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".
Happy Saturday, I hope you are having a peaceful and restorative day or engaging in something fun. Here is a post from the tierneycreates archives from November 2013
The Nature and Nurture of Words and Quilts (repost from 11/10/13)
Last night I attended The Nature of Words(www.thenatureofwords.org) annual literary festival’s evening of “Guest Author Readings”. This local literary festival’s guest author evening included readings by two poets: an Oregon Poet Laureate, Professor Lawson Inada and a National Slam Poet, Karen Finneyfrock.
While listening to these wonderful poets and the other guest authors perform their poetry or read excerpts from their novels, I began to think about the “nurture of words”. Reading poetry and literature nurtures our souls and stimulates our creative spirits whether they explore complex painful emotions or humorous and joyous experiences.
Eventually my thoughts turned to quilting and creating handmade items (as my thoughts always do). Quilts are nurturing – they keep you warm, they make you smile, they say ‘someone cares about you so much that they took hours and hours (and hours and hours) of their time to make you a substantial gift’.
Quilts and quilting can be also thought of as poems. We carefully select a pattern for our quilts (as a poet might select the Haiku poetic form) or we create our own unique design (a free-form poetic structure). As we make our quilts, each section of the quilt we piece is essentially a stanza of our poem. The final product is something that we choose to share with the world, a private individual or just keep for ourselves (as poets do). My friend who is a talented long-arm quilter essentially creates beautiful poems on her customers quilts with thread as her poetry composition medium. The process of creating a quilt, quilting a quilt, and/or giving someone a quilt as a gift, can be as nurturing as beautifully crafted poignant words on a page of prose or poetry.
I wanted to end this post with a short poem about creating a quilt, but I am not a “written word poet”. Instead I will leave you with an image of one of my textile poems: Central Oregon is Central to Me.
“Central Oregon is Central to Me”, Tierney Davis Hogan, 2013
Mondays I am off work from my pay-the-bills-job and I thought this Monday would be a great day to do a little Quilt Studio clean up (or archaeological digging).
Quilting for over 16 years, I have acquired quite a bit of quilting paraphernalia to include templates, rules, quilting aids, tools, and well…quilting thinga-ma-bobs. I thought I was fairly organized and diligent on cleaning out the stuff I no longer use, but then today I remembered the cabinet in my sewing desk where I had shoved a bunch of rulers and templates.
The cabinet now empty but once filled with curious archaeological finds
Crafters, you know what I am talking about when I mention thoserulers, templates, tools that you were (suckered?) required to buy for a class or a specific project. You have never used them againbut you are not sure if you should part with them.
If it wasn’t for a class then it was from a demo you saw at a quilt shop, retreat or conference that you thought “why yes, I definitely need that”. Or maybe it was something given to you by a friend who finished their project, gave you the pattern that they were NEVER GOING TO DO AGAIN and the accompanying special ruler or template.
Keep all that in mind as I show you what was unearthed today during my “Quilt Studio Archaeological Dig” (and don’t judge – ha!):
Thangles!
Oh look I have never used Thangles in a nice variety of sizes!
Yes, they are actually called “Thangles” and they are used as a shortcut to making “half square triangles”(HSTs). I purchased them when I lived in Seattle, likely in the early 2000s when I saw them demo’d at a quilt shop.
I have made a zillion (okay I am exaggerating, perhaps only a million) HSTs over the years and never once (never) have I thought about the Thangles I was storing for posterity in my cabinet. Imagine if I had actually used this tool as it was intended! Perhaps it would have made a couple sets of HST’s quicker.
Marti Michell Perfect Patchwork Templates
Are these collectible?
A burning question plagues me (a question besides why the heck did I buy these?): Why do I have Set A, Set B and Set D, but no Set C? Was Set C too controversial to purchase? Or by the time Set C came out did I decide it was silly to buy anymore sets I have never used but had a moment of weakness when Set D came out and bought it anyway?!?!
Great and mysterious question to ponder…
Rulers Gone Wild!
Oh so many rulers only used once (or never).
I was going to lay them all out and take a photo of them, but right now I am in denial so I merely placed them all in a basket for now. I am simply going to keep them all in sight, out on my cutting table for now, and continue to pretend like I might use them someday.
Just for fun, here is a list of some of the likely useful and likely very obscure rulers in my collection:
Easy Diamond Template (never used)
Easy Heart Template (never used)
EZ Quilting Hexagon Shapes (never used)
60 degree Diamond (never used)
Quilt Sense Rulers (never used, I guess they made so much sense they scared me)
Flying Geese Bloc Loc Rulers (I am really going to use these someday, maybe)
Fons & Porter Binding Tool (if my friend Lisa is reading this, enjoy the private joke now about my quilt binding skills)
Marti Michell Perfect Patchwork Corner Trimmer (yikes all these years I have let my corners go un-perfectly trimmed!)
A whole slew of Kaye Wood rulers (I do not want to talk about my Kaye Wood obsession in my early days of quilting and just how many of her rulers I purchased…and never used)
A Girl’s Best Friend Diamond Cut Ruler (obviously not one of my best friends as I have never used it)
Easy Circle Cut (never used)
Japanese Jigsaw Ruler (well a friend of mine DID make a quilt with this ruler, does that count?)
That’s enough I cannot bear to list anymore. Honestly though, I cannot bear to part with any of these never used rulers. I still plan to use them all – SOMEDAY! (Note I do have at least double the amount of rules I just listed which I have actually used or used at least once).
Have any of you discovered any dusty ancient gems in your crafting room lately during an archaeological dig?
Postscript
One of my readers asked for some photos of food from the Fast Metabolism Diet (FMD) I mentioned in my previous post. I just started the FMD today but here are photos of breakfast and lunch:
Breakfast of steel cut oats and blueberriesLunch of a turkey bacon wrap on a spelt tortilla (yup I was hungry while photographing and couldn’t resist a bite!)
