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".
Well, I guess I better get a book written and published to keep up with my 11 year old nephew…
In 2018 my brother, Raoul Davis, Jr. who owns a Branding and PR firm, had his first book published with two colleagues – Firestarters (available on Amazon)
Image credit: Amazon.com
Then in May 2024, his son, Austin Davis, who is 11, had his first book published – Dogs vs Bears (also available on Amazon):
Image credit: Amazon.com
Per the book summary:
“…Austin Davis introduces a new way for kids to learn about diversity, appreciating differences, and teamwork.
Austin’s never known the truth—that his stuffed animals come to life whenever he leaves the house! Every time he goes to school, his bedroom becomes a brutal scene of battling teddy bears and stuffed dogs. Minion, leader of the bears, fights fiercely against Woof Woof, the dogs’ commander, over who will reign supreme.
But after years of fighting, the bears and dogs discover a new threat. Will they be wiped out by an invading species, or can these two groups put aside their differences and face it together? The future of the fortress—and Austin’s realm—depends upon it!”
There is a website set up for the book – www.dogsvsbears.com and this site has a more extensive blurb about Austin the Author than Amazon:
image credit: screen shot from dogsvsbears.com
Austin is very brilliant – he is nearly fluent in Mandarin Chinese and has been studying it since he was 5 years old in a special program in his school district. His parents figured out early on he needed something to occupy his big brain! (I remember when he was 6 years old or so and he was watching YouTube videos on human physiology and knew more than I remembered as a former clinical nurse!)
I was joking with my sister about feeling like an underachiever as my 11 year nephew has a book out before I do but seriously I am super proud Aunt! I of course bought a couple copies and have one displayed in my home library!
It’s a really fun book and it came out of all the stories Austin, an only child who really bonded from a young age with his huge collection of stuffed animals (and yes I contributed to his stash), would share about stuffed animals’ adventures.
I am glad my brother, who’s PR firm helps sports figures and company CEOs write and publish their stories, helped facilitate his son’s first book!
Okay I will start working on my first book, as soon as I clear up all these quilting unfinished projects – ha!
It’s the 15th of the month (ok it’s really the 17th but I have back dated this post, ha!) and time for my monthly “ScrapHappy” post as part of the ScrapHappy group I belong run by Kate and Gun. At the end of this post I have a link to the other blogs participating in this monthly event in case you’d like to check out their ScrapHappy posts.
I’ve had a very busy summer so far and I recently returned from a trip to the Philadelphia area to visit my brother (and I spent time with one of my long time blogging buddies that some of you know…but that is a separate post coming later this week). Currently we are hosting three different sets of out of town visitors over the next 2 months. So crafting is sort of on the back burner, but I didn’t want to miss out on the monthly ScrapHappy post.
I’m in my 11th year of blogging with lots of posts in my archives. I looked through my blog category Fabric Scraps Obsessionand found a couple of posts from early 2018 to share about a “Scrap Party” I had with a quilting friend, to celebrate the love of fabric scraps!
From the Archives:
Scrap Party!(03/30/2018)
It’s no secret, especially if you’ve followed my blog for a while, that I am obsessed with fabric scraps. I won’t try to link any of my numerous previous posts on fabric scraps. If you are new to my blog, you will have to just trust me 🙂
Well one of my quilting friends, actually the one who got me into appreciating the value and opportunity for unlimited creativity provided by using fabric scraps, is coming over tomorrow for a SCRAP PARTY!
She had a birthday a couple of weeks ago and we are going to do a belated celebration by going to out to lunch and then coming back to my house and spending the afternoon playing in my fabric scrap pile:
I did not post about it (as those of you who’ve followed me for a while may have grown weary of my constantly talking about fabric scraps) but last weekend I thinned out my scrap pile. I pulled out any remaining old lower quality fabric and donated more to a local charity thrift shop.
