gave me a huge smile as this is exactly how I want to live my life:

Fear less, hope more; eat less, chew more; whine less, breathe more; talk less, say more; hate less, love more; and all good things are yours. – Scandinavian proverb

Writing for Bliss: A Seven-Step Plan for Telling Your Story and Transforming Your Life by Diane Raab

This is an amazing book! I am tempted to purchase it as there is so much in the book I do not think I can digest it all during my library loan period. I am going to share verbatim the overview on the back cover of the book to give you a tiny feel of all the good stuff in this book:

Writing for Bliss is most fundamentally about reflection, truth, and freedom. With techniques and prompts for both the seasoned and the novice writer, it will lead you to

– tap into your creativity through storytelling and poetry,

– examine how life-changing experiences can inspire writing,

– pursue self-examination and self-discovery through the written word, and,

– understand how published writers have been transformed by writing.

The is amazing guidance on meditating and become centered so you can reflect and writing, and many other tips. The book is like a course and there are assignments. I think I am going to go ahead and buy the book so I can write notes and work through it at a pace that works for me.

The Dutch Oven Cookbook: Recipes for the Best Pot in Your Kitchen by Sharon Kramis & Julie Kramis Hearne

This book inspired me to drag out my Dutch Oven:

Today I am going to make Lentil Sausage Soup on page 11 of this wonderful cookbook.

Hopefully the rest of the books will be as wonderful as the first four I am working through. While taking photos of my latest library stack, Mike the Miniature Schnauzer wondered what I was up to and ended up “photo-bombing” one of my shots:

He likely felt that I should return to my chair in the front window and continue cuddling with him instead of whatever strange thing I was doing posing books and taking images with my smartphone!

Postscript

The reason why I stopped at the library for a browse and ended up with this stack was I received an e-mail notification from my library that a whole bunch of movies I put on hold were available.

It always seems to be “feast or famine” when it comes to library movies that I put on hold being available. No movies for a couple of weeks and then BAM – 6 movies available at once! You only have a short window to pick the movies up before they put them back into circulation for the next library patron on the hold list and since I did not want to wait a long time to get these movies again, I checked them all out.

The loan period for DVDs is 7 days so Terry the Quilting Husband (TTQH) and I are having an ongoing movie marathon – 1 – 2 films each day. So far we’ve watched Molly’s Game, Star Wars The Last Jedi, and The Greatest Showman. We enjoyed all three films.

The Greatest Showman was spectacularly entertaining and TTQH were glued to the screen the whole time. I will close this post with a quote from this movie, that really resonated with me. It was one of those life lessons that I have worked on learning for many years (but finally I think I am getting it):

Creative Inspiration, Outside Adventures!

Return to Hiking with Luna and Laurie

May 12, 2018June 22, 2022 tierneycreates: a fusion of textiles and smiles

This post is another entry in my series Outside Adventures!, and a follow up to my post The Toe Saga, Library Stack Catch Up, and Your Sacred Nest.

As I shared in “The Toe Saga” post, I had a quite careless mishap that led to a broken toe (my sofa and I are in “couples counseling” and working out our issues, ha!). A broken toe meant putting on hold my hiking adventures with my friend Laurie and my favorite Bernese Mountain Dog of all time – Luna.

Well this past Monday, I returned to hiking with “Laurie & Luna”! We did a reasonably easy hike – Farewell Bend Park along the Deschutes River. And as per our routine we had a delicious lunch afterwards in the Old Mill Shopping Center which is also along the Deschutes River.

Here are photos from our hike along the Deschutes River:

I’ve also tagged this post with my category/series “Creative Inspiration” on sources of creative/future art quilt inspiration, as I took a couple photos of trees/vignettes that I thought would make interesting art quilt compositions:

I did not take a photo of our lunch but here is Luna at lunch trying to convince Laurie and I that we really need to share our lunches with her:

I would not win any hiking competitions but I was quite pleased with myself that according to my Health tracker app on my smartphone I had these statistics for Monday May 7:

My toe is not fully healed and I was fairly sore the next day, but it was so wonderful to get outside and hike in my beautiful Central Oregon (with fun companions) again!