No, no I am not going to post photos of every meal I have for the 28 days of the FMD. At a later date I will do a post about it and share more meal images for anyone who is curious.
Featured image photo credit – Russell Hugo, free images.com
I am supposed to be working on our income taxes right now but I thought I would just have quick distraction by checking my blog reader and I discovered I have been honored with being nominated for another blogging award.
I have been nominated for several blogging awards in the past and I have been VERY remiss in following the guidelines on the nominations.
Commonly blogging award nominations propose that you nominate several of your favorite blogs/bloggers part of your acceptance post – to pass on the love. Blogging awards are great ways to give a kudos to the blogs you like to read and to expose to other bloggers.
My problem is I love all the blogs I follow. I want to follow even more but alas I have to keep time to work on craft projects, spend time with Terry the Quilting Husband and the dogs, and of course that pesky pay-the-bills-job.
I list some of the blogs I follow in my my Main Sidebar, however WordPress limits it to 50 blogs, so the earliest blogs I followed are not listed (but check out my Postscript section for a special note).
Since I have been so remiss on following the rules of the blogging awards nominations at this point I am just going to say thank you to those who nominated me and invite my readers to check out their wonderful blogs .
Blogger Recognition Award
Linda Kelley at the fabulous Arts & Crafts Blog Extraordinaire – kelleysdiy.com– recently nominated me for this award!
Black Cat Blue Sea Award
The intriguing writer, blogger and bibliophilist (there is your word for the day) – Of Tales and Dreams‘ Kamalini nominated me for this award in September 2016.
Ok, now this is embarrassing – I think there was one more blogging award I was nominated for but I cannot remember what it was or who nominated me. My sincere apologies to my fellow blogger who was kind enough to nominate me!
Postscript
I wanted to recognize two of the first fellow bloggers to follow my blog when I started it in late 2013 (back when I had like 5 readers as most were friends and family I badgered into following my blog – ha!).
Claire and Cindy – I really appreciate your posts and your comments on my posts over the years:
This post was originally published on the Improvisational Textiles website in February 2017, moving to my tierneycreates blog.
As part of my ongoing series of posts on sources of Creative Inspiration, I am sharing my latest inspiration: Temperature.
In 2015 I created this piece: Color Story VII: It’s Getting Warm In Here:
Color Study VII: It’s Getting Warm in Here by Tierney Davis Hogan. Quilted by Guadalupe Designs.
In 2015 a fellow quilter invited me over for a “Sew Day” at her home after she took a “Liberated Quiltmaking” class from Gwen Marston. She shared with me several of Gwen Marston’s techniques of freeform triangle piecing into borders and ‘flying geese’ style blocks. She also shared her stash of fabric scraps, filled with reds, oranges and yellows.
I created an improvisational piece that for me evoked a sense of rising temperature to potentially be the start of a Temperature-themed art quilt series. I added in some blues and purples to “cool down” the piece. I added red beads to the piece after it was quilting to add an additional element of interest for the viewer’s eye.
They have been the perfect portable project and now I understand the fun of EPP. All the fabrics are from the 2016 Central Oregon Shop Hop – fat eighths given out by area quilt shops (from a set collected by both Terry the Quilting Husband and myself).
This weekend I hung out with a couple quilting buddies and we opened up Pinterest and starting playing with some layout options on the kitchen counter:
I still have many more hexies to make so I am not ready to decide on a final pattern yet but I am leaning towards the randomly placed design as opposed to a more traditional “Grandmother’s Flower Garden” design.
So more to come.
I will close this post with a lovely sign I saw recently at a shop:
In my recent post Little Bits of Oregon Warmth I shared a baby quilt I made for a friend expecting her first child (shortly now!). Today I received an e-mail from a friend for whom I made a baby quilt for his first child nearly 7 years ago that started me thinking about the baby quilts I have made.
Recently he and his wife had friends visit and they brought their baby. The quilt I made his baby all those years ago was enjoyed by the new baby and he sent me a photo (I do not know the parents so I cropped out the sweet baby’s face to respect their privacy):
A huge smile took over my face when I saw this photo!
I have made so many baby quilts over the years and my heart feels very full when I think of all those sweet “new people” that got wrapped in my creations. I have also donated a couple baby quilts to Project Linus and I want to do more baby quilt donations in the future.
When I had my tierneycreates Etsy shop (it is now inactive), I sold an inspirational baby quilt (not sure if it was a Moda fabric line) with words like “Grow”, “Sunshine”, “Renew”, “Life”, “Plant” and “Hope”.
I received the most beautiful communication from the woman who bought the quilt – she was going to wrapped her newly adopted child in the quilt. It was one of those communications (via Etsy conversation and then the Seller Feedback she left) that made my eyes fill with tears of joy that something I made could be that meaningful to someone else (I am glad the quilt was so reasonably priced, otherwise I would have been tempted to just give her a refund and say “take it as a gift!”)
But my sweetest memory related to giving someone a baby quilt is related to a baby quilt I made for someone I never met. Terry the Quilting Husband (before he was a quilting husband but he knew handmade quilts made people very happy) had a coworker that was expecting her first child. He asked me if I could make her a baby quilt.
I did not know the woman and I was pressed for time but I found a baby themed pre-printed panel and whipped out a very quick and easy baby quilt. It was definitely not my greatest work but it was your basic utility baby quilt.
When Terry arrived home from work that day he told me about her at work Baby Shower and how she had started sobbing when she opened up the gift and saw the quilt. She said no one had ever made a quilt for her or anyone in her family. She was overwhelmed and felt very special.
Some fabric sewed together can be pretty magical, eh?