During a previous donation, a volunteer at one of our local charity thrift shops (for our local Humane Society shelter), told me that fabric scraps sell very well at the thrift shop. They cannot keep fabric scrap bags in stock, they sell out immediately! (See there are more weird obsessed people like myself in Central Oregon).
So what are we going to do at a so called “Scrap Party”? Well I am going to dump the whole box onto a plastic tarp on the floor of my master bedroom (as not to take up precious space in my tiny studio space that we will be sharing) and let my friend go wild playing with my fabric scrap collection. She is really into improvisational piecing (she is the one who helped me move from traditional quilting to art/improvisational quilting) so fabric scraps are one of her favorite textile mediums!
I’ve set up my travel sewing machine for her in my studio so we can sew together. I have two design walls (a small one on the closet door in my studio and then the big one in the hall way) so we won’t have to battle for design wall space!
I’m not sure what she is going to work on, but I plan to work on some paper piecing. I’m trying to spend more time with my extensive (ridiculous) craft book collection and rediscovered in my craft book collection – 50 Little Paper-Pieced Blocks by Carol Doak. Playing with fabric scraps seems like a great time to work on my paper-piecing skills.
My friend is bringing over her miniature schnauzer so Mike will have a furry friend visiting.
Terry the Quilting Husband (TTQH) made us chocolate chip cookies (to keep our sugar fueled energy level high for crafting!!!):
Of course I will share the outcomes of our Scrap Party!
Two Quilters and a Bed Full of Fabric Scraps (04/03/2018)
I know you’ve been waiting…and here is the follow up to my 03/30/18 post Scrap Party! , where I had a special birthday celebration play-date with my fabric-scrap-loving quilting friend.
It started with this plastic bin of my fabric scraps:
More fabric scraps crammed in here than I realized…
Dumped onto my bed (the bed has a plastic sheet from packaging material covering it):
A king size bed filled with fabric scraps (awesome or terrifying?)
Before we dove into this delicious (or suspicious) pile of fabrics, first we needed to fortify ourselves:
I might have a small studio but I can always make room for tea and cookies (made by TTQH!).
After a few minutes of frolicking in the fabric scraps, my quilting friend pulled her initial stack and got to work on making improvisational blocks. As a challenge, in addition to access to my crazy fabric scrap collection, I assigned my friend these pieced block discards/trimmings to try and incorporate into her improvisational blocks:
During our fabric scrappy play day I thought I would also take the opportunity to practice paper-piecing (Not the fun “English Paper Piecing” type but the “flip and stitch” type of paper-piecing that I suspect is what you have to do all day in the “Underworld” if you are bad in life and go there after you die…um, I would like to choose the “fire & brimstone” instead please…).
I signed up to participate in the Sisters Outdoor Quilt Show’s 2018 Wish Upon A Card Fundraiser & Fabric Challengesponsored by Robert Kaufman Fabrics. I needed to make a 4′” x 6″ fabric postcard to donate to the fundraiser, incorporating the two feature fabrics provided by Robert Kaufman Fabrics.
In general I love Robert Kaufman fabrics, but I was completely underwhelmed by the fabric pieces they sent me to make the postcard:
Um…what am I gonna make with these?!??!
Thank goodness my friend helped me pick out some coordinating fabric scraps for my postcard.
Here was my first (actually second, as the first was a legendary-paper-piecing-screw-up disaster) attempt at paper piecing a little house for the postcard:
Hated it!
Here is my second (okay actually third) attempt and the final version with my embellishments:
“Visitor Arrives” by tierneycreates 2018 (note the back of the postcard is fused blank muslin covering the stitching so that it can be used as a postcard)
I mailed it off yesterday to Wish Upon a Card and I will not be offended if they say they “never got it in the mail” or they accidentally let it slip into the trash can – ha!
Now I bet you are curious: Did we make a dent in the pile of fabric scraps? Not really. Here is the tub of fabric scraps cleaned up from the bed and put back into the closet after my friend left:
It appears I have enough for another Fabric Scrap Party (or 200+ Scrap Parties)!
