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".
Congratulations to Beth T. who won the free copy of Creative Quilt Challenges from the random drawing of names from those who left comments on my Creative Quilt Challenges Blog Tour post – BLOG TOUR DAY 4: Unlikely Materials. Thank you to every who visited the tierneycreates blog for Day 4 of the tour and thank you to those who commented. I so enjoyed reading the comments and they got me inspired to keep experimenting with “unlikely materials”!
What’s on the…Table: “Ohio”
This post is a continuation of my ongoing series: What’s on the Design Wall.
However, this time I am going to share what is laid out on the table in my Studio, instead of up on my Design Wall. This post also demonstrates another example of using “Unlikely Materials” (recycled silk garment scraps) discussed in my Blog Tour post on 03/31/16.
Yesterday I posted about being inspired to create after a walk on a beautiful Spring day and inhaling the delightful fragrances of neighborhood Dogwood trees (Creative Inspiration: The Scents of Spring). Well later that day I pulled out the piece had I started a month or so ago (see post What’s on the Design Wall: Silk Squares) and got creating!
Here is the piece in progress, I am going to name it “Ohio“:
What do a bunch of miniature log cabin style patches (2″x2″ and 2.5″ x 2.5″) have to do with the State of Ohio? Absolutely nothing, but they are part of a story. An ongoing story. Here is a visual summary of that story:
1) The piece started out as my attempt to create an Ohio Star (a traditional quilt block) from recycled silk
Ohio Star, recycled silks (in progress)
2) I was very unhappy with the accuracy of the points on the star (although I interfaced the back of the silks, I had some challenges with accurately piecing the points). So I attempted to save the piece by reimagining the piece, slicing up the Ohio Star and sewing it into a new configuration. I was still not pleased with it.
3) I gave the piece and the coordinated recycled silk pieces I have selected to a friend. She reimagined it into a completely new piece, while integrating all the elements from the original Ohio Star into the piece.
Ohio Star (2016). Designed, pieced and quilted by Betty Anne Guadalupe.
4) My friend gave me the leftover scraps from this piece which included scraps from my original piecing and new scraps from additional recycled silks she used in the piece. She challenged me to make something from those scraps!
5) So, I started working on this piece over a month ago, and I am calling it “Ohio”
Right now I am just continuing to make tiny blocks (2″ x 2″ and 2.5″ x 2.5″) and enjoying the challenging of using up small pieces of recycled silk. I find it to be meditative to quietly work on small slow piecing.
Will post about this piece again when it is nearly complete.
Continuing my series on my sources of Creative Inspiration, I explore in this post how certain scents inspire my creativity.
In January I posted about the austere beauty of trees in winter in the post Winter Trees. It is now Spring in Central Oregon and today on my morning walk, I was overwhelmed with the beauty of trees blossoming in Spring, especially the Dogwood Trees.
Their fragrance enveloped me on my walk and I was filled with a sense of joy, peace and a desire to go home and create something.
This is what Spring is about – creating. Dormant bulbs will now grow and create beautiful blooms; trees will awaken their buds to create leaves, nuts and fruits; and creatures such as insects now rustle and fly and in creation of new life and pollination of the flowers.
When I returned home from my walk, and opened all the windows in the house, the delicious scents of Spring wafted into the house through a soft sweet wind.
Spring is Nature’s way of saying “let’s party” – Robin Williams
Postscript
While on my walk today I listened to a wonderful audiobook – 101 Ways to Transform Your Life by Dr. Wayne W. Dyer. During his discussion of one of the “101 ways to transform your life”, Dr. Dyer shared this Robert Frost poem which gave me pause for thought on this beautiful Spring day:
We dance round in a ring and suppose,
But the Secret sits in the middle and knows.
– Robert Frost
Maybe the “Secret” is learning to be quiet, centered, and peaceful enough to be in the moment and enjoy the beauty that surrounds us in Nature.
Inspiration is in the air and in my heart, it is time to go create something!
Check out Sassy the Highly Opinionated Miniature Schnauzer’s page Schnauzer Snips for her latest musings…
Time to take a break from talking about quilting. I am actually on hiatus from sewing for a couple days as it feels like I have been been sewing like crazy for the past couple of weeks.
The Sweet Pair in the Neighborhood
I do not know a lot about ducks, especially Mallard ducks, but every year there is an adorable pair of Mallards – a hen and a drake, that wander our neighborhood and the surrounding area.
The “love birds” (the photo is a little grainy as I did not want to get too close and scare them; and if you regularly follow my blog you know I am not the best photographer!)
I’ve lived in my neighborhood for over 10 years and at least twice a day I go for a walk around my neighborhood and the adjoining neighborhoods. Every spring (and sometimes in the fall) I see a pair of Mallard ducks wandering around – a drake (male) and a hen (female). I like think they are the same pair each year, enjoying the Springtime.
Do ducks mates for life? I guess I could do some research and find out, or I could just decide the answer is “yes” (who needs “facts” when you can have my romantic imaginings?).
Here is the twist about this sweet pair, our neighborhood is not near any body of water, and it is my understanding the ducks like to be in water. There is a small body of water several miles away. Also there appears to be only one pair that wander the neighborhood. I am never clear exactly what they are doing, they just always seem to just be “chilling” in the middle of suburbia.
What About the Cats?
So what about the neighborhood cats? We already have the “natural selection convention” going on at our house with all the bird feeders that Terry-the-Quilting-Husband keeps stocked and my neighbors’ outside kitties lurking beneath the feeders. I have seen a cat or two, walking out of our yard with an unfortunate bird in it’s mouth.
A neighborhood cat waiting in our yard under our bird feeders for an unfortunate bird…
When I first saw this pair (or perhaps a different pair, sigh), 8 – 9 years ago I thought: “Oh, no, the neighborhood cats are going to have a field day with them!”.
So far there appears to be no problems with this pair and the cats. Mallards are not small birds, these ducks are as tall or taller than most cats.