Books, Music, Podcasts, Fabric Scraps Obsession, What's on the Design Wall

Pillow Popping with the Untethered Soul

May 8, 2018October 22, 2018 tierneycreates: a fusion of textiles and smiles

I know, I know, this is the craziest tierneycreates post title ever, eh?

This post is actually a continuation of two ongoing tierneycreates series: 1) What’s on the Design Wall, and 2) Audiobooks and Podcasts.

Bear with me as I tie “Pillow Popping with the Untethered Soul” together!

Pillow Popping (What’s on the Design Wall)

I am working on my next art quilt for a future Women of Color Quilting Network (WCQN) exhibit but I cannot share photos on social media at this time. Unfortunately I am stalled in the progression of the piece but I want to keep myself sewing so I’ve decided to make a pillow with my collection of scraps 2.5″ x 2.5″ fabric squares.

I made a zillion (it actually seemed like a “zillion”) half-square triangles (HSTs) and Terry the Quilting Husband was nice enough to cut them apart, press and trim them (now that is true love!).

I pulled out this book from my craft book collection: Pillow Pop: 25 Quick-Sew Projects to Brighten Your Space by Heather Bostic and began laying out the pillow design per one of the patterns – Crystallized (on page 82 if you have the book).

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If you remember from my post Central Oregon Quilt Shop Hop Day 1 , QuiltWorks quilt shop had a wonderful Pillow Pop display with several completed pillows:

This display made me want to eventually make all the pillows in the book!

Here it is on my small design wall (the larger design wall in the hallway has the art quilt in progress I mentioned earlier):

The beauty of a truly “scrappy” piece is you can have all sort of crazy fabrics together and somehow it works (at least in my deluded mind)!

The Untethered Soul (Audiobooks)

I’ve been listening to a wonderful audiobook I borrowed from the library, The Wisdom of Sundays: Life-Changing Insights from Super Soul Conversations by Oprah Winfrey. The audiobook is read by the author and features curated sections of the actual interviews with inspirational thought leaders from Oprah’s TV series Super Soul Sunday.

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I listened to this book while I laid out the pieced half-square triangles for the Crystallized pillow patter and it was very meditative.

To lay out this specific pattern where you get the effect of concentric diamonds of light and dark, I really had to quiet my mind and focus. Listening to this book was the perfect medium to do just that.

In the middle of my pillow-piecing-meditation, Oprah’s interview with Michael Singer, author of The Untethered Soul: The Journey Beyond Yourself, played.

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I’ve read this book twice a couple years ago and I’ve listened to the audiobook. I’ve also given it as a gift. I was surprised to learn that it is one of Oprah’s favorite books and that she has also given as a gift (to many more people than I have).

I would say it is one of those MUST READS, especially if you are on a path of self-insight and growth with how you interact with the world.

It was amazing to listen to the author Michael Singer discuss the book with Oprah as I continued my pillow-piecing-meditation.

I will close out this post with a couple quotes from this amazing book by Michael Singer:

“You have to understand that it is your attempt to get special experiences from life that makes you miss the actual experience of life.”

“The only permanent solution to your problems is to go inside and let go of the part of you that seems to have so many problems with reality.”

“Your inner growth is completely dependent upon the realization that the only way to find peace and contentment is to stop thinking about yourself.”

“Billions of things are going on in this world. You can think about it all you want, but life is still going to keep on happening.”

“Do not let anything that happens in life be important enough that you’re willing to close your heart over it.”

“It is truly a great cosmic paradox that one of the best teachers in all of life turns out to be death. No person or situation could ever teach you as much as death has to teach you. While someone could tell you that you are not your body, death shows you. While someone could remind you of the insignificance of the things that you cling to, death takes them all away in a second. While people can teach you that men and women of all races are equal and that there is no difference between the rich and the poor, death instantly makes us all the same.”

“That which is holding you down can become a powerful force that raises you up.”