Here are the other bloggers that participate in the ScrapHappy monthly posting event, check out their blogs linked below for their ScrapHappy posts:
John has lived in Colorado all his life and has never been on a gold mine tour. It was of course my first gold mine tour.
If you’d like to read the history of Colorado and the gold rush/gold mining, here is a link to a wonderful article – Colorado Gold Rush. Like parts of the Pacific NW where I used to live (Washington and Oregon), the hunt for gold help put Colorado on the map of the United States.
We went on an awesome tour guided by a 5th generation descendant of Colorado miners of the Mollie Kathleen Gold Mine, descending down 1000 feet in a mine elevator, packed in like sardines (the tour was not for the claustrophobic).
I’m just going to now share a bunch of photos from the tour without explanation but you all can figure it out (and you can see I just had to take some Black & White photos…)
We had a blast during the tour and the tour guide demonstrated some of the historic equipment that miners used in the 19th and 20th centuries to mine for gold. We only went down to 1000 feet underground but our understanding from the tour was the full gold mine goes to 3000 feet+ down under ground! Here are a couple more photos from the tour including the awful “restroom” that miners had to use of a bucket that got emptied out by the children that worked in the mine for 50 cents a day; and the large bucket that was used to transport miners up and down the mine!
The mine is no longer used as a mine; and according to John in Colorado they no longer do underground mining in Colorado, they only do surface mining as underground mining is now too expensive.
After our mine tour, we had a car picnic in the parking lot:
Here is a view of the Cripple Creek valley that I photographed before we headed back home:
It was a great little road trip exploring more of Colorado I haven’t seen!
Well I’ve been on more summer adventures than spending time crafting, so it’s another post about my travels.
Last weekend we did a road trip to Cripple Creek, Colorado. Out of the blue we received an invitation for a free hotel room, $75 dining credit, and $75 free slot play at the new Chamonix Hotel and Casino in Cripple Creek. So we took advantage of a free-ish weekend getaway and an excuse for me to see another part of Colorado I had not yet visited.
Chamonix Hotel & Casino, image from Casino Careers website
Cripple Creek is one of the historic Colorado mining towns that were granted gaming/casino building licenses to try and revive/save the old mining towns. The other mining towns in Colorado granted this special license are Central City and Black Hawk, Colorado where John goes to play poker tournaments. Gambling is only legal in these three towns in Colorado, except for two Native American run casinos in the Four Cornersarea of Colorado.
The Roadtrip
Driving from our home to Cripple Creek we passed by some beautiful and interesting sights, some of which we had to pull the car over to see better.
Of course I had to sneak in some Black & White photography…
We came across and old abandoned under the mountain passage that we think was once used for gold mining since we were in historic gold mining country:
Cripple Creek
When we arrived in Cripple Creek, ColoradoDonkey Derby Days was going on.
“People from all over the world descend on downtown to be inspired by the town’s resident donkey herd, who roam Cripple Creek in honor of the original Cripple Creek donkeys from the town’s Gold Rush days.“
They had lots of booths/vendors set up as well as donkey exhibits and we had fun wandering about. They also had a beer garden and food court with an United States Air Force cover band playing (they were really good!) playing good blues, rock and country music in their military uniforms.
After wandering the festival for a while and then checking into the hotel, we ate a nice buffet dinner at the casino with an amazing desert bar:
We tried not to be too naughty at the desert bar, agreeing to only one trip each to that magical section of the buffet!
Okay that’s enough for today and tomorrow I will share Part II with our adventures during our first underground gold mine tour 🙂
I’ve made some progress on the sunflower inspired granny square blocks (which someday will be a blanket) that I’ve been working on, primarily while riding in the car as a passenger.
Here is what my first one looked like that I shared in the post I linked:
I decided to add some green to represent newly opening sunflowers and with the rust, yellow and green yarn in play here is how the blocks are progressing:
A couple close up of the various blocks in progress:
I am making the centers to the first 20 – 21 blocks and then I will be adding the oatmeal colored border yarn to complete the granny square blocks. I’ll share an update when I get the first 20 – 21 done.