In regards to cats, my favorite memory of this pair is from around 7 years ago when I saw a neighborhood cat stalking this pair as they walked down the center of the street. The Mallards completely ignored the cat. The cat seemed to be intimidated by them and never got that close, but still keep stalking them for at least an 1/8th a mile.
I adore these fearless “love birds”, they make me smile every time I walk by them. I wish I could ask them – “So, are you the same pair I see every year, or have your parents passed onto their offspring that my neighborhood is the place where Mallards can quietly enjoy their love?”
Welcome to Day 4 of the Blog Tour in support of Pat Pease & Wendy Hill’s new book Creative Quilt Challenges (C&T Publishing, 2016).
If you are just joining the tour today on my blog, you can see the full list of the 10 participating blogs on this tour at the C&T Publishing blog post: Creative Quilt Challenges Blog Tour Kickoff.
At the end of this post I will pose a discussion question, please post a comment to automatically enter a drawing for a copy of Creative Quilt Challenges. The random winner will be selected and notified around 04/07/16.
CHALLENGE #3 – UNLIKELY MATERIALS
In Creative Challenges, Pat Pease and Wendy Hill invite readers to flex their quilt-making creative muscles by experimenting with different “Challenges”. In Challenge #3 – Unlikely Materials, Pat and Wendy invite readers to stretch their creative muscles by working with materials other than traditional quilting cottons!
Transitioning from Cotton Material to “Unlikely Materials”
Four years ago, I would have looked at you as if you were insane if you suggested I use anything other than high quality quilting cottons, purchased from a quilt shop, for my quilt-making. Then in 2012 my friend and mentor, Betty Anne Guadalupe of Guadalupe Designs invited me to work on a collaborative project involving making art quilts out of recycled silks and linen samples from garment manufacturing. These samples had been saved from the trash heap by someone working for an Italian silk manufacturer in the 1990s and stored away since then.
At first I was terrified of working with anything but cotton for quilting. Cotton is so crisp and stable. Silk is slippery, delicate, and…well…terrifying!
One of the first skills I learned when working with silk was how to back delicate silks with interfacing. The best interfacing I have used for backing silk is “French-Fuse“. I learned about French-Fuse from Betty Anne, who learned about it from another art quilter, Grace. This interfacing provides much needed stability to delicate silks and makes them easier to rotary cut and to piece.
Here is one of the early pieces I made with recycled silks – Silk Landscape:
Silk Landscape (2012). Designed and pieced by Tierney Davis Hogan. Quilted by Betty Anne Guadalupe. Photography by Jeremy Koons.
The Wardrobe Meets the Wall
Betty Anne and I both became hooked on using the recycled silks and linens to create art quilts. We formed a collaboration which eventually became The Wardrobe Meets the Wall: A collection of art quilts created from recycled garments, manufacturing remnants, and samples.
We have a blog, The Wardrobe Meets the Wall (we are working on evolving this into a a website, “Art Quilts by Guadalupe & Hogan”). See our page The Collection if you would like to see a samples of art quilts all made with “Unlikely Materials”.
Our collection includes quilts made from mens ties, recycled silk and linen samples, scrap wool from clothing or blanket manufacturing, recycled denim, and general recycled clothing.
Once You Start Experimenting with Unlikely Materials, You Might Get Hooked!
Betty Anne already had many years experience working with “Unlikely Materials” and before I knew it, she had me experimenting with using recycled wools and denims to create art quilts.
Here is my first experiment with working with recycled wools (from wool mens suiting manufacturing scraps and wool blanket manufacturing scraps) and denims (recycled jeans) – He Dresses Up, He Dresses Down:
He Dresses Up, He Dresses Down (2014). Designed and pieced by Tierney Davis Hogan. Quilted by Betty Anne Guadalupe
Basically – if you can sew with it, we will now try and make an art quilt with it. There are so many unlikely materials we have yet to try out. We enjoy recycling.
I was intrigued that in the Creative Quilt Challenge book, Pat Pease makes an adventurous art quilt with “hair canvas interfacing“. I bow my head to that level of creativity with “unlikely materials”!
(Disclaimer: We still love and support our local quilt shops and still make many quilts with traditional cottons. There are so many beautiful fabric collections to choose from and our new fabric stashes mysteriously continue to grow despite our obsession with recycled materials.)
Tips for Working with Unlikely Materials
I will not deny it – working with “unlikely materials” for the first time is scary. Here are some tips I have learned over the past 4 years. I am still learning and growing in my knowledge and comfort with using “unlikely materials”.
Do not be afraid to experiment and play: You do not have to create a great work of quilting art your first time working with a new “unlikely material”. I played with silk for a while before piecing it into an art quilt.
Check your sewing machine manufacturer’s website for tips on working with various materials and fibers.
Search for YouTube videos on working with a particular fabric and sewing tips on handling that type of fabric in your machine.
Network with other crafters that have experience working with a particular textile you are interested in trying. For example if you know a seamstress who has worked a lot with silk, you could ask her/him for tips.
Determine if a fabric/material needs to be interfaced in order to stabilize it for sewing. As I mentioned earlier, French-Fuse (which can be purchased at sites such as Annie’s Craft Store) is wonderful for backing delicate silks. It makes them so much easier to cut and piece. There are also YouTube videos on using French-Fuse.
If you are using heavy weight materials such as denim and some wools, consider pressing open your seams, and using 1/2 inch seams (like in making garments) as opposed to 1/4 inch seams. A trick that my mentor Betty Anne taught me is to run a tiny (1/8″ inch or less) seam along the front of the seams (front of your piece) to hold down the pressed down seams. This will be helpful if you have your piece professionally long-arm quilted so that the thick seams do not flip and catch the needle when being quilted.
If at first you don’t succeed, don’t give up! I have had several “unlikely materials” piecing/sewing disasters (bad words were said, not suitable for repeating). Some disasters were so bad I had to put them in the trash, I could not even recycle them into another project. Speaking of recycling a disaster into another project, see the post A Very Successful Rescue! about a piece made with recycled silk that was destined for the trash but was recycled by another quilter into a wonderful piece!