Quilt Shop Tours, Special Events

Central Oregon Quilt Shop Hop Day 2

May 7, 2018June 22, 2022 tierneycreates: a fusion of textiles and smiles

Continuing my two-part series on participating in the Central Oregon Quilt Shop Hop last weekend. If you are just joining us, check out Day One in this post: Central Oregon Quilt Shop Hop Day 1.

Rather than worry about leaving Mike the Miniature Schnauzer at home all day while Terry the Quilting Husband (TTQH) and I drove around to the remaining four (4) Central Oregon Quilt Shops, we brought Mike with us:

Mike started in the back seat but convinced me he needed to ride around in my lap.

We did the bulk of our driving (at least 130 miles) on Day Two of the Shop Hop and luckily my lap converted to a dog bed (with the addition of a fleece blanket in the backseat) when Mike grew tired of looking out the window!

130 miles? Yes the remaining four (4) shops spanned from La Pine, Oregon (Homestead Quilts), lunch in Sunriver, Oregon (Sunriver Brewing) to Prineville, OR (The Quilt Shack), to Redmond, OR (Material Girl Fabrics), and finally to Sisters, OR (Stitchin’ Post) and then back home. Basically it was like a tour of Central Oregon!

Homestead Quilts (La Pine, Oregon)

Homestead Quilts is actually a lovely quilt shop with a wonderful collection of fabrics, however I only go there once a year (during shop hop) as it is about 35 – 40 miles from my house.

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They have some lines of fabrics that the other Central Oregon quilt shops do not have (or not as wide a selection of that line) such as Northcott’s Stonehenge fabric line:

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This is the same line I used for this quilt Cozy Cobblestones (which was quilted by one of my blogging buddies, Cindy @inastitchquilting.com):

I had a little bit of a beautiful Stonehenge blue that I wanted to use in the piece but not enough to repeat the fabric in more than one block so I did not use it. If only I had thought to check out Homestead Quilts to pick up some more!

Sunriver Brewing (Sunriver, Oregon)

We needed to “fuel up” our shopping engines to make it to three more quilt shops so we stopped at Sunriver Brewing in Sunriver, Oregon on our way to our next quilt shop.

I had a healthy delicious lunch of one of the best chef salads I’ve ever tasted:

While TTQH had a delicious but very naughty lunch!

Then it was onto The Quilt Shack in Prineville, Oregon.

The Quilt Shack (Prineville, OR)

The Quilt Shack is another Central Oregon quilt shop I rarely visit except during shop hop.

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As you can tell from several of the photos, it was a cloudy/overcast day for Day Two of Shop Hop. The end of April in Central Oregon can be hit or miss: we’ve done Central Oregon Quilt Shop Hops when it was 80 degrees and like a beautiful summer day; and we’ve done shop hop when it was cold and raining, etc.

The Quilt Shack specializes in novelty fabrics and if you are looking for special cowboy themed fabric, fishing themed fabric, or the perfect fabric with farm animals, etc. – they have it:

Next we took the 26+ mile drive from Prineville to Redmond, Oregon.

Material Girl Fabrics (Redmond, Oregon)

Material Girl Fabrics in Redmond is in an old house and the owner and her son who own the shop also live upstairs in the house. It is a very sweet shop and you feel like you are wandering around a house (because you ARE wandering downstairs in someone’s house!):

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TTQH searched for dog themed fabric at this quilt shop like he does at every quilt shop:

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Interestingly TTQH did not buy any fabric this year at shop hop, it was not like last year where he seemed to be “buying out” every shop we went to (see post Central Oregon Quilt Shop Hop 2017).

Our Shop Hop passports were nearly filled as we headed to our last quilt shop of seven (7) – the Stitchin’ Post in Sisters, Oregon:

Stitchin’ Post (Sisters, Oregon)

We were flooded with relief when we arrived at the Stitchin’ Post as it had been a long day of driving and shop hopping and we were ready to be done.

After turning in our Shop Hop passports we wandered around the quilt shop (which also has a lovely yarn shop) a bit before heading home.