Terry the Quilting Husband got his cozy flannel quilt back from the long-arm quilter and finally we have put the denim binding on (I say “we” because Terry sewed the binding strips together but I sewed them down on the quilt as he hates that part!) and completed the quilt.
Here is Terry under the quilt (he does not like his photo posted, and no, he is not in a witness protection program):
Somewhere under this cozy flannel quilt is a male quilter…
A close up of the denim binding (Terry’s idea) and the pieced :
Pieced flannel back and binding
Here is the chair with the quilt “sans Terry”. This chair is actually my favorite chair for reading in front of the window, but Terry has hijacked it and has his quilt and his book (Military History not crafting) in my spot:
Not sure if there are enough quilts in this corner…
Terry selected the fabric (a fat quarter stack of Woolies flannel), designed the quilt, and pieced the quilt…and assembled the binding then handed it off to his wife to sew onto the quilted quilt!
Non-Stop Self-Help Audiobook Listening
Those of you who have followed my blog for a while know of my obsession with self-help audiobooks. I do try and sprinkle a little fiction into my book consumption whether it be a Neil Gaiman audiobook or my recent read (via a hardback book!) of Paula Hawkin’s The Girl on the Train (which I really liked, it was a page turner, but the main character did irritate me…).
Recently from my local library, I have listened to three “self-help” genre audiobooks back to back:
Present Over Perfect: Leaving Behind Frantic for a Simpler, More Soulful Way of Living by Shauna Niequist
The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck: A Counterintuitive Approach to Living a Good Life by Mark Manson
Emotional Agility: Get Unstuck, Embrace Change, and Thrive in Work and Lifeby Susan David
I am still reading/listening to Emotional Agility and it might end up being one of my most favorite “self-improvement”/”self-help” audiobooks of all time. It is narrated by the author who has a lovely South African accent (early in the book she shared some of the horrors witnessed growing up in South Africa during the Apartheid and how they influenced her; she now lives in the US).
I greatly enjoyed The Subtle Art… and it was not about being indifferent or becoming a sociopath – it was about embracing your life struggles and viewing your struggles from a different perspective. The book also focused on deciding what is important to you in life, based on your values, and focusing your energies there instead of getting lost in the meaningless details in life.
I gave up halfway through the book Present Over Perfect as I found the narrator and the book sort of tedious and repetitious; however the author did make some good points and perhaps I would have enjoyed it better as a print book.
Here are some quotes from each of the books that I found inspirational:
Present Over Perfect (Shauna Niequist)
“What kills a soul? Exhaustion, secret keeping, image management. And what brings a soul back from the dead? Honesty, connection, grace”
“How we live matters, and what you choose to own will shape your life, whether you choose to admit it or not. Let’s live lightly, freely, courageously, surrounded only by what brings joy, simplicity, and beauty.”
“But you can’t have yes without no. Another way to say it: if you’re not careful with your yeses, you start to say no to some very important things without even realizing it. In my rampant yes-yes-yes-ing, I said no, without intending to, to rest, to peace, to groundedness, to listening, to deep and slow connection, built over years instead of moments.”
The Subtle Art… (Mark Manson)
“We suffer for the simple reason that suffering is biologically useful. It is nature’s preferred agent for inspiring change. We have evolved to always live with a certain degree of dissatisfaction and insecurity, because it’s the mildly dissatisfied and insecure creature that’s going to do the most work to innovate and survive.”
“Who you are is defined by what you’re willing to struggle for.”
“We are so materially well off, yet so psychologically tormented in so many low-level and shallow ways. People relinquish all responsibility, demanding that society cater to their feelings and sensibilities. People hold on to arbitrary certainties and try to enforce them on others, often violently, in the name of some made-up righteous cause. People, high on a sense of false superiority, fall into inaction and lethargy for fear of trying something worthwhile and failing at it.”
Emotional Agility (Susan David)
“People frequently die in fires or crash landings because they try to escape through the same door they used when they entered.”
“Your Values will bring you freedom from Social Comparisons.”
“Bottling and brooding are short-term emotional aspirin we reach for, yet these habits don’t deal with what’s causing our distress.”
This quote by Susan David from the interview sums up the theme of this wonderful book:
“(Emotional Agility is) the ability to be able to be with your thoughts, your emotions and your stories. We all have thousands of these every day in a way that enables us not to be derailed by them, but rather brings us intentionally and with purpose towards what we value in our live.”
I keep thinking I will eventually tire of or just get completely sick of “self-help” books but then I stumble across a couple of gems like The Subtle Art… and Emotional Agility!
Postscript
I backup my photos on Google Photos and occasionally it will automatically add a special effect to one of my photos that I can choose to save or discard (not affecting the original photo). Here are two photos that were first featured on the 01/15/17 post Creative Inspiration: Winter Trees that Google added special effects.
I wanted to share these photos as they look really cool (well at least to me):
This post has two parts: Part I (the fun part) is a tour of the new Sew Many Quilts quilt shop location; and Part II (the less fun part) is a little discussion on sewing machines and their maintenance (with a request for your input).
Part I: Sew Many Quilts’ New Shop
We have wonderful quilt shops in Central Oregon. I have a full list and link to the shop’s websites in the right sidebar of my blog.
Saturday I need to take by Bernina QE in for service (more on that in Part II) to Sew Many Quilts and Bernina Center. They recently moved to a larger location and Terry the Quilting Husband and I were looking forward to seeing their new shop and layout.
We have lived in Central Oregon for nearly 12 years and Sew Many Quilts is one of the first quilt shops I went to when I moved here. They used to be in a very very very tiny location and you had to sometimes back out of an area so another quilter could pass by the area you were shopping in. Then they moved to a semi-industrial shop area but it was tucked away and I wonder if they were not getting enough traffic. Now they have moved to a highly visible store front strip mall type location.
This quilt shop is always dear to my heart as it is where I bought my first “high-end” sewing machine (but more on that in Part II).