Warning – your other quilter friends who only enjoy using cottons, may at first give you a lukewarm response on your pieces made with “unlikely materials”. Do not be discouraged – art is a private and personal thing and you cannot control others reactions. (I love the saying: “It’s not my business what others think of me”…or my art!). I am sure I have quilter friends who thought at first I had lost my mind working with recycled silks and linens. As you grow in your experience with working with “unlikely materials”, your confidence will grow as will your adventurous spirit.
Working on My Latest Piece with Unlikely Materials
The timing of this blog tour post is great, as I am currently working on a new piece for a group exhibit I am participating in, called “Doors” for the local SAQA (Studio Art Quilt Associates) group I belong.
Designing the piece: Selecting the “Unlikely Materials”
I decided to use a photo of a door for inspiration, and located a wonderful collection of unique door photos on an Australian door and window manufacturer’s website Brisbane Timber .
I wanted to created a semi-realistic version of one of their doors, using recycled textiles (“unlikely materials”) and name the piece Recycled Door.
Here are the materials I selected:
Recycled Corduroy Shirt
Recycled Corduroy Pants
Recycled Tweed Wool Jumper
Bag of Recycled Jeans
Shiny Gold Home Decor Fabric
(List clockwise from top)
Recycled Corduroy Shirt
Recycled Corduroy Pants
Recycled Tweed Jumper
Unusual shiny gold home decor fabric (this fabric was given to me by the very talented art quilter, Dianne Browning, who primarily uses the unlikely materials of home decor fabrics and decorator samples in her art – you can check out her incredible art at her website Art Quilts by Dianne Browning)
Recycled Denim (from my bag of recycled jean sections)
The Piece in Progress
Below is a photo of Recycled Door in progress. If you like, for fun, you can go to the Australian door and window manufacturer’s website Brisbane Timber and see if you can figure out which door inspired this piece.
(The thread at the lower right hand of the piece is orange thread – I think it needs to be quilted with orange thread to repeat the strong orange accent in the piece.)
Are You Ready to Experiment or Have You Already Experimented?
Now it is time for you to weigh in on your experience with using “Unlikely Materials” or whether you are interested in experimenting with “Unlikely Materials” in the future in your quilting projects.
Please comment below and all comments will be automatically entered into a drawing for a copy of Creative Quilt Challenges.
The random winner will be selected and notified around 04/07/16.
The Creative Quilt Challenges Blog Tour continues tomorrow, Friday April 1, at BOLT Fabric Boutique, boltneighborhood.com. Thanks for joining me on the blog tour today!
“When you are scared but still do it anyway, that’s BRAVE.” – Neil Gaiman
Tomorrow the tierneycreates blog is a stop on the “Blog Tour” for Pat Pease and Wendy Hill’s new book Creative Quilt Challenges (2016).
When I join the tour on 3/31/16, I will discuss Challenge #3: Unlikely Materials from this wonderful book.
The Blog Tour opened on Monday 3/28/16 and here are the other “blog tour stops” posts to date (if you would like to read them prior to the tierneycreates Blog Tour stop tomorrow 3/31/16).
My collaborative art quilt partner, Betty Anne Guadalupe and I will have a show, “The Collaboration”, opening at Twigs Gallery during the 4th Friday Art Walk, in Sisters, Oregon on Friday, March 25, 2016. The show will run through April 2016 and will feature art quilts we created from “rescued” quilt blocks (projects discarded by other quilters and reinvented/reimagined by us), and recycled materials.
Several of the pieces I have discussed on the tierneycreates blog, including We Will Not Be Discarded! and Tree Outside My Window, will debut at this show.
Below are images from the March 2016 issues of Cascade A&E Magazine (Central Oregon’s Arts & Entertainment Magazine):
This post is a follow up to my previous post Break Up Letter to My Warehouse Club, in which I shared that Costco (my local warehouse club) and I were taking some time off from our relationship.
Well I started seeing Costco again, but this time I have better boundaries in this relationship (ha!). I only bring cash (I stopped using the Costco American Express card) and my purchases are limited to my cash on hand. There is something magical about the pain of surrounding cash as opposed to using a credit card.
A credit card is like a mythical payment that you will have to deal with someday in the mythical future. Cash is like so real – the money is G–O–N–E from your wallet right there in the moment.
I have also incorporated lessons from studying minimalism concepts. I carefully evaluate any item I want to purchase from Costco for its value in my life. So the giant jar of 80 pickles will likely never come home with me (I am not sure if Costco actually carries a jar of 80 pickles but this example seems to represent the general scale of their bulk offerings!).
So far so good. It felt really good to make thoughtful (and not impulsive or spontaneous) purchasing decisions at Costco and to leave the warehouse club with only the items I truly need and will add value to my life. (Toilet paper for example, definitely adds value, ha!)
So Costco and I have rekindled our relationship. We are taking is slow, and seeing where it goes…
Postscript
I really enjoy posts with photos, so here is a random unrelated to this post, photo. It is from a recent trip to a sushi restaurant to meet a friend for lunch:
This post is a follow up to my February 2016 post Surrendering My Piece to “Rescue” in which I shared my frustration with an “Ohio Star” type block I was piecing with recycled silks. I abandoned the piece due to “major creative blockage” and my friend adopted it.
Betty Anne Guadalupe, who adopted my abandoned piece, took it apart and completely reimagined it!
I gasped (and nearly fainted) when I saw the wonderful reinvention she did with my humble beginnings!
Here is what I gave her:
A “hot mess” by Tierney Davis Hogan (ha!)
Here is what she created:
Ohio Star (2016) by Betty Anne Guadalupe
The piece measures 18” x 23” and is made with recycled silks and wools. If you look closely you can see sections of my original piecing. Betty Anne integrated all of my original piece in her piece! This piece will be in our show at Twigs Gallery this Friday (see my post The Collaboration for more details on this show).
I think this is a very successful rescue!