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Mike outside the shop waiting to head home:

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The Haul

As I mentioned in yesterday’s post, each quilt shop on the Shop Hop provided a block pattern for a mystery quilt. When you completed your Shop Hop passport after visiting all seven (7) shops then you got the final layout pattern and instructions:

Each quilt shop also gave out a free fat 1/8th quarter of batik fabric. Below are my seven 1/8th quarters and TTQH’s (which he gave to me) – we made sure not to select the same colors:

I usually try to support as many shops as possible by buying a little fabric at each shop during Shop Hop, but this year there was only two shops that I found fabric I had to have – Homestead Quilts and the Stitchin’ Post (and of course the scrap bag I found at QuiltWorks on Day One of the Shop Hop – see previous post for image):

Thanks for joining us on Central Oregon Quilt Shop Hop 2018!

Quilt Shop Tours, Special Events

Central Oregon Quilt Shop Hop Day 1

May 6, 2018June 22, 2022 tierneycreates: a fusion of textiles and smiles

Last weekend over the course of two days, Terry the Quilting Husband (TTQH), Mike the Miniature Schnauzer and I attended the Central Oregon Quilt Shop Hop.

We made it to all seven (7) Central Oregon Quilt Shops over a two day period which involved driving around 150+ miles:

Thought I would share a sort of “photo essay” of the two-day shop hop in a series of two posts.

Day One of the Central Oregon Shop Hop was completed after work on Friday 04/27/18 and included the three Bend, Oregon shops: QuiltWorks, Sew Many Quilts and Bernina Center, and BJ’s Quilt Basket.

Sew Many Quilts and Bernina Center (Bend, Oregon)

Our Shop Hop began at Sew Many Quilts and Bernina Center.

Each shop gave out a free fat 1/8th quarter (18″ x 11″) of coordinating batik fabric and a free block pattern for the Central Oregon Shop Hop Mystery Quilt. You get your Shop Hop Passport card stamped at each shop and if you completely fill it out, visiting all seven (7) shops, you can enter to win several prizes including a new Bernina sewing machine!

Later in this post I will share my Shop Hop Passport stamps and my haul of free fat 1/8th quarters from day one (see section “The Haul“).

Sew Many Quilts and Bernina Center is where I bought my Bernina sewing machine many years ago and my breath always catches a bit when I walk into their shop and see all the dream Berninas:

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They appeared to be embracing as many holidays as possible, and here are a sampling of their displays which covered: Easter, Valentines Day, Thanksgiving, Christmas and Halloween!

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All the shops offered a delicious smorgasbord of snacks and treats for the shoppers. Here is an example from Sew Many Quilts and Bernina Center:

In addition to the big prize drawing for those who completed their Shop Hop passports, each shop had their own individual drawing for shop gift certifications, etc:

QuiltWorks (Bend, Oregon)

Next stop on Shop Hop was at QuiltWorks, where the lovely owner Marilyn Forestell greeted shop hoppers and stamped their cards.

They also had delicious food including a huge chocolate birthday cake to celebrate the shop’s anniversary and the owner’s birthday (I forgot to take photos of the other shops’ snacks).

Here are photos from around the shop:

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They even have a Quilt Shop Dog (looks like a schnauzer mix to me!):

I wonder if they intentionally coordinated the quilt shop’s carpet with the dog?

This is where my naughtiness started – they had a section I could not refuse (see the section “The Haul” for what I purchased…you know just to be polite to the shop, ha!):

They also had a very timely display on the book Pillow Pop: 25 Quick-Sew Projects to Brighten Your Space Paperback by Heather Bostic. A couple weeks ago I decided to attack my pile of 2.5″ x 2.5″ scrap squares and enlist TTQH to help me make a huge pile of Half-Square Triangles (HSTs) to make several of the pillows in this book (future post).

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Seeing several pillow patterns from the book displayed really inspired me to (eventually) continue working on the pillows (not sure though if TTQH is still speaking to me after trimming all those HSTs…)

BJ’s Quilt Basket (Bend, Oregon)

Our third and final stop for day one was BJ’s Quilt Basket. BJ’s hold a special place in my heart as it was the start of meeting many of my other Quilting Sisters besides Judy who got m into quilting (see post Quilting Sisters, Part I).

