Please see the Textile Adventures page for info on my new line of Flannel Yum-Yum Quilts!

The final step to completing a quilt, whether you have quilted it yourself or sent it out to be professionally long-arm quilted, is to put on the binding. The challenge with binding is that you need to make it long enough (but not too long) to go around your entire quilt and allow for you to properly pivot the binding in the four corners of the quilt.

Quilt bindings (for the non quilters reading) are traditionally made from folded in half 2 1/4 or 2 1/2 inch strips of fabric that coordinate with the quilt. The the binding is sewn to the edge of the quilt with a 1/4 inch seam. Then it is time to put on a movie, plop down in your favorite chair with needle and thread and hand sew down the other edge of the binding to the back of the quilt.

If you are a quilter you know of the challenges of sewing enough strips together (but not too many, ha!) for your binding. If you are like me, then you always have extra binding left over! Occasionally (ok frequently) I have shocking lengths of binding leftover. It is like I was planning to go around the quilt TWICE with the binding!

I could never bring myself to just put the leftover binding back in my fabric scrap stash, so I came up with the idea of saving any leftover quilt binding ENDS to use on small quilts, potholders, wall hangings, etc. I have also pieced together binding ends from previous quilts to make a scrappy binding for my current quilt. I love using the ends – “waste not, want not”!

Always keep your ENDS near!

Studio

Alien Sightings

January 1, 2014March 31, 2015 tierneycreates: a fusion of textiles and smiles

If you are a quilter you are very familiar with the term UFO (Unfinished Objects). Quilters and other crafters are plagued by them, many UFOs carrying over year to year until they fester into a large stash/backlog of projects to finish. I once attended a quilting retreat which focused solely on working on UFOs, but I also brought new projects and worked on them!

Why do we have all these UFOs – why do we start projects, put them down to start something else, or just put them away (like in the back of the closet)? We would not live the other aspects of our lives this way: imagine only brushing a couple teeth once a month and coming back to your mouth say 4 months later when you stumble across your toothbrush under a pile of fabric scraps? (of course then you discover you are out of toothpaste, so you put the toothbrush away for a couple weeks until you have time to find the perfect toothpaste to finish the rest of your mouth…)

A couple weeks ago I talked to a friend who belongs to a quilting guild which has decided to help their guild members focus on knocking out UFOs in 2014. Each guild member had to list 8 outstanding UFOs. Throughout 2014, the guild leadership will randomly pick a number and you have to work on completing the UFO you listed under that number or pay some type of penalty (like a $10 donation to charity) and bring it finished the following month to the guild meeting. I decided to unofficially participate and my friend gave me a copy of the form to list your UFOs. There is no real penalty to me if I do not finish them but I wanted to participate in that kind of “pressure” to clean out my stack of UFOs and squelch the alien invasion in my craft area.

Yes, you read correctly – my “stack” of UFOs. I have them all organized in plastic containers and they include the fabric, the pattern and the progress to date. Stacked, quite high. While trying to decide on which 8 of the 17 or so in the corner (some containers had 2 or more UFOs in them!) to list, I thought: “If something has been a UFO for say 5-10 years, maybe you are not really interested in finishing it. Maybe it is time to let it go”. So I did. I whittled down my extraterrestrial clutter down to just 8 UFOs! Many of the UFOs that were not started I just reintegrated the fabric back into my general fabric stash and returned their pattern to my pattern binder or folder. One UFO that was partially finished I donated to the Humane Society Thrift Shop which has a nice craft section. It was quite a freeing to let them go!

Pattern calls for 409...14 are done... — Pattern calls for 409…14 are done…

So I thought I was safe. I now had 8 UFOs that I actually wanted to finish and I was ready to find out which number would be selected first by my friend’s quilt. Of all the numbers they could have selected, they chose the number that corresponded to my most tedious UFO of all – a yo-yo quilt UFO made with 409 yo-yos! To be finished in a month! Guess how many of the 409 yo-yos I had done already? Three. So I have been slowly working on yo-yos made from pretty Asian fabrics in the evenings and I am now up to 14….only 395 more to go. I am seriously considering only making a small wallhanging and calling it good. I think the pattern was too ambitious and was for someone with a lot (I mean a lot) of free time on their hands!

tierneycreates

Resources, Resources, Resources!

December 19, 2013June 3, 2018 tierneycreates: a fusion of textiles and smiles

A coworker recently asked me: “I would like to start a blog about my crafts, how do I do it…where do I start?”