Enough rambling, here is a photo tour of their new location (note they do not have their sign out front yet so I did not take many outside photos).
General quilt shop photos:
The Bernina Center (warning this section contains “sewing machine porn”):
There were many wonderful quilt samples on display, but this one was my favorite:
So next time you are in Central Oregon, be sure to add this wonderful quilt shop to your visit list!
Part II: Sewing Machines and Their Maintenance
Here are a couple questions for those of you who sew (at first I wrote “sewers” but I thought hmmm that would be like I am addressing all the underground conduits following my blog, ha!):
What type of sewing machine(s) do you have; and if you have multiple machine – which one is your favorite?
How often do you get your sewing machine(s) serviced?
My Sewing Machines
I have 2 sewing machines – a Bernina 440 QE (my primary machine) and Bernina Active 210 (for travel/classes). I nicknamed my beloved Bernina 440 “Berny”.
My beloved Bernina 440 QE (“Berny”)
I began quilting on a Singer sewing machine and then upgraded to a Husqvarna Viking sewing machine. At the time this was a huge purchase as a new quilter – $400 (on sale of course) for a sewing machine – could you imagine someone spending that much on a sewing machine, I could not (little did I know what was to come…)
After a couple years of quilting and taking classes and drooling over the higher end machines that other quilters had, I decided that to feel complete in life I needed a Bernina. I was very attracted to Bernina because of its reputation for being well constructed and reliable with durable internal metal parts. I did of course have “sticker shocked” when I saw what Berninas cost!
I would visit Sew Many Quilts and drool over their Bernina display. Then they had a sale with 12 months same as cash no interest and I decided to make the investment and purchase the Bernina 440 QE.
Overall I have been pleased with my Bernina and a couple of years ago bought a smaller Bernina for classes during another sale at Sew Many Quilts.
The one thing I wish my Berninas had is a thread cutter. I borrowed a friend’s Janome with a thread cutter and I fell in love with the whole automatic thread cutting experience (it made me coo with delight!).
However after years of quilting and talking to other quilters, I realized I could have bought at least one of my Berninas used and saved quite a bit of money. I have also sewed on other machines such as Janomes that a pretty nice too (and are less expensive).
I’ve also tried out used/older Berninas that work wonderfully and I now realize you do not always need the newest shiniest thing when it comes to sewing machines!
Maintenance
Berninas require regularly service/maintenance and you have to oil them (they come with a bottle of machine oil) to keep them running smoothly. We have one (that I know of) Bernina Service Technician in Central Oregon so if he is busy you have to be patient.
The recommendation is a once a year service which I have to confess I have not always followed. I am pretty good at regularly oiling my machine and keeping all the areas I can reach free of dust and lint. So sometimes I go up to 2 years before bringing it in for maintenance (clean, oil and adjust).
In the 8 years I have had my Berninas I have only had one major issue and that was because one of them got dropped on the way to a quilting retreat by an airport shuttle company. I did pursue a claim with the airport shuttle company and they did reimburse the repairs.
I look forward to reading your thoughts on sewing machines and sewing machine maintenance in the Comment section – thanks!
Postscript
I have listened to a bunch of interesting “self-help” audiobooks lately while sewing or walking the dogs. In a future post will share a little bit about those books and key inspirational insights.
I am not sure what I was thinking. I have no twin beds in the house, but the quilt top (pattern by Lesley Chaisson, from the book Perfect Quilts for Precut Fabrics by Patchwork Place, 2014) measures 81.5 in. x 105.5 in. !!!
Yikes!
So Many Precuts…
I was going to photograph my entire fabric precut collection (jelly rolls, fat quarters, charm squares, layer cakes) but I am not ready to share my dirty little secret.
I will share that I was able to decrease this basket of charm squares (5 inch precut squares) by 2+ packages of 42 charm squares to make the Happy Ending quilt:
It Started on the Design Wall
I have a giant design wall in my hallway (the one hallway in my little house) and I thought I could layout the entire quilt on the design wall.
Building the quilt top:
Um…it is now dragging on the floor:
So I had to abandon the design wall for the “design bed”.
On the Design Bed
Here are photos of the quilt top completed and laid out on the “design bed”:
I used two Moda Fabrics charm packs (Basic Grey line) to make the half-square triangles. Everything is set in Peppered Cottons by Pepper Cory fabric (color PC44-45 – Ink).
Shot Cotton Challenges
Peppered Cottons are shot cottons are fabrics woven with two slightly different colors creating a shimmering effect (source: Purl Solo). Many shot cottons are lightweight and some are rather sheer. They can be challenging to work with and if not cut correctly can had friable and fraying edges.
As shown in my personal example below:
I was discussing this challenge with my friend Susan who is a masterfully precise technical sewer/quilter, and she advised that if I carefully cut the fabric along the straight line of the threads, I would have less fraying.
I also found these tips (which I should have searched for prior to beginning a project that involved a large amount of shot cotton yardage):
I am putting together the backing (yardage from the Moda Fabrics Basic Grey line):
Then it is time to connect with Cindy of A Quilter’s Corner with Cindy Anderson (inastitchquilting.com) on shipping the quilt top and quilt backing to her. She is my longtime blogging buddy and this will be our first collaboration on a quilt!
NEXT POST: Saturday I took my sewing machine in for service and visited the new Sew Many Quilts quilt shop location. Photos and musing to come.
Follow the musings of Sassy the Highly Opinionated Schnauzer at her Schnauzer Snips blog.
The plan was not to do a post until I finished my Happy Ending quilt discussed in previous posts. I am plugging away at it and have moved it from the “design wall” to the “design bed” (a concept I borrowed from Claire @ knitNkwilt) so hopefully in the near future I will post the completed quilt top.