Here are images from around BJ’s Quilt Basket:

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The Haul

First, here are the stamps on my Shop Hop passport for Day One:

Only 4 more to go!

Here is my haul of free 1/8th fat quarters – six (6) fat 1/8th quarters (TTQH gave me his of course!) from Day One:

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Here is an example of the free block pattern given at each shop. You have to go to all seven (7) shops to get the final layout/instructions for the mystery quilt; but if you do not get to all the shops each pattern also has instructions on turning the block pattern into a table runner.

And finally, here was the scrap bag I bought from QuiltWorks. It had several yards of large samples of fabrics!

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Thanks for joining me on Day One! Next post is Day Two of course 🙂

Quilters Take Manhattan, Special Events, WCQN

Speaking Engagement

April 24, 2018June 22, 2022 tierneycreates: a fusion of textiles and smiles

Last Thursday (April 19, 2018) I was the featured speaker at our monthly Central Oregon SAQA (art quilting) group meeting.

What I Presented

I did a presentation (complete with “death by PowerPoint”…I did try to keep the PowerPoint slides as engaging as possible with primarily photos) on the Women of Color Quilting Network (WCQN) and the 2017 Quilters Take Manhattan (QTM) event I attended in NYC in September 2017.

I used these previous tierneycreates and Improvisational Textiles blog posts as the basis for my presentation:

I used some of the key text from these posts but also included more photos than were in the posts (I have a crazy amount of photos from QTM 2017!). For fun I also snuck in some family photos (I met up with my sister, brother and two awesome nephews) from the trip, especially some of my highly adorable 5 year old and now 14 year old nephews!

I also brought a copy of all the WCQN Exhibit books by Dr. Carolyn Mazloomi in my personal collection for the attendees to look through while I spoke (so they would not fall asleep during my presentation):

And Still We Rise: Race, Culture and Visual Conversation
Threads of Faith: Recent Works from the Women of Color Quilters Network
Journey of Hope: Quilts Inspired by President Barack Obama
Textural Rhythms: Quilting the Jazz Tradition
Quilting African American Women’s History

I also brought a copy of Sherri Lynn Woods’ book The Improv Handbook for Modern Quilters: A Guide to Creating, Quilting, and Living Courageously just in case there was any art quilter in our group that had not heard of this book.

Terry the Quilting Husband (TTQH) attended the presentation also and helped me haul all those books to the speaking engagement.

No one appeared to fall asleep during my presentation and they actually appeared quite engaged (or faked it very well!)

The Venue

If you’ve followed my blog for a while you know my obsession with my public library. What was cool (at least to me) was that my presentation was done in the Conference room of the Sisters Branch of the Deschutes Public Library. So I got to speak at the library (huge smile)!

Key to Overcoming the Fear of Public Speaking: Be Delusional & Improvisational

One of my Central Oregon SAQA friends asked me before the presentation if I was nervous and I said “no”.

I am not sure if I should be nervous but I am never really nervous before a speaking engagement. I have this likely delusional belief, especially if I am speaking in front of a group that knows me, that they want me to succeed and are cheering me on (hopefully no one breaks my delusion!).

I used to do a lot of public speaking professionally when I was a trainer (before the days of telecommuting) at work and at professional conferences. If you’ve done corporate training, especially mandatory corporate training, you know about speaking to an audience that may not want to be there!

What broke me of any fear of public speaking (possibly creating my delusion that everyone is cheering for me) was an experience many, many years ago when I spoke at a conference that my employer put on for one our retail clients when I worked for a Workers’ Compensation Carrier.

It was a large group of managers for one of our retail clients (a national group) that looked like their souls had been sucked out of their bodies (please know I have nothing against who works in retail, this group of conference attendees were just very lifeless, they could have been in any industry). Also as you could imagine, managing work related injuries is not the most exciting all day conference topic!

During the conference, I watched one presenter after the other painfully struggle through their presentation with a highly “unengaged” and bored audience.

When it was my turn, I figured the crowd/audience could not dislike me anymore than they obviously already disliked the previous presenters, so what the heck – I was going to have fun.