I also thought I would share an “Agriculture Report” (inspired by @quiteayarnblog‘s ongoing series of posts titled “Agriculture Report”) and the tomatoes on my upper deck keep getting taller and taller and will end up taller plants than previous years by the time they fruit:
We were also able to harvest ONE strawberry so far (we shared it and savored each bite) from the first strawberry plant I am growing in Colorado:
At the end of May into the beginning of June, John and I did a 4-day road trip from Colorado to New Mexico. Our final destination before heading back home was Taos, New Mexico.
While looking for an open restaurant we stumbled upon this…Taos Adobe Quilting quilt shop!
But it was closed for the evening! Oh the torture! All I could do was stare into the window:
Oh I couldn’t wait until the next day to wander over there, and the next day I did:
I had a fun time chatting for a long time to the quilt shop owner’s son, who was headed out the next day on a major solo camping trip. He noticed my tote bag that said: “Libraries Build Communities” and being an avid reader himself, a lover of libraries, struck up a conversation with me while I was browsing. We ended up talking about books, fabric and life!
I didn’t go too crazy on my purchases from this lovely shop but I did get a little sampling of their Southwest fabrics and some other little remnants of artsy fabric.
This year I am participating in the Ovarian Cancer Fundraiser Quilt coordinated by the awesome Australia based quilting goddess Kate @ talltalesfromchiconia. I am contributing two blocks to the quilt and I thought I would share those blocks with you.
This year’s theme is the sea and I signed up for the “deep sea” section of quilt blocks.
I researched deep sea creatures found in Australian waters and decided to make a block inspired by the Deep-Sea Bullseye Scallop and a block inspired by the Dumbo Octopus. Then I pulled out my box of batik fabric scraps and sorted out my teal and blue scraps.
In the images below you will see the original photo that inspired me (photo source hyperlinked) and then the block I created based (loosely) on that photo. Note: my smartphone camera photographed some of the true teal as blues and so there is a lot more teal in the blocks than it appears in the images.
Here are photos of him building the raised bed in our backyard and setting up the automatic irrigation:
We originally had our backyard swing in this spot and John relocated the pavers and the swing to under the two large Aspen trees in our backyard:
Here’s the raised bed with the netting we added to hopefully protect our planting from the critters (animal and bug) that live in the open space behind our house:
I am pretty excited about the raised bed as now I can (perhaps) grow things like squash and greens where I needed a larger and deeper space than my upstairs deck garden allows.
Speaking of the upstairs deck garden, my container garden pots are filling out nice with foliage from the tomatoes, peppers, and herbs I am growing. I also added a pot of strawberries using a macrame hanger that my friend K made me.
We also added to planters that rest on the deck railings to the mix and for now I have seed starts there which I will transfer eventually to the raised bed. Then I will put some type of trailing flowers in those planters.
John set up automatic irrigation (watering) for all the pots and planters on the deck so it we are out of town they will get watered!
I have a penpal and we’ve been exchanging letters/cards. She makes beautiful handmade cards and it was time I made her a handmade card. I pulled out my dusty papercrafting/card making supplies and made one that is an ode to Sunflowers my favorite flower!
I also decorated the envelope. I have it partially displayed in the image above behind the card because I’ve already addressed it.
(In case you are wondering, I got those little sunflowers from Hobby Lobby last year. The other supplies were in my stash and who knows where I got them as they are at least 5 – 15+ years old!)
Now that I have my card making supplies out (and I re-organized them too!), I am looking forward to making more cards!
I thought I would dive into stories from my recent travels by sharing some Black & White photos I took in Taos, New Mexico on the 3rd day of our 4-day Colorado to New Mexico roadtrip at the end of May/start of June.
Taos, New Mexico was just screaming for me to pull out my smartphone camera and take photos in B&W, with it’s adobe structures and clear blue skies punctuated with a little cloud here and there.