I took a vacation day from work today and went to lunch with my friend Jenny and a wander about downtown Bend, Oregon. After lunch we stopped at Dudley’s Bookshop Cafefor a Chai tea and bookstore browse. Dudley’s in the indie bookstore featured in my 12/23/16 post and had an upstairs curtain which was askew. After grabbing my tea, I rushed upstairs to see if the curtain was still askew as this time I planned to fix it (a little OCD humor discussed in the comments in the 12/23/16 post).
Well! The curtain was already fixed!
The owner of Dudley’s had promised to leave the curtain askew for me after reading my 12/23/16 post but I guess some other patron fixed it before I could return!
After leaving Dudley’s we wandered around a couple other downtown shops. In one of the shops I saw this wonderful quote by His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama of Tibet (I had to google that to find his proper title) that gave me a moment of pause and reflection:
I transposed the quote on a photo I snapped of a cloudy day in Central Oregon this past Fall. If you like it, feel free to copy the image and share it. I used PicMonkey’s Photo Editor.
I am busy working on my Happy Ending quilt top from my recent post, What’s on theDesign Wall. I hope my next post will be to show you the completed quilt top (fingers crossed). For now, here is something from the tierneycreates archives…
The Guest House (originally posted June 27, 2016)
Happy Monday to you and I hope you have a wonderful week filled with Inspiration, Creativity and Joy.
As I mentioned in last’s post “Listening and Reading“, currently I am listening to the audiobook The Here and Now Habit by Hugh Byrne. This book focuses on using “mindfulness” to break unwanted habits.
During my walk on Sunday with this audiobook, I listened to the author discuss one of my favorite poems by Rumi (Jalāl ad-Dīn Muhammad Rūmī – a 13th century Persian poet and scholar) – The Guest House.
The author discusses this poem in relation to finding peace in dealing with unwanted thoughts and feelings. What I love about the work of Rumi is that it can be interpreted in so many ways and the meaning can be personalized to what you needed to hear/read at that moment in your life.
The Guest House
This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.
A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness
comes as an unexpected visitor.
Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.
The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.
Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.
Wanna go fabric shopping with me? Shall we wander around a quilt shop together?
Yes, yes, I know that unless I was to fly you all to Central Oregon (and that could get really expensive when it comes to bringing my readers in Australia over to Oregon…), our only option is to virtually go fabric shopping together!
Today I will to take you one of our wonderful Central Oregon Quilt Shops – Material Girl Fabrics in Redmond, Oregon.
Terry the Quilting Husband and I met a couple friends for brunch today in Redmond and then headed for a wander about Material Girl Fabrics. The wonderful owner Leslie was having a quiet afternoon when we arrived (because of the weather/snow), though it picked up while we were there. Luckily before it go busier, we did get time to visit with Leslie who always makes her visitors feel welcome.
The quilt shop is very sweet – it is inside a former house and it is very cozy!
Let’s start our wander around this shop together:
General Photos
(Click on a photo to open a slideshow)
A Sweet Little Play Area
Tucked away in the shop is a sweet little play area for small children among the juvenile themed prints:
The Kitchen!
As I mentioned, the quilt shop is a former house, and has a functioning kitchen which also serves as the counter/cash register area:
Fabric Purchases
I was well behaved and I bought a remnant piece of gold Asian fabric. One of my friends, Susan, bought a nice little stash of fabric and was quite pleased with her purchase:
Material Girl Fabric may be considered a “smaller quilt shop” but it is very well curated. There are many high quality delicious quilting fabrics inside the cozy house.
For those of you familiar with the Row by Row Experience, where quilt shops around the US offer an annual free pattern of a row for a quilt (usually themed for their shop), here is the Material Girl Fabrics’ Row by Row:
Thanks for virtually wandering around the quilt shop with me! (If you would like to check out the our other lovely Central Oregon shops, I have links to all the shops in the right sidebar of my blog.)
Postscript
Terry the Quilting Husband got his most recent quilt back from the long-arm quilter today. This quilt was discussed in the 11/20/16 post Terry the Quilting Husband – Update.
Usually I am a “nice wife” and I trim the excessive batting and backing off the quilt, but this evening I let him do it himself. He wants to put a denim border on it and I am trying to figure out if I have some light weight denim in my stash that will work. I will post a photo of the complete quilt once the binding is added and sewn down.
I was playing a game with myself: I could not write another blog post until I completed the top on the quilt discussed in the post, Diving into a quilt (and other stuff), Happy Ending.
Alas, I am writing a post and I have not finished the quilt top, but I have made some progress with this half-square-triangel (HST) pattern and sections are on the design wall (note – my design wall is in my narrow hallway so I can only photograph large pieces in the works from angles):
I am still wrangling with piecing the HSTs into the setting fabric and there are sections all over my little sewing room:
At the sewing machine table:
On the ironing board:
This quilt is going to be a collaboration with my blogging buddy Cindy of A Quilter’s Corner with Cindy Anderson (inastitchquilting.com) who is a long-arm quilter. I will be mailing the quilt top and the backing to her for her long-arm quilting artistry. So I bet she will have this quilt on her blog too after she quilts it.
It is late so no additional ramblings at this time. Tomorrow is Saturday and I am determined to keep wrangling these HSTs and their setting fabric until they become a quilt top! (More later on my thoughts about using a “shot cotton” type fabric as a setting fabric…kind of challenging even if it is a heavier weight shot cotton).
A bit of time has passed since I continued my ongoing series on sources of Creative Inspiration.
I cannot promise I am going to create an art quilt based on every inspiration I have shared in the Creative Inspiration series of posts, but I use this series of posts as an online catalogue/resource for future art quilt ideas!
In January 2016, I posted about the beauty of Winter Trees. If you peek at this post, from nearly a year ago, you will see bare trees against a blue sky. January 2017 looks much different – the trees are bare of leaves, but they are filled with snow!