I began with that same question a couple months ago before starting mine. To find the answers, I turned to my local library Deschutes Public Library. Since childhood, I have thought of the library as a magical place filled with ideas, inspirations, and imagination! All for free!!!

So a simple search for “blogging” on my library’s website http://www.deschuteslibrary.org led to my borrowing the following wonderful books from my library:

Houghton, Robin. (2012). Blogging for creatives: how designers, artists, crafters and writers can blog to make contacts and win. Cincinnati, Ohio: How Books.
Frey, Tara. (2009). Blogging for bliss: crafting your own online journal: a guide for crafters, artists & creatives of all kinds. New York: Lark Books.
Gardner, Susannah. (2011). Blogging for Dummies. Hoboken, New Jersey: Wiley

After looking through these resources, and checking out the various blog sites, I decided to go with WordPress. Then I looked for free WordPress specific resources. I did a search on the iTunes App Store and discovered a free “learning WordPress” app for the iPad. The WordPress site itself offers excellent free tutorials for new users, so I went through most of those. I found WordPress to be fairly user friendly with a short learning curve. Several things were intimidating at first – like which free blog page design to select but WordPress let’s you experiment with many and change your format.

When it came time to start up my Etsy shop (my next step after getting my blog established) I turned to the library again and found excellent resources on starting an online craft business. My favorites were:

Sutton, Derrik. (2011). How to sell your crafts online: a step-by-step guide to successful sales on Etsy and beyond. New York: St. Martin’s Griffin.
Gatski, Kate. (2013). Starting an Etsy business for dummies. Hoboken, New Jersey: Wiley
Turner, Marcia Layton, (2013). The complete idiot’s guide to selling your crafts on Etsy. Indianapolis, IN: Alpha. (This book was such an excellent resource, that I bought the kindle version on Amazon.com so I could always have access to it on my iPad.)

I also wandered the shelves at the library in the craft book section and came upon these wonderful books:

Chapin, Kari. (2010). The handmade marketplace. North Adams, MA: Storey Pub.
Chapin, Kari. (2012). Grow your handmade business: how to envision, develop, and sustain a successful creative business. North Adams, MA: Storey Pub.

I live in a smallish-medium size town and if you live in a larger town/metropolitan area, your library may have even more wonderful resources. All free! You can buy the books you want to keep as ongoing resources later, but you can start your research with no investment, except your time to browse! Enjoy the resources, resources, resources!

Studio, tierneycreates

Thanksgiving Weekend Happenings

December 1, 2013August 23, 2021 tierneycreates: a fusion of textiles and smiles

ETSY SHOP IS FINALLY UP!

I have not posted anything in a while as I have been focused on getting my new Etsy store up. I thought I would never master taking decent digital photographs but I think I figured out some decent lighting for the mini kimonos. I added 24 handmade items to the shop (including 22 mini kimonos!) to get it started, more to come…

http://www.etsy.com/shop/tierneycreates

It it thanks to my wonderful sister that I finally got my Etsy store up – she kept pushing me to follow my dream through achieving special milestones (she “project managed” me!)

NEW QUILT BACK FROM QUILTER

One of my favorite things – to get a quilt back from my long-arm quilter and complete the binding and enjoy the quilt. The name of pattern is “Aussie” and I came across it many years ago from the French quilting magazine Quiltmania. The quilt featured in the magazine was made from Aboriginal prints, but I made mine from African fabrics.

A Crafter's Life, tierneycreates

Up, Down, and Up Again

November 22, 2013November 29, 2015 tierneycreates: a fusion of textiles and smiles

Last Friday I got some thrilling news: a local shop enthusiastically agreed to carry my kimonos on commission in their shop. We even talked about them being displayed on a Christmas tree in the shop. I was overwhelmed with excitement and shared this wonderful news with family and friends. I spent the next week after work, some times late into the evening, getting my kimonos ready to deliver to the shop the following Friday (today). In my fervor of excitement, I made a couple new kimonos using beautiful holiday fabrics and a couple kimonos with new Asian fabric I just purchased, to add to those to be displayed at the shop. I was feeling very UP – I was flying with anticipation of my first opportunity to market to the public and sell my kimonos- they would be on display and for sale during the holiday shopping season!

This morning I called the shop to set up a time to deliver them and the shop owner abruptly informed me that it would not work out, the shop would not be able to carry my kimonos. The shop owner’s reasons were not clear and I was not sure what went wrong. CRASH! I was now feeling very DOWN, so much that my eyes filled with tears. I also felt an overwhelming sense of embarrassment from sharing prematurely with friends and family my news of a local shop carrying my kimonos.