I’ve loved the work of the photographer Ansel Adams since I was a teenager and while much “cooler” teenagers had posters of the latest “teen idol” on their walls, I had several Ansel Adams posters. I’ve also loved the work of the painter Georgia O’Keeffe (who lived in New Mexico) since I was in my early 20’s and I used to have several Georgia O’Keeffe posters in my room when I was in college (I was fortunate to visit the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum on a trip to Santa Fe, New Mexico 6 years ago, see post Creative Inspiration: Georgia O’Keeffe Museum).
Well our first tourist stop in Taos, NM was the adobe San Francisco de Asís Mission Church at the Ranchos de Taos, which was built 1813 – 1815 and was photographed by Ansel Adams AND painted by Georgia O’Keeffe!
Here is the Ansel Adams photograph “Church Taos Pueblo 1942” courtesy of fineartamerica.com:
Here is the Georgia O’Keeffe painting “Ranchos Church” courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art‘s website:
And here are my photos:
Yup, Mr. Ansel Adams is probably rolling his eyes from the afterlife on my B&W photographs; but I had fun taking them and pretending I understood composition and all those other mystical photograph taking terms – ha!
No I didn’t attempt to paint it like Georgia O’Keeffe did!
Ok so you might notice the church Ansel Adams photographed in the 1930s looks different than the one I photographed in 2024. According to Wikipedia the church has gone through several restorations over the years (we are talking 90+ years between Mr. Adams’ photo and mine) and the article on San Francisco de Asís Mission Church verifies it was photographed by Ansel Adams and painted by Georgia O’Keeffe. (But if you discover my research is wrong, let me know in the comments.)
Here are some other B&W photos I took in Taos. I was fascinated by the old style doors; as well as the simple tree limb fences.
And finally (to end your visual torture of seeing my B&W photography attempts), when we visited the Rio Grande Gorge Bridge in Taos, it looked ripe for B&W photos so here you go:
I’ve been away from blogging for a little while because of travel. I celebrated my birthday at the end of May and John and I recently returned from a 4-day road trip around Colorado that I will post about in the future. Before that we were in Estes Park and Fort Collins for a couple days (will post about that trip too). I look forward to getting caught up on my blogging buddies’ posts in the near future.
My husband John is a good man and he continues to reinforce this fact all the time.
Our homeowner’s association (HOA) can be rather strict at times (and rather lax at other times when you want them to reinforce the rules), and our neighbor was in danger of getting fined for not finishing a fence he started on this property (our neighbor only got around to putting in two fence posts to start the fence).
Our neighbor is a busy father of two young children and commutes over an hour to work each way, Monday to Friday. He’s exhausted by the weekend and most of his energy goes to time with his kids.
So John offered to help him complete the fence and ended up purchasing for the neighbor (who paid him back of course) all the fencing materials, AND building the fence and gate on his own for the neighbor!
Here is the neighbor’s dog waiting for John to finish the fence so she can now have a fenced yard:
I got some cool gifts for my birthday including a lovely home decor book and collection of stickers (I love stickers) from my friend J. My brother and family sent me the cutest schnauzer themed T-shirt inspired by a Van Gogh painting:
The Starry Schnauzer?
John got me a new iPad (I think my previous iPad belonged in the Apple Museum as it was many many iPad generations old); and my awesome stepsons were very generous for my birthday. One got me a gift card to my favorite used bookstore, and another got me some very yummy books!
I can’t wait to dive into this pile. But first I have to finish the two books I am currently reading The Water Knife by Paolo Bacigalupi; and Fairy Tale by Stephen King.
I have some surprises on the way from my sister for my birthday still, and I just received the most beautiful fiber art card from my longtime friend in Austria (my “Danish Brother”, I spent part of my summer in 1998 in Denmark with him and his parents) today in the mail:
Now here’s a quote to close out this post from the amazing (so far) book Fairy Tale I am currently reading, that make me think of John:
So I finished knitting another hat (same pattern as I always make), even though I can’t wear it until it gets cold again.