Here are a couple of photos from my daily walks (recently I upgraded from an iPhone 4S to an iPhone 7 so my photo quality has improved…at least in my mind):
A snapped a couple photos of birds in the snowy Winter Trees:
If any of my photos inspire you to create please feel free to use them!
It has been a beautiful Winter Wonderland in Central Oregon, even if I refer to it as “Snowmageddon”. I do have proof we have had serious snow – the Bend Bulletin recently published this story: “Central Oregon sees historic snow depths”. (See I am not being a drama queen over this snow, ha!)
Postscript
Follow up to my recent post Diving into a quilt (and other stuff) – I have made 192 half square triangles and in the near future I will have a “What’s on the Design Wall” post with my progress!
Today I finished two books – an audiobook (Scrappy Little Nobody) and a paper novel (Girl on the Train).
Anna Kendrick’s Scrappy Little Nobody was delightful! It is narrated by the author and filled with charming and very funny stories from her days as a child actor, awkward adolescent, and struggling young adult. The end of her book contains a hysterically funny “Book Club Discussion Questions” written by the author and making fun of herself as a celebrity who writes a memoir.
Scrappy Little Nobody ranged from PG to an occasional PG-13 rating in my opinion. It was quite different than Amy Schumer’s The Girl with the Lower Back Tattoo which was R to NC-17 rated (but absolutely hysterically funny).
Just to give you a sense of the difference, Amy Schumer opens her book with a graphic letter of apology to her “lady parts”. Anna Kendrick on the other hand kept acknowledging that her mother would be reading her book so she had to leave some stuff out of her book…
I realized I have now listened to many memoirs by current pop culture female celebrities. Here is my ranking of these books:
Scrappy Little Nobody – Anne Kendrick
The Girl with the Lower Back Tattoo – Amy Schumer (Amy Schumer’s book was the funniest – like stop my walk to bend over laughing funny – but Anne Kendrick was more endearing)
Bossypants – Tina Fey
Shrill: Notes From a Loud Woman – Lindy West
You’ll Grow Out of It – Jesse Klein (this would have had a higher ranking if not for the unnecessary Triple XXX chapter that took oversharing to a whole new level)
Am I rambling? There was something else I was going to add to the Postscript section but it left my mind. (Hope I have not been “oversharing”…)
At least we have blue skies…
If you would like to see what Sassy the Highly Opinionated Miniature Schnauzer thinks of all the Central Oregon snow, check out her blog at schnauzersnips.wordpress.com/blog/
It is time to get back to some quilt making, since allegedly I am a quilter, and this a blog about a Quilter’s Life (which would imply there would eventually be some quilt-making involved).
However sitting around reading and browsing books from my latest library stack (see post The Library Stack) and being the ADHD creative person I am, I found a quilt pattern in the book Perfect Quilts for Precut Fabricsby That Patchwork Place, that I had to make IMMEDIATELY!
It is a fairly simple “half square triangles” (HSTs) quilt pattern called “Happy Ending”, designed by Lesley Chaisson. I have a couple bolts of Peppered Cotton (shot cottons) in various colors and a crazy amount of Moda charm packs. I thought this pattern and quilt would be the perfect marriage between a deep blue (ink) Peppered Cotton and a couple Moda Basic Grey line charm packs. You need like 7 yards of the solid so this is a great way to use up a bolt that I have too much of (originally I was selling it on my tierneycreates Etsy shop).
I have completed most of the cutting and Terry the Quilting Husband has drawn the diagonal lines on the back of the printed charm squares for us to make the HSTs. So the next step is to actually sit in front of my sewing machine and sew! (so that’s how quilts are made…)
And what about the hat I was working on? It is done and I wore it for the first time yesterday on a dog walk in the land of “Snowmageddon” (it is still snowing and snowing and snowing in Central Oregon).
(And yes I did wear the hat around the house for 1/2 hour with the double pointed needles on top mentioned in my prior post – I get so excited when a hat is nearly done – I get a “knitting high”)
I am tempted to start another hat but first I better actually finish a quilt top…
Postscript
So what else have I been doing during “Snowmageddon” – reading and cooking.
I am reading Girl on the Trainby Paula Hawkins and I am completely sucked into the convoluted tale. I even stayed up too late one night reading. It is one of those books where I think the actual paper book is better than the audiobook. I gave up on the audiobook earlier this year and I am so glad I gave it another try in paper.
I am also listening to an audiobook when I walk the dogs in Snowmageddon – Scrappy Little Nobody by Anna Kendrick. The book is delightful and narrated by the author. I did not know she was a child actor and I am enjoying her stories from her childhood and the less than glamorous world of childhood acting. She is a great narrator and I feel like she is talking to me telling me her story.
As far as cooking, I have been persuing Pinterest for soup recipes and found a delicious vegetable soup recipe on the Cooking Classy blog – Vegetable Soup. It says it serves 7 but I think they left the “0” off after the “7”. It made SO MUCH SOUP.
I froze several large bags of soup and I have a couple containers in the fridge for lunch this week (and next week, and the next week..)
Finally, let me leave you with this image that a friend shared. I do not know the original source, so unfortunately I have no credit for the photo/meme. It does capture how we are feeling right now in Central Oregon with the nonstop snow:
Well here’s what I’m supposed to be working on today:
Reality
Here’s what I’m actually working on today:
It’s so cold and snowy today all I want to do is sit around under a quilt and knit.
I am almost to my favorite part of knitting a hat – switching to the double pointed needles. I love finishing off the top part of a hat – it’s kind of challenging but fun! (Plus I like being silly and walking around the house with my nearly completed hat and double pointed needles sticking out of the top – ha!)
Well back to watching the snow fall outside my front window…
I am inspired by several year end summaries on other blogs I follow, to share a list of the of the posts I most enjoyed writing in 2016 on my tierneycreates blog.