As I discussed in the post What’s on the Design Wall: Silk Squares, I am now working on a piece made from her leftovers from her piece! More to come as this new piece develops…
In yesterday’s post “When Studios Attack” I mentioned I was taking a class at a local quilt shop.
The class I took was called “iCases”. It was taught by a wonderful teacher Lavelle, and was held at BJ’s Quilt Basket (Central Oregon’s largest quilt shop).
I made my first iPad case and I had a blast in class. This is just a quick post to share the photos. The pattern is called iCase and is by Patterns by Annie.
Do you remember the cheesy TV specials on the Fox Network in the 1990s (and maybe early 2000s) with titles like “When Animals Attack”, “When Good Pets go Bad”, and other ridiculous titles?
I am not sure if the Fox Network will ever revive these TV specials, but I do have an idea to pitch to them for a future special: “When Good Studios Go Bad”…
When You Do Not Want to Enter the Room
Early this year I posted photos of where I do my “tierney-creating”, in the posts Inside the Studio and Inside the Closet (these titles sound like TV Specials themselves, but I think there would need to be a bit more spicy drama in these stories for a TV Network to want to air them.)
My studio space is approximately 10 feet by 12 feet and I try to keep it tightly organized at all times, as I have a small space to work in.
Yesterday after a crazy day of my healthcare-industry-pay-the-bills-job, I went to our monthly Central Oregon Studio Art Quilt Associates (SAQA) meeting and then to dinner with friends. I also picked up two completed quilts from my long-arm quilter. Prior to leaving for the SAQA meeting, I was frantically busily sewing last minutes labels on the quilts for a collaborative show which openings Friday 3/25/16 (they had to be delivered to the gallery ASAP).
When I got home it was late, and I was very tired mentally and physically. I placed the quilts from the long-arm quilter in my studio; visited for awhile with Terry the Quilting Husband, Sassy the Highly Opinionated Miniature Schnauzer, and Mike (also a miniature schnauzer but not as highly opinionated); and then headed to bed.
I had decided to take Friday off from work (today) and to take a class at a local quilt shop. However, I was too tired last night to do the required pre-class cutting before bed and figured I would deal with it in the morning… (are those not the famous last words of a procrastinator?!?!)
I overslept this morning, got up in a panic, stumbled into my studio to deal with all the pre-cutting before my 10:00 am class, and found this scene:
Now to many people, this does not look too bad. To me – this was like a terrifying Fox Network TV Special about something attacking something it should not, or some thing going very very very bad. I seriously did not want to walk into the room.
I could not even locate the instructions for the class of what I needed to pre-cut. I had actually sort through most of the stuff lying on top of other stuff to find what I needed. The photo does not look as bad as it looked in person.
We all have different ways we deal with clutter, and many are comfortable with clutter. Clutter freaks me out. It shuts down my creative process and makes me not even want to enter a room.
I made it on time to the class today and had most of my fabric pre-cut. When I returned home, I cleaned up the studio and promised myself to not let my studio become a Fox TV Network Special again!
Continuing my new ongoing series with a snapshot of what crafting, quilting, cooking, gardening, decorating, self-improvement, etc. books I currently have on loan from my local library.
Here is the stack (soon to be returned though, I have finished with them and it’s time to get a new stack!):
I took this photo a week ago and there is one book that was in the stack, but not in the photo, that I have just finished and I highly enjoyed: Brave Enough by Cheryl Strayed (2015).
Cheryl Strayed is the author of the book Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail (2013), a wonderful book and a wonderful film (even Terry the Quilting Husband enjoyed the film and he dislikes films about “finding yourself”.)
Her latest book Brave Enough is a collection of quotes from her other writings.A couple quotes really stayed with me after reading them and I wanted to share:
“You can’t ride to the fair unless you get on the pony”
“Hello, fear. Thank you for being here. You’re my indication that I’m doing that I need to do.”
“Forgiveness doesn’t just sit there like a pretty boy in a bar. Forgiveness is the old fat guy you have to haul up the hill.”
Continuing my series on sources of my creative inspiration, today I explore a couple of books in my personal collection that inspire me to create.
Unconventional & Unexpected: American Quilts Below the Radar 1950-2000 (Roderick Kiracofe, 2014)
Photo credit: Amazon.com
This inspirational book was a gift from a quilting colleague. I have read it cover to cover and refer to it when I need inspiration. I even keep it on display at my house at the top of one of my bookshelves, to remind me that everyday people have beautiful art inside of them.
This excerpt from an Amazon.com review, summarizes how I feel about this book:
Artistic, joyful, visually and emotionally awakening
Beautifully designed and written from cover to cover, Unconventional and Unexpected: American Quilts Below the Radar 1950-2000 is a piece of art in and of itself. The collection of quilts in the book look like modern paintings and poetry created through stitches. Each quilt is made for personal use with most humble materials; it makes you wonder about the personal story of its maker. Like any other form of modern art, it allows you to make your own interpretation through the fabrics they used or the pattern they followed.
The Improv Handbook for Modern Quilters: A Guide to Creating, Quilting, and Living Courageously (Sherri L. Wood, 2015)
Photo credit: Amazon.com
I originally borrowed this book from our local library in Spring 2015. After an hour or two with this book, I had to purchase it and add it to my collection.
“Improve Is…Setting Limits to Expand Horizons” – Sherri L. Wood
I think this book is the seminal guide on quilting improvisation. It is not a pattern to follow quilt book, but a guide on strategies to allow yourself permission to be free and initiative in your quilt design. The author provides wonderful exercises to try out your improvisational skills. These “Scores” are intended to help art quilters gain confidence in their “improv” skills.
This also features work by other art quilters (in addition to the author) to include a very talented Oregon Studio Art Quilt Associates (SAQA) colleague of mine, Marion Shimoda.
(Check out Sassy the Highly Opinionated Miniature Schnauzer’s blog page SchnauzerSnips for her latest musings)
Five (5) of Terry the Quilting Husband’s quilts have been accepted into the Sisters Outdoor Quilt Show (SOQS) for the 2016 show on Saturday July 9, 2016. He will be in the special exhibit, ManMade featuring quilts made by men.