Yummy purple and blue variegated yarn from who knows where…
I need to be distracted when I am a passenger in the front seat a car (or I get anxious) so I always have some handwork with me:
Riding in the car is better with a project!
If you’ve followed my blog for a while and seen the endless hats I’ve made in this same “Rolled Hat” pattern, then you know I had to take my photo with the double pointed needles in the hat as it nears completion (it’s tradition!) – ha!
Where is Tierney?
SUNFLOWER GS
I’ve been working through random balls of yarn I find in my stash, some of them left over from making other people gift hats.
With the hat complete and the weather getting warmer (into the 70s F and next week into the 80s F) I wasn’t in the mood to start knitting another hat. I have some crochet granny squares to work on using recycled yarn (see post Plastic Yarn?) but wasn’t in the mood for that standard pattern after already making 3 granny square blankets with it.
So I decided to challenge myself and learn a new granny square pattern – Sunburst Square. Here is the YouTub video I used to teach myself:
The YouTuber does a great job teaching you how to make this granny square
Here is my first Sunburst Square in progress:
In the center photo I am in the car as a passenger working on it!
I love Sunflowers and I just had to make my flowers look like Sunflowers! I will share more progress as I work on them while in the car. We have a couple road trips to explore Colorado coming up this summer so I hope to make lots of blocks then!
“AGRICULTURE REPORT”
What is an “Agriculture Report”? Well I was inspired by @quiteayarnblog‘s ongoing series of posts titled “Agriculture Report” (and this title always cracks me up) that are actually updates of what is going on in her garden.I just had to adopt this same title for updates on what is going on in my garden/my “garden report“…
At the end of April my sister and I met up in New York City and spent a couple days together in Brooklyn, exploring the Williamsburg and Bedford-Stuyvesant (Bed-stuy) neighborhoods.
I always get a kick out of the “I love NY” sculpture at La Guardia airport where I flew into from Denver:
I do love New York. Although I was born in Pittsburgh, PA, I grew up in New York State, living in Long Island and in Upstate NY. I’ve been to NYC a zillion times and I remember being 14 and taking the train with a friend all the time for the day from Long Island to NYC (I wonder if parents nowadays would let their teenage daughters do that?). I always feel like NY is my home state, it holds a special place in my heart. When my late husband Terry died, I did consider moving back to New York State and explored with my sister Tarrytown, NY on the drive back from the celebration of life with Terry’s family in Upstate NY. (For some not-light reading…me as a new widow in late 2018…about the road-trip across 7 states with my sister here is the post –Stories from the Road, Part I)
But it seemed Colorado was calling me and besides John was waiting for me in Colorado (smile).
While visiting the NYC area my sister and I stayed at an Airbnb apartment in Bed-stuy and we had these hysterical narrow and steep stairs to climb to get to our apartment. Here is my sister doing the climb (we got use to it after a while):
We spent a day at theBrooklyn Waterfront/DUMBO area shopping, checking out the Brooklyn Bridge, and enjoying delicious food.
We spent a couple days wandering around the Williamsburg Brooklyn area and found the best little tea shop (which we visited twice!) as well as a wonderful indie bookstore. We were naughty and enjoy some amazing pastries at an exquisite bakery.
We also explored the Bed-stuy neighborhood and had a wonderful breakfast at an outdoor French-style cafe as well as got to see Director Spike Lee’s original studio.
The name of this Vegan eatery in Bed-stuy made us laugh- Slutty Vegan!:
It was definitely Springtime in NYC and we enjoyed seeing lots of flowers (and lots of tulips). I also went for a walk through one of the parks in Brooklyn and ran into a woman walking two adorable miniature schnauzers on a beautiful Spring day.
One evening wandering around Williamsburg, we stopped at an Irish pub for a pint of Guinness and met this awesome Willimsburg based couple that we spent the evening chatting with and sharing a meal. They might be visiting Denver in the future and we plan to connect again.
New Yorkers are definitely my