It turns out the top three, are really three series of posts on different topics:
(Thank goodness I have one favorite series that is quilting related, especially when this is allegedly a quilter’s blog…)
I remember a sense of joy and whimsy as I wrote the posts related to the “Fruits of My Neighborhood” and “Quilt Retreat Weekend 2016”. I remember much reflection on where I used to be and where I am now in my life journey, when I wrote the series of posts on “My Minimalism Journey”.
When writing a blog post occasionally I wonder just how much to reveal about myself, to put out there in a public forum. Perhaps the readers of the “Shameless Thrifting” post are still reeling from the discovery of my childhood obsession with Barry Manilow!
Onward to 2017!
To those who followed me in 2016 (or 2015, 2014, 2013), thanks for reading my musings! Hoping to keep it interesting in 2017 (or to continue to be something you can read before bed to make you pleasantly drowsy!)
Sassy, the Highly Opinionated Miniature Schnauzer, and I are happy to announce that her new Schnauzer Snips blog is up and running.
I helped her (as it would have taken forever with her paws to do all that computer work) transfer the three years of her musing from the from the tierneycreates Schnauzer Snips page to her new blog at: schnauzersnips.wordpress.com
She would love to have you follow her if you want to keep up on the musings of a highly opinionated miniature schnauzer!
Continuing my ongoing series of posts on my latest stack of books borrowed from my local public library, I realized a couple of stacks have come and gone and I did not post them (they were smaller stacks). This time I went a little crazy the other day at my local library. A couple of the books in the stack below I had reserved but many were “impulse borrowings“!
I had a little wander in my favorite “Dewey Decimal System” sections of 745 – 747 (and a little jaunt into section 700 – 702) and I wanted to take 1/2 the section home (even if I have read them before). My thinking was – it is a holiday weekend (New Years) and it is time to nest with some books!
As you can see below, this morning, I started nesting in my favorite chair with the books and a pot of tea:
So far I am really enjoying the book by Danny Gregory – Art Before Breakfast: A Zillions Ways to Be More Creative No Matter How Busy You Are (2015). Gregory discusses the benefits of making art and one benefit that captured my attention is that: “Art stops time”. Making art makes you be in the present moment – “Be here. Now” – it makes you observe the world around you instead of obsessing on all the busy thoughts in your head!
One of the books in the stack, Ted Koppel’s Lights Out was recommended on a blog I follow, Dewey Hop|Feisty Froggy Reads Through The Library. And yes, as the blog’s title implies, the blogger is reading through the library, one section at a time and sharing the interesting finds!
The book Reinventing IKEA by Isabelle Bruno and Christine Baillet, I discovered in the New Releases: Nonfiction section (this is always my first stop when I am browsing the library). We are thinking of re-modeling our living room someday and adding built in bookcases and I am the hunt for inexpensive ideas.
As far as Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins, I had tried to listen to the audiobook but got lost and grew disinterested. I am going to try and read the actual book and see if that helps as the book has gotten such great reviews. Also I want to watch the movie someday and want to read the book first (as movies rarely capture all the delicious details in a book).
Well back to nesting with the books, perhaps I will also do some sewing later on this cold snowy winter day!
Postscript
Sassy the Highly Opinionated Miniature Schnauzer is getting impatient with me. She is waiting for me to help her finish transferring the posts on her tierneycreates blog’s SchnauzerSnips page to her new very own blog – Schnauzer Snips (schnauzer snips.wordpress.com). Do not follow her yet or you will hate me for the endless notifications of “new posts”, which are old posts being added 🙂
Sassy is getting impatient
I have made it to 2015 in the transfer and I did not realize she had so many “posts”. Once it is done, she and I will share an announcement. Eventually I will remove her Schnauzer Snips page from the tierneycreates blog.
Comment to my fellow WordPress bloggers out there: This will free more space on my tierneycreates blog which is a good thing as I was going to have to eventually upgrade my plan for additional storage (thank goodness I have learned to resize my photos to take up less of my allotted storage space).
Every Spring my Quilt Sisters and I have our annual quilting retreat in May at sewNgo Quilting Retreat Center in Vancouver, Washington. Nancy, the host, makes delicious food and has recently published the Quilter’s Delight Cookbook featuring recipes her wonderful quilt retreat menu!
Today for lunch I made the Vegetarian Kale Soup from the cookbook and it was delicious! The recipe made a large batch and I have lunch for a couple days plus enough to freeze for a future lunch.
Nancy, the retreat host, is very sensitive to the dietary needs of her quilt retreaters and this recipe was actually Vegan in addition to being vegetarian! (No, I am not a Vegan or a Vegetarian as I could not live without bacon, but I do appreciate meat free dishes)
Postscript
I do love attending quilt retreats (even if I get sleep deprived at times from them). Someday when I retire I want to regularly attend quilt retreats!
If you would like to read a couple of my past blog posts on my quilt retreat adventures, they are linked below:
As I mentioned in a previous post, I am on five-day holiday from work and I planned to spend time working on my project backlog.
One of my backlogged projects, was deciding what to do with a small (baby or doll sized) quilt top I made from a collection of 2″ inch squares. I decided this weekend to recover the stool I keep under my computer desk in my studio with it!
Here is what I started with – a lovely stool given to me by a friend (who originally bought it second hand):
The butterfly fabric was nice but the fabric was dated, had a weird velour-like feeling and did not bring me joy.
So – on top of the current cover, with a layer of batting placed underneath, I recovered it with my 2″ squares (aka “postage stamp”) quilt top:
It fits my studio better and goes with the general studio theme of quilting and creating.
Postscript
Here is my next project in queue from my backlog – Tango Stripe, a pattern I bought in 2011 or 2012 by Jean Wells of the Stitchin’ Post:
I am very excited about this quilt, I fell in love with the store sample at the Stitchin’ Post (see list on my blog of “Central Oregon Quilt Shops” for links to my local shops).