One of the quilts he will be showing at SOQS is named Cozy Flannel Snuggle andhas a special story.
Cozy Flannel Snuggle : The Story
Terry was very determined and ambitious as a new quilter that he could “mass produce quilts”. He thought why make blocks for one quilt, when you can make blocks for THREE quilts? He took my flannel scraps and did just that – chain pieced (for days and days it seemed) enough blocks for 3 large lap size flannel quilts.
Terry is the youngest of 7 kids and his Mom and two sisters are quilters. When we told his Mom and sisters in 2014 that Terry had become a quilter, I think they thought we were “pulling their legs”. We suspect they thought he was just helping me with a couple tasks here and there on my quilts, not actually making his own quilts!
So in early 2015, Terry surprised his Mom for her 96th birthday, with a quilt made by her youngest son!
She and Terry’s quilting sisters were very surprised and impressed. One of his sisters sent us a wonderful photo of Mom Hogan snuggled with her Terry quilt and her newly adopted little rescue dog (Terry’s sisters adopted for their Mom a senior rescued shelter dog for companionship).
Terry’s Mom received the first quilt he ever made on his own. He figured, since she brought him into the world, she should be the recipient of his first quilt!
The photo of Terry’s Mom and her dog all snuggled in the quilt, inspired the name of the quilt “Cozy Flannel Snuggle”. In addition to the one Terry gave to his Mom, we kept one of the three quilts ourselves and the last of the three Terry is showing (and selling) at the SOQS so someone else can have the snuggle experience! (Perhaps Terry was right about “why make one quilt, when you can make three?”)
Cozy Flannel Snuggle (2014). Designed and pieced by Terry Hogan. Quilted by Betty Anne Guadalupe.
Postscript
I will have four (4) of my quilts in the Sisters Outdoor Quilt Show this year, but mine will be mingled in the “general population” of quilts at the show (smile).
Very quick post – today on my walk I saw definitive signs of Spring – Crocus in a neighbor’s yard.
We are in need of Spring in Central Oregon!
Every late Winter or early Spring when I see the Crocus, I tell myself “okay this Fall, you need to plant some so you can have them in your yard”. However, when it gets to Fall I forget! I hope I remember this Fall as Crocus are such a wonderful treat to see!
Why do I have the tierneycreates Etsyshop? In this post I share what motivated me to originally open the tierneycreates: a fusion of textiles and smilesEtsy shop; and what motivates me now.
Original Motivations
I originally opened the shop as a part-time business in December 2013 to:
Justify all the money I had spent over the years on fabric and sewing/quilting supplies.
Motivate myself to spend more consistent time creating and sewing with the fabric and supplies I own (to decrease my fabric stash).
Provide support (and justification) for future fabric and supplies purchases.
As you will see later in this post, my current motivations for having an Etsy shop now expand beyond those original reasons.
I selected Etsy over selling on eBay as a selling venue, as Etsy appeared to be a friendly venue and forum for connecting those who have handmade items to sell with individuals who are seeking handmade items!
Etsy Shop Challenges
One of the challenges I faced when opening the shop, was that I work full-time.
I read in one or two of the Etsy Seller Forums, that you need to have an adequate selection of items in your shop to attract and interest customers. For example – if you only have like 10 items in your shop, potential customers will look briefly at your shop and move on.
So I decided that until I could find the time to make more handmade items, I would supplement my handmade items with selling a small selection of fabric yardage and pre-cut fabrics (like “jelly rolls” and “fat quarters”). Then plan was to “bulk up” my Etsy shop with additional offerings, so potential customers would not just pass me by (as a sad empty looking shop, ha!)
Well, If you want to see why I would never open a quilt shop (much respect to those who do) see my post from June 2015 – Adventures in Retail. I could not believe how cumbersome and stressful it is to try and cut fabric yardage for a customer; or to create sets of fat quarters.
I always panic that I will “short” a customer on yardage, so I have been very generous in my cutting. I would likely have very low profit margins as a quilt shop owner – ha!
Additionally, I never fully appreciated those sweet little sets of fat quarters I see in quilt shops, until I tried to make them myself. I now bow in respect to those who work in quilt shops!
Learning to properly package and ship items when they sold was another learning curve I had as a new Etsy shop owner. I can now package and ship items in my sleep (I did develop a process and have a section of my laundry room set up for packaging). Eventually I taught “Terry the Quilting Husband” how to handle packaging and shipping and he helps with the least fun part about an Etsy sale.
Current Motivations & Inspirations
It is now 2016, and my motivations for having the tierneycreates Etsy shop are different from my original motivations.
One of my primary reasons I continue to manage my shop on Etsy (as it is still not a “quit your day job” kind of business) are the CONNECTIONS I have with customers. I have enjoyed many Etsy conversations with fellow quilters who have purchased fabric and with customers who have purchased my handmade items.
It is very exciting to me that fabric I sold someone gets to go into their project, or that something I made is going into someone’s home or as a gift to someone they care about. As a bonus, a positive review on Etsy from a customer is such a huge treat! I feel like I am living my tierneycreates tagline, “fusing textiles and smiles”.
I have considered from time to time – “why continue with the Etsy shop, it is extra work and you already work many hours in your full-time health care job?” Then I remind myself it is a fun hobby and the non-monetary rewards I receive from having the shop.
Speaking of customers – I met this wonderful woman through an Etsy transaction and I now follow her blog and consider her a new long distance friend – Martha’s Blog.
Here is the fabric she purchased from my shop (the entire remaining bolt, it is now sold out):
AND – here is what she did with it (which blows my mind and makes me so glad I had the fabric available to sell her!):
Here is a link to the post about this amazing quilt which was part of a her quilting guild challenge – Shapely Challenge Revealed.
I would have never imagined using that fabric in such a creative way. I am very inspired!
The Future
I am debating if in the future, once my current selection of fabrics are sold from my shop, whether to keep selling special fabrics.
On one hand, I really enjoy seeing what people make with the fabric they purchase from my shop and connecting with other crafters. On the other hand I am too small an operation to purchase fabric at the wholesale rates that a quilt shop would and there is a very small profit margin on the fabric I sell (it covers the gas to get it to the post office to ship, ha!).
However buying fabric to resell, does help finance any fabric I keep for myself from a beautiful bolt of fabric. If I do continue to sell fabric, I will only sell fabrics I want to use in my own projects.
Another option would be to sell fabric already in my personal fabric stash, but I have worked hard over the past couple of years to donate to charity thrift shops any fabric I do not absolutely love or do not have planned for any future project (see my post The Fabric Purge).
Also, I would not want to sell on my Etsy shop any fabric that I would now pause and think: “what the heck was I planning when I bought that?!!?!” I bet all quilters have fabrics in their stash that look like they were on hallucinogens (or other mind altering substances) when making their original purchase.
So that is the current story on this Etsy shop journey, thanks for reading. So far being an Etsy shop owner has been a fun, challenging and wonderful experience!
Temptation: The Jo-Ann Fabric and Craft Stores’ coupons…
In previous posts such as Craft Book Purge and Craft Book Hoarder?!?!? , I confess my addiction to craft books; and my struggle to stop bring new crafting books into the house.
I recently realized a major source of temptation related to craft book buying: The weekly Jo-Ann Fabric and Craft Store coupons that come in the mail.
How could I turn down 40% off, 50% off and occasionally 60% off – one regular priced item?!?! You can probably guess what I would buy with these coupons (hint: craft books).
Many times I would go to Jo-Ann’s with a plan to buy a crafting, quilting or sewing supply such as interfacing, rotary blades, etc. with the coupon. I would then discover that the item I had intended to use the coupon to purchase, was already on sale and thus not eligible for the coupon.
After finding what I needed already on sale, I could not just leave Jo-Ann’s without using my glorious coupon! I would usually end up getting a crafting related book for 40%- 60% off with the coupon that was burning a hole in my pocket.
The Solution: I have started recycling these coupons when they arrive in the mail.
It was unnerving at first but it is a huge step towards just enjoying the books I havealready.
I can continue use the public library to satisfy my need to have new craft books to look at (True Confession: I do get a little buzz with the anticipation of leafing through a new crafting or decorating book). I do not need to own them!
Postscript
In my recent post The Library Stack I shared how I am enjoying the audiobook SuperBetter by Jane McGonigal and her discussion on “cognitive reframing”.
Well, another concept discussed in this wonderful book – “self distancing” – has also caught my attention. Paraphrasing the author, “self distancing” is the technique by which you step outside yourself and view a situation from an observer point of view, not from the point of view of the person experiencing the situation.
For example, when I was working through allowing myself to just recycle the latest weekly Jo-Ann’s coupon, I stepped outside myself for a moment and asked:
“Does Tierney really need anything right now (or in the near future) from Jo-Ann’s?”
The answer from an observer perspective is a clear “No”.
My collaborative art quilt partner, Betty Anne Guadalupe and I will have a show, “The Collaboration”, opening at Twigs Gallery during the 4th Friday Art Walk, in Sisters, Oregon on Friday, March 25, 2016. The show will run through April 2016 and will feature art quilts we created from “rescued” quilt blocks (projects discarded by other quilters and reinvented/reimagined by us), and recycled materials.
Several of the pieces I have discussed on the tierneycreates blog, including We Will Not Be Discarded! and Tree Outside My Window, will debut at this show.
Below are images from the March 2016 issues of Cascade A&E Magazine (Central Oregon’s Arts & Entertainment Magazine):
If you have read my blog in the past, you know I am in love with the public library. I thought it would be fun to start a new occasional series on the tierneycreates blog called “Library Adventures”, where I would share a photo of the stack of books, of my latest borrowings from my local library.
I love to browse the crafting, quilting, cooking, gardening and home decor sections. I will also take a run through the entire non-fiction section just for fun and to see if anything catches my eye.
I recently started following a blog, Dewey Hop, in which the blogger is documenting their journey of reading through their entire local library! I secretly dreamed of doing this someday; and even tried to do it as a kid, attempting to make it through the entire Children’s section! However, I am going to stick my my favorite dewey decimal section of 700 – “Arts & Recreation”!
Every time I think I have borrowed all the books that are worth borrowing – POW – there is a fresh new group of books to borrow! Additionally my local library has a Non-Fiction New Release section, which I love to browse every time I visit it (it is the first place to head when I enter the library!).
So here is my current stack:
One of my great pleasures in life is to sit with a pot of tea and my library stack!
Postscript
More library related stuff – this is a follow up to the post Good Listens (and other stuff). In this post I shared I was currently listening to an audiobook I borrowed from the library – SuperBetter by Jane McGonigal.
This audiobook is fantastic and I had to renew it to finish it up (it is rather long, but packed with great information and inspiration). This audiobook is about using gaming concepts to improve things that challenge you in life, and to achieve goals. The author has a TED talk and it is fantastic – Jane McGonigal: The game that can give you 10 extra years of life. (Thanks to my friend Torben suggesting the TED Talk!).
Here book goes WAY beyond the TED Talk. One of my favorite concepts in the book is “Cognitive Reframing”, which is defined in Wikipedia as “…a psychological technique that consists of identifying and then disputing irrational or maladaptive thoughts. Reframing is a way of viewing and experiencing events, ideas, concepts and emotions to find more positive alternatives…”. I have already started applying the concepts I picked up from this audiobook and I am very pleased!
I am enjoying this book so much I might go buy the hardcover version to keep as a reference!