Now an hour later, after talking with my husband and then a close friend, I am feeling UP again. Not only did their support help, I realized that whenever you venture out there in life, whenever you take a risk – there is bound to be some disappointment and some “failure”. That is just the way life works. I realized that what I have done this past week is get the kimonos fully ready for sale…and this now means they are ready for listing on Etsy (and getting my Etsy shop up and running!). I bear no ill will towards the shop owner and respect that it just did not work for them. I actually thank them for giving me an impetus to get the kimonos sale ready and tagged!

I love quotes, and here is a quote that keeps inspiring me:

“You have to accept whatever comes and the only important thing is that you meet it with courage and with the best that you have to give.”
– Eleanor Roosevelt

A Crafter's Life

The Tao of Quilting

November 16, 2013November 29, 2015 tierneycreates: a fusion of textiles and smiles

Are you familiar with the Tao Te Ching? This ancient Chinese text, was according to legend, was written by Lao Tzu in the 6th century BC. It it a philosophical text which provides instructions on the way to live a virtuous life of harmony. There have been many versions of this text written and reinterpreted over the years to include The Tao of Pooh by Benjamin Hoff which share practical life lessons from the perspective of Winnie the Pooh.

Many years ago, in a special publication quilting magazine Quilts with Style, I came across “The Tao of Quilting” by Stephen Seifert – a one page take on the Tao Te Ching. I have kept this page in the front of my binder of patterns-clipped-from-quilting-magazines to continually inspire me.

THE TAO OF QUILTING by Stephen Seifert

Our lives are full of obstacles causing stress and discontent.

But a quilt can be a bridge to overcome diversions and chaos.

Water ripples in the wind, never considering who is in control.

Yet its fluid nature gives it strength to serve as a foundation to life.

Soft fabric stitched together in a quilt fills the hardest heart with love and beauty.

The simplicity of love can penetrate all, including the the most cynical mind.

Rigid stone shores appear impenetrable, but their yielding surface gives rise to life.

Evergreens soar triumphantly above the lake shore, reflecting the paradox of life.

Problems emerge and seem pressing

But over time our thoughts evolve into understanding.

Nature’s silent teachings are taught without words

Instilling integrity into every quilt.

Quality of Life, tierneycreates

Holding On and Letting Go

November 13, 2013June 3, 2018 tierneycreates: a fusion of textiles and smiles

Saturday 11/9/13 I roused myself out of bed at 5:30 am, changed into my “good pajamas” and headed with friends to the the Stitchin’ Post quilt shop’s annual PJ sale. If you get there by some crazy hour, dressed in your pajamas (and it is crazy cold outside), you get a crazy discount on nearly everything in the store. Naturally this is something for my hard-core-quilting-friends not to miss.

After wandering around a packed quilt shop in the wee hours of the morning, with a sea of women (and an occasional son or husband that tagged along), with bolts of fabric stacked in your arms, it is time to go to breakfast. That is when the real fun begins – flocks of quilters in their pajamas wander the streets of Sisters, Oregon looking for the best place for post-shopping-frenzy breakfast.

There is something so pleasurable about sitting around in a local diner, having breakfast with your friends, in your PJs …with the occasional stare from an out-of-towner who is likely thinking “wow they are really casual in Central Oregon, they don’t even bother to get dressed to go out!”

While at the annual Pajama sale, I wandered over to the gift shop connected to the Stitchin’ Post – Twigs. Nested among artsy kitchen and home decor items, I found a small plaque that really spoke to me. I contained a quote by the 13th century Persian poet, Rumi:

“Life is a balance of holding and letting go”.

This quote was very timely to me as I am struggling with creating pieces for my Etsy store that I end up wanting to keep for own home! I am fairly sure that the poet Rumi meant something much deeper than struggling to let go of your hand made items, but this quote is helping me work through the process of let go to achieve my dream of selling to the public…maybe.

I just finished my first Modern Quilt Table Runner for my upcoming Etsy store and I wanted to keep it! The idea of doing table runners for my store came from my friend Marla Jo. I was struggling with the idea of making quilts to sell as they take a tremendous amount of work and you never know how they will sell online. Instead I can make modern and unique art quilt table runners that can be used as either table runners or hung as small narrow art quilts in someone’s home.

Not sure if I am going to sell the first “prototype” Modern Quilt Table Runner or only future iterations (still working through the “letting go” part). Below are a couple photos of it. It is my original design using a single piece of beautiful cream fabric with color variations from light to dark and inserting bands of pieced fabrics. I used an original quilting design.