So when I got up to the podium, I had an improvisational moment and I took the microphone off the podium stand and started walking through the crowd with it. I did my presentation as if I was performing a nite-club act: Walking through the crowd, speaking directly to audience members and being very animated.

Shockingly I got the first round of audible strong applause for the day! I even saw some actual smiles in the crowd (like their souls had briefly returned to their bodies!)

After that I had no fear of public speaking. Ultimately if the audience hates me, they hate me (but I always secretly know they are cheering for me – my insanity is so delicious!)

Postscript

A follow up to the post Additional Conversations – Completed , one of my blogging buddies asked me what was behind the name “Additional Conversations”. This made me realize I better go write the Artist Statement.

I’ve posted about this piece on the Improvisational Textiles blog and if you are curious on the story behind the piece, here is the link: Additional Conversations.

(Note I do need to take the piece outside in the right light and take an even better photo – I am just being lazy as I already hung it up in the Living Room!)

A Crafter's Life

Love Ducks Wandering Around the Neighborhood

April 22, 2018April 22, 2018 tierneycreates: a fusion of textiles and smiles

It’s April and time for the “Love Ducks” to wander our neighborhood!

The Love Ducks are annual pair of a hen and drake ducks that wander around our neighborhood and seem to herald the start of Spring. I checked my previous posts on this duo (maybe the same duo, maybe not) and I see both posts were in April: The Love Ducks are Back (April 2017) and The Hen and the Drake (April 2016).

A week or so ago we saw them wandering around the neighborhood and even caught them roaming through our front yard!

Here they are wandering the neighborhood:

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And here they are in my front yard – I was sitting in the front window sipping tea and reading through my Library Stack when I saw them!

It is difficult with my smartphone camera to get a quality zoom photo and I could not get too close to the ducks of course or they would fly away.

They make me smile when I see them wandering the neighborhood each Spring!

Studio, What's on the Design Wall

Additional Conversations – Completed

April 16, 2018September 15, 2018 tierneycreates: a fusion of textiles and smiles

A quick follow up to to two posts in late October 2017: Additional on “Additional Conversations” and What’s on the Design Wall.

In late October 2017 I completed a quilt from recycled materials (denim, home decor, clothings, etc.) called Additional Conversations. My original plan was to hand quilt the piece, then my plan was to machine quilt the piece, and then growing inpatient and nervous on quilting a 59″ x 55″ denim quilt I turned it over the the long-arm quilter for “quilting by check”.

Well here is the completed quilt, I finished it with facing rather than binding:

Additional Conversations (2017) by Tierney Davis Hogan, quilted by Guadalupe Designs

I’ve hung it my living/dining room area along with the other quilts that fill my living/dining room area:

I appreciate the work by the long-arm quilter and I’ve decided that I am going to be more fearless in the future and quilt all my own art quilts from this point forward.

I had a specific vision for the finished quilt and I feel I could have realized it if I had quilted it myself. It is difficult to direct someone else to quilt a quilt in your vision as each person brings their own eye and perspective to a project when it is collaborative.

This experience has encouraged me to take more risks in the future and believe more in my abilities (and give myself the opportunity to learn and grow in those abilities)!

Studio

Jelly Roll Love and a Glimpse Inside a Quilting Sister’s Sewing Room

April 15, 2018April 15, 2018 tierneycreates: a fusion of textiles and smiles

My friend Judy got me into quilting (I have her to blame for all this…smile).

Recently she shared a couple photos of her re-organized sewing room and gave me permission to share on my blog. However, I cannot share her photos without briefly mentioning her “Jelly Roll Love” (notice I am using the term “Love” and not “Addiction”, ha!) and that perhaps this is a love that I also share…

I met Judy years ago when she was a colleague at a job that seems like a lifetime ago. She is one of my “Quilting Sisters“. You know how I refer to my husband Terry as Terry the Quilting Husband (TTQH) – well Judy is my Number One Quilting Sister (after all she got me into quilting) and her new moniker is the “#1QS“!