Also debuting in this show will be the piece that Betty Anne created from my abandoned recycled silk Ohio Star project she rescued (see post Surrendering My Piece to “Rescue”).The piece is amazing – she used all my original piecing and reworked it, with additional recycled silks and linens, into a completely new and deliciously intuitive design. I will post a photo after it debuts at the show. We were so inspired by this “handing off of the start of a piece” to another person to reimagine the piece, that Betty Anne gave me her start of another piece based on the same group of recycled silk and linens scraps. This will be a new challenge – I will create a piece based on her leftovers from her work on my piece that I abandoned …but that is another post…
Well, I have started on the piece inspired by the scraps my friend Betty Anne gave me (from her reworking of a piece I had started and then abandoned). She also gave me a small “square within a square log cabin style block” she had made from the scraps. I used this block as the starting point for my challenge.
It is now in progress on the Design Wall.
Here is the story of it’s evolution to date, in photos:
The stash of recycled silk and linen scraps that Betty Anne gave me from her silk piece (which was a reworking of a piece I started, then abandoned)
I made approximately 56 – 58, 2 x 2 inch and 2.5 x 2.5 inch free form “log cabin” style blocks. (I do not remember exactly which one of the blocks is the one Betty Anne originally gave me to start the challenge; but I know it is one of the black silk blocks with a bright center.)
I played around with potential layouts (like floating them in a solid silk like you see above photo) and I am leaning towards grouping them all together. I love the intensity of all the colors together.
Here is a close up of one of my favorite 2.5 x 2.5 inch blocks – I am having so much fun coming up with combinations from the limited fabric options I was given. I enjoyed the tiny piecing challenge and many of the silks had to be backed with interfacing to stabilize their delicate weaves.
Now the blocks are on the Design Wall.
Now I can decide, from the remaining fabrics, what additional blocks I need to add and their color combinations.
This past weekend I witnessed the ultimate in “home studio fabric organization”!
I visited the home of a quilter friend of mine for the first time and she showed me her quilting studio. As I turned the corner to enter her studio, my jaw dropped when I saw her extremely well organized fabric stash: It looked like I had stepped into a quilt shop!
How She Did It
My friend collected empty cardboard fabric bolts from quilt shops and cut them in half. She wrapped her fabric stash fabrics around the half bolts and then organized the fabrics by theme/category in a large wide bookcase.
If she had more than a certain yardage of fabric (I forgot her threshold), she would organize the fabric on a full size cardboard bolt (bottom left of the bookcase).
Advantages
I think the advantages of this type of fabric stash organization are as follows:
Her fabric organization and display feels like she is shopping directly from a quilt shop every time she goes to select a fabric in her stash – AMAZING!
She can clearly see what is in her stash.
This may reduce her need to actually go to a quilt shop, and spend money on fabric that she does not actually need.
(I know, I know, right now all quilters reading this are rolling their eyes. Buying fabric is not about needing it – it is about wanting it!)
Last month in the post What’s on the Design Wall: “We Will Not Be Discarded!” I shared a piece in progress made from discards (destined for the trash) from another quilter’s quilt. It was a fun challenge. I used nearly every trimmed section/discard in this piece, setting them in a solid copper cotton fabric.
The long arm quilter, Guadalupe Designs, has finished quilting the piece and it is awaiting facing (a type of finishing/binding for art quilts where the binding does not show on the front).
Here is a sneak peek of the piece (to follow up on the post from last month):
Detail: We Will Not Be Discarded! (2016). Designed & pieced by Tierney Davis Hogan; quilted by Guadalupe Designs.
The piece measures 51″ x 17″ and will debut in March 2016 at the show at Twigs Gallery in Sisters, OR. The show opens on the Sisters 4th Friday Art Walk on 3/25/16 (After it debuts at the show I will post a photo of We Will Not Be Discarded!).
I will have 4 pieces in the show and all my pieces will feature “Recycled” Blocks, rescued from either discards of other quilters or donated abandoned projects. I love the idea of working to create something of beauty from something that was once abandoned. I love the idea of shared creative energy (see my post What’s on the Design Wall: “Ohio Star” (a taste of “Big Magic”) – “When an Idea is ready to be born, it will visit numerous people to find someone who going to bring it into existence” – Elizabeth Gilbert).
I am working on the hanging sleeves and labels for some of the piece which are unlabeled. I am feeling honored and excited about being in the show – more later!
As part of my ongoing journey towards living with less and keeping only those things that are useful and bring me joy, I am working on dealing with mementos and keepsakes. I had three boxes of keepsakes – old postcards, cards from old friends and co-workers, newspaper clippings, holiday photo cards, etc. I now have one small box. I have let go of that which does not bring me a deep sense of joy.
During the process of working through my keepsakes, I re-discovered a quilt that my staff had made me when I was a manager at a health plan in Seattle in the late 1990s to early 2000s. I do not remember if I was a quilter yet, so it likely was not a “Quilt for the Quilter” but it is something very special that was just sitting around in a box put away.
My friend Judy, who originally got me into quilting and was a member of my work team in the late 1990s, organized a team quilt project as a holiday gift for me. Each team member made a block and Judy assembled the blocks into a wallhanging quilt. I was deeply touched and surprised with the gift, which I believe was given to me around 1998 or 1999.
This wonderful gift is no longer tucked away, I have placed it on the wall to remind me that I was that loved (because QUILT ARE LOVE, and do not let anyone tell you otherwise!) so much as a leader that a team took the time to make me a quilt!
Below is a photo of the quilt. The center of the quilt features a photo of the entire team, so I have taken a low resolution photo at a bad angle to respect the privacy of former team members who I have lost touch with and may not want their photo published on the web. (And you likely thought it was just another one of my bad photos!)
I have included a couple close ups of some of the blocks. The “Chocolate Chip Cookies” block, by one of my former team members, was made to honor the fact that I brought the team homemade chocolate chip cookies when I interviewed with them! After I was hired I continued to make the team homemade cookies.
It is wonderful to have such a special memory visible to enjoy everyday, rather tucked away, only to look at every couple of years (or longer, when you remember it is there).
As far as the other keepsakes, as I mentioned earlier I took them down from 3 boxes to 1 small box. I love what Marie Kondo, author of The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing (2014), states in her wonderful book:
“The space in which we live should be for the person we are becoming now, not for the person we were in the past.”
I realize many memories can be held inside my heart rather than my hand. I do not need to hold onto all those physical items to honor those memories (like all postcards I ever received – I have downsized them only a small stack of very special postcards).
And as far as the person I am becoming, I hope it is someone who is filled with gratitude for all the special moments in her life. This quilt reminds me to continue my feelings of gratitude each day.
Let’s just say it is a person’s prerogative to be able to change their minds…
If you never change your mind, why have one? – Edward de Bono
A couple weeks ago, one of my wonderful tierneycreates Etsy shop customers, who has been very supportive of my miniature kimonos, asked for some new kimono color and fabric options. She was so enthusiastic about my miniature kimonos, I got enthusiastic about them again and made a fresh new batch:
They’re Baaaack!
23 new kimonos in total. Currently I am busy adding buttons and finishing details, eventually they will get posted to my tierneycreates Etsy shop.
I have been negligent with my Etsy shop for a couple months now due to work and other life related things. I am working on new offerings and refreshing current offerings.
I do not expect my tierneycreates Etsy shop to ever become a “quit your day job” kind of thing (it is more of a fun hobby) but I really enjoy connecting with people across North America (I have Canadian customers too!) and adding a little “fusion of textiles & smiles” to peoples’ lives!
In honor of Valentine’s Day weekend, I am reposting this post from Nov 2013 as QUILTS ARE LOVE:
How do you know a quilt has been loved?
It is worn, frayed, maybe even threadbare. In my early days of quilting this would make me cringe – I put all that work into a quilt and now it is all worn out? Now the thought of one my quilts being so loved (just think of that glorious book The Velveteen Rabbit) brings a huge smile to my face.
While talking to my sister (she has many quilts from me) she mentioned that most of the quilts I have made her are very worn out, some are just “hanging on by thread” about to fall apart. I take quilt construction seriously and for a second I thought “wow shoddy workmanship on my part” and “why did they not take better care of the quilts”? I came to my senses several seconds later and realized: Wow! Those quilts have been truly loved – I am so lucky and so honored!
I think of what my first quilting mentor and dear friend, Judy D, said “if a quilt is falling apart, all worn out, then it has been truly loved…I never mind repairing a quilt that has been loved”.
Excerpt from The Velveteen Rabbit by Margery Williams
“Real isn’t how you are made, it’s a thing that happens to you… When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real.”
“Does it hurt?” asked the Rabbit.
“Sometimes…When you are Real you don’t mind being hurt.”
“Does it happen all at once, like being wound up..or bit by bit?”
“It doesn’t happen all at once..You become. It takes a long time. That’s why it doesn’t happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don’t matter at all, because once you are Real you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand.”
Thank you to all the people I have made quilts for over the years, who have truly loved them, and made them REAL.
My old beloved and worn out teddy bear Felix and his “doll quilt”.
Always listening to audiobooks and podcasts while going on walks or crafting, I wanted to share some interesting recent listens.
GOOD LISTENS
I constantly listen to audiobooks and podcasts and wanted to share my recent favorites.
Audiobooks
I am fortunate to have a wonderful public library system and use the free Overdrive app to download audiobooks to my phone. Check out my older posts under the category “Audiobook Recommendations” if you would like to see my previous recommendations. Here are my recent favorites:
H is for Hawk by Helen Macdonald – I understand why this book has received all sorts of accolades. An introverted female British historian loses her beloved father and deals with her grief through training a Goshawk. The author reads the audiobook (I always love this) and weaves the story of her journey through her grief with the history of falconry, the experience of training a hawk, and the story of T.H. White – a falconer who wrote The Once and Future King and The Sword In the Stone (King Arthur/Camelot stories). It was an amazing listen – engaging, interesting, and profound in its beautiful exploration of loss, grief and recovery.
Think Like a Freak by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner – this book by the same duo of Economists who wrote Freakanomics was highly entertaining and eye opening. It was read by one of the authors Stephen J. Dubner. It was a “Malcolm Gladwell” type of book blending sociology, economics and psychology. Economics is not as boring as it sounds when discussed by these authors!
Podcasts
Ah, the magic of free podcasts! I usually download them from iTunes; and for some podcasts you can listen for free on various websites such as NPR.org. Here are my current favorite podcasts:
TED Radio Hour – This podcast is more than listening to a TED Talk. Each week an engaging topic is presented and discussed by weaving together snippets from related TED talks and interviews with TED talk presenters, experts, and everyday people’s perspectives. Very engaging podcast that always ends too quickly! I never tire of watching TED talks or listening to this podcast featuring excerpts.
The Moth Podcast – Incredible podcast featuring live storytelling. When I listen to The Moth Radio Hour while walking, sometimes I stop and pause to reflect, laugh out loud, or wipe away a tear. Powerful and engaging story telling. Thanks to my friend Pam for introducing me many years ago to “The Moth”.
The Minimalists Podcast – I love these guys. My friend in Austria introduced me to their website/blog theminimalists.com and I have been hooked! You may realize from my earlier posts that I am working on scaling back my life and focusing on experiences over things. I am very inspired by these two young thirty something guys who realized at an early age that living a meaningful life with less stuff is one of the keys to happiness. A lot of the stuff they discuss I already know but I enjoy the reinforcement.
Postscript
In addition to podcasts, I am current listening to TWO audiobooks at once (I put them both on hold from the library and they both became available at the same time for a 21 day lending period):
SuperBetter by Jane McGonigal
Good Gut by Justin Sonnenburg
I am enjoying both of them so far and just alternate my listenings!
Now to many people, this does not look too bad. To me – this was like a terrifying Fox Network TV Special about something attacking something it should not, or some thing going very very very bad. I seriously did not want to walk into the room. 
How could I turn down 40% off, 50% off and occasionally 60% off – one regular priced item?!?! You can probably guess what I would buy with these coupons (hint: craft books).
tierneycreates 