Perhaps this post reveals the depth of our pathology related to our obsession with schnauzers (and dogs in general)…
For the past 25 years we have adopted rescued miniature schnauzers and for the past 25 years we have collected schnauzer and dog themed Christmas ornaments. Some were given as gifts (from friends supporting our obsession) and some we purchased (okay most of them) on our own.
Every year, right after Thanksgiving, we delight in pulling out our collection of schnauzer and dog themed decorations and trimming our tree.
Eight or so years ago, instead of “Happy Holidays” we started saying as a joke to people who knew us (and our obsession) – “Happy Schnolidays!”. Occasionally I get inspired to make my own holiday cards and they are always “Schnolidays” themed – several times featuring our miniature schnauzers dressed up for the holidays (against their will).
Well I want to wish you all a very HAPPY SCHNOLIDAYS – even if you do not have schnauzers (or dogs) – to us “Schnolidays” means the the Holidays + Fun & Laughter!
One of our favorite new ornaments in our collection is a reindeer-schnauzer! It makes us laugh everything we look at it:
Of course here are actual real live miniature schnauzers, in their festive attire (Sassy the Highly Opinionated Miniature Schnauzer and her adopted brother Mike):
I won’t pretend I do not shop on Amazon.com for book deals or that I do not go to our local Barnes & Noble bookstore, but today I was reminded just how wonderful and magical Independent Bookstores are to have in one’s community. I plan to spend more time at indie bookshops!
Today we went for a wander around and hot beverage at downtown Bend’s Dudley’s Bookshop Cafe.
As the sign upstairs at Dudley’s Bookshop Cafe reads:
Independent Bookstores are wonderful & magical places because each book will have been hand selected, you know all of them are jewels just waiting to be discovered…
After the friendly shopkeepers filled darling ceramic mugs with our hot cocoa (for me) and mocha (for Terry the Quilting Husband), we had a leisurely and delicious wander about the shop browsing and their well curated selections.
Come wander the shop with us for a moment…
Downstairs, where you enter Dudley’s bookshop and immediately think – “well this would be a fine place to nest for awhile”:
People were nesting – they have WiFi and some were on their laptops and some were sipping their hot beverages and reading a book (or previewing a book!).
Among the shelves of books are fun things and objects to look at, including this wickedly funny sign:
Now head upstairs (carefully carry your mug of hot beverage with you!) and check out the painted stairs celebrating books:
(I love the step that reads: “Fifty Shades of Dudley’s)
At the top of the landing you will find a shelf of books (in case it was too long a journey to go without being able to browse any books from the bottom of the stairs to the top).
Now, turn the corner…and…WOW: Here is the cozy reading nook you might have searched for while browsing any bookstore (and maybe dreamed about in your own home):
The secret OCD person inside of me wanted to go and fix the left side of the curtain, but I was here to browse books, not adjust decor so I left it alone – ha!
After walking by the cozy reading nook, you come upon the upstairs room with more books to browse – how about a Art/Film/Music book to add to your collection?
Even the bathroom was delightful and had this great poster called A Plotting of Fiction Genres:
If you would like to know more about this poster, I did find it online at Pop Chart Lab. I did not want to spend too long in the bathroom reading it, but I was very impressed with it in my brief time with it! Here is a better overall photo from the seller’s website.
I could not leave Dudley’s Bookshop without a little something. If you have followed my blog for a while, you know I love our local public library and lately I get most of my reading through borrowing from the library (as I have been very naughty at bookshops in the past and have a huge book collection). I am trying not to add more books permanently to my home but I did want a little something from the indie bookstore, so I bought a cool set of greeting cards that you color yourself!
Two of my many favorite authors, Neil Gaiman and Ann Patchett are huge advocated for preserving independent bookstores (Ann Patchett even owns her own indie bookstore, Parnassus Books) and have lauded the value of preserving these shops in their writing.
I will close this post with a Neil Gaiman quote, which is also on the Dudley’s Bookshop Cafe website, from his wonderful and magical bookAmerican Gods:
What I say is, a town isn’t a town without a bookstore. It may call itself a town, but unless it’s got a bookstore it knows it’s not fooling a soul. – Neil Gaiman
Good Morning! I realized I forgot to follow up on my post from 11/9/16: Free Webinar: CREATIVE QUILT CHALLENGES and provide to those of you who did not get to attend, the link to the presentation and handouts.
My friends Pat Pease and Wendy Hill provided a wonderful presentation based on their book, Creative Quilt Challenges, published earlier this year, that will spark your creative art quilting fire. If you are not a quilter you might find something interesting it in it also. In a future post I am going to talk about how non-quilting related books and resources inspire my ideas for art quilt design.
Photo credit: Amazon.com
Ah, I am starting to ramble without providing you the link, so here you go:
In addition to the video of the slideshow and presentation and the class handout, the link above also provides the answers from the Webinar Q&A.
Postscript
Today I begin a 5-day holiday break from my pay-the-bills-job (two of those days are courtesy of my employer, one is a vacation day and two are the weekend!). I am so excited I am not sure what to do with myself…oh wait, I should probably start working on my backlog of projects…
Ok, now this is embarrassing – I think there was one more blogging award I was nominated for but I cannot remember what it was or who nominated me. My sincere apologies to my fellow blogger who was kind enough to nominate me!
Terry the Quilting Husband and I met a couple friends for brunch today in Redmond and then headed for a wander about Material Girl Fabrics. The wonderful owner Leslie was having a quiet afternoon when we arrived (because of the weather/snow), though it picked up while we were there. Luckily before it go busier, we did get time to visit with Leslie who always makes her visitors feel welcome.
tierneycreates 