Let me end this post with a couple more Rumi quotes – they are always food for thought whether you apply them to quilting or to life in general:

“You were born with wings, why prefer to crawl through life?” ― Rumi

“When you do things from your soul, you feel a river moving in you, a joy.” – Rumi

“I want to sing like the birds sing, not worrying about who hears or what they think.” – Rumi

“Wherever you are, and whatever you do, be in love.” – Rumi

“Let the beauty of what you love be what you do.” – Rumi

Quality of Life

The “Nurture” of Words (and quilts)

November 10, 2013November 29, 2015 tierneycreates: a fusion of textiles and smiles

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 several images of one of my textile poems: Central Oregon is Central to Me.

Close up of “Central Oregon is Central to Me”

A Crafter's Life, tierneycreates

Love wears it out…

November 7, 2013February 13, 2016 tierneycreates: a fusion of textiles and smiles

**Check out the Schnauzer Snips and Textile Adventures pages for new posts: Sassy the Miniature Schnauzer’s musing on the art of happy and my preparation for my first handmade offering on Etsy.**

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 the other day (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 bear Felix and his “doll quilt”.

A Crafter Needs to Eat

How can you focus on crafting without a proper snack?

November 2, 2013January 31, 2023 tierneycreates: a fusion of textiles and smiles

When say “proper”, I am not talking about a healthy snack. Most of the time, I try to make good nutritional choices and eat healthy snacks during the week. But on the weekend when you are “power crafting” and trying to get your projects done – you need a naughty snack or two. One of my favorite semi-naughty snacks are peanut butter cookies! A house filled with the smell of home baked cookies is a very inspiring thing! Occasionally I play a game with myself: get ________ more done on a quilt and you can go have (another) cookie. I just have to remember to power walk all those cookies off from my power crafting!

Here is my favorite Peanut Butter Cookie recipe (it came with my beloved KitchenAid stand mixer)

1⁄2 cup peanut butter
1⁄2 cup butter or margarine, softened
1⁄2 cup granulated sugar
1⁄2 cup brown sugar
1 egg
1⁄2 teaspoon vanilla
1⁄2 teaspoon baking soda
1⁄4 teaspoon salt
1 1⁄4 cups all-purpose flour

Place peanut butter and butter in mixer bowl. Attach bowl and flat beater to mixer. Turn to Speed 6 and beat until mixture is smooth, about 1 minute. Stop and scrape bowl. Add sugars, egg and vanilla. Turn to Speed 4 and beat about 1 minute. Stop and scrape bowl.
Turn to Stir Speed. Gradually add all remaining ingredients to sugar mixture and mix about 30 seconds. Turn to Speed 2 and mix about 30 seconds.
Roll dough into 1-inch balls. Place about 2 inches apart on ungreased baking sheets. Press fl at with fork in a criss-cross pattern to 1⁄4-inch thickness.
Bake at 375°F until golden brown, about 10 to 12 minutes. Remove from baking sheets immediately and cool on wire racks.

Happy “power crafting”,

Tierney

tierneycreates

Sewing Down Binding: the final frontier to completion

October 31, 2013August 23, 2021 tierneycreates: a fusion of textiles and smiles

As a quilter, one of my favorite things is to get a quilt back from the long arm quilter, put on the binding and then sew it down to complete the quilt. I have quilting friends who hate the binding part, even some with a backlog of finished quilts only awaiting binding. I have included a photo of the recent quilt I got back from the long arm quilter. It is such a treat to watch a movie or TV show and sew down my binding while snuggling under my new quilt. I would love to hear what other quilters think about sewing down binding….

I received a gift from someone’s estate of new and antique Dutch and Japanese blue and white textiles and used those fabrics to create this quilt. After it was quilted and the binding attached, I laundered it to give it more texture.

Pattern: “Joining Together Quilt” from the book Quilt Love by Cassandra Ellis, Taunton Press 2012

tierneycreates

Welcome to tierneycreates!

October 27, 2013September 8, 2023 tierneycreates: a fusion of textiles and smiles

Thank you for visiting and I look forward to your comments and thoughts on my posts.

My blog focuses on the many aspects of a “Crafter’s Life” and discusses topics such as sources of creative inspiration, my artistic journey, what’s on my design wall, quality of life, quilting retreats, artistic growth, outside adventures, books that inspire me and all things related to handmade textile crafts!

The My Story section contains the The “Tierney” page sharing my story; and a tour of my studio in the tierneycreates Studio Tour page. The Textile Adventures section has links to my Exhibits and Shows, Art for Sale, and Gallery of my work.