You can read the story behind my group of Quilting Sisters in these 2017 posts: Quilting Sisters, Part I and Quilting Sisters, Part II.

But What the Heck are “Jelly Rolls”

I appreciate that non-quilters follow my blog and out of respect for those who’ve never heard of fabric “jelly rolls” (other than a delicious bakery delight) here is an image of a fabric jelly roll:

f8c3a5e4-cc1e-3af4-9f8c-253b63cd4f2d — Image credit: Missouri Star Quilt Company

A jelly roll is a 42 piece collection of pre-cut 2.5 inch quilting fabric strips and are very popular among quilters (and quite addicting to collect). The appeal for quilters to use “pre-cuts” (pre-cut fabric collections) is that they are time saving and the fabrics are already coordinated.

In the late 2000s to early 2010s jelly rolls pre-cuts were gaining huge popularity with quilters. Numerous jelly roll fabric collections and books with patterns on creating quilts made with jelly rolls were flooding the market. I am guilty of buying several of these books myself as you can see in the image from my bookshelf below:

A small section of the obscene tierneycreates craft book library

Judy’s Sewing Space & Jelly Roll Love

Judy, aka the #1QS, used to sew in a corner of her family room.

A couple of years ago, she emptied out a spare bedroom and turned it into her “Sewing Retreat”. Recently re-organized her sewing space and below are a couple photos include one of her drawer of jelly rolls that she has been collecting for years.

Projects, so many projects:

As you can tell, she will never grow bored with all those glorious sewing projects in queue!

Fabric Organized on “Mini-Bolts”

Is that calendar in order to organize when all those projects get started?!?!!

Judy uses cardboard bolts that fabric yardage comes on (like you see in fabric shops), cuts them in half and then used them to wrap her yardage and organize her fabric like a miniature quilt shop!

Another Quilting Sister Dana has done the same thing in her studio/sewing space:

I’ve been with Judy and Dana, during a quilt retreat, when they’ve asked a quilt shop owner for any empty fabric bolts they can spare. Many quilt shops just recycle the cardboard bolts so they are happy to give them to a quilter to use (at least the shops I’ve seen Judy and Dana ask for empty bolts from).

I think the effect of the mini bolts, besides nicely organizing yardage of fabric, is it makes your sewing room look like a mini Quilt Shop!

And Now For the Jelly Rolls

Judy stated this is not her only drawer of jelly rolls but she did not share a photo of her other drawer (or drawers?!?!?).

Judy is not alone in her “Jelly Roll Love”, I’ve been guilty of it myself:

Tub-o-Jelly-Rolls patiently waiting to be loved in the tierneycreates Studio

I won’t tell you the container’s dimensions or just how filled with jelly rolls my “Tub-o-Jelly-Rolls” is: a girl has to keep some things private….

Studio, What's on the Design Wall

The Recycled Love

April 14, 2018August 6, 2018 tierneycreates: a fusion of textiles and smiles

Good Morning to you all, here is an update to the 03/29/18 post Recycled Love (“What’s On My Lap” and Artist Statements, Part III) .

I finished the piece made from recycled textiles (clothing, home decor, manufacturing samples, hand-dyed silk samples, etc.) for our local art group’s annual show with the theme “The Threads that Bind” – The Recycled Love. The 03/29/18 post provides details of the 8 types of recycled fibers that are contained in the piece and my musing on writing the Artist Statement for this piece.

Hogan_Recycled Love — The Recycled Love (2018) by Tierney Davis Hogan

Here is my finalized Artist Statement for the piece:

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

I think this piece is a better option than those materials ending up in a landfill.

Postscript

My long time blogging buddies really inspire me such as Claire @knitNkwilt with her social justice and charity works, Cindy @inastitchquilting (A Quilter’s Corner) with the inspirational quotes she posts, and Melanie @catbirdquilts with her insightful musings.

I’ve been thinking a lot about kindness lately. With all that is going on in our world, each day I think about intentionally filling my heart with as much kindness and empathy as it can hold.

I came across this simple quote a week or so ago. I do not know who to credit with it so I will just post it as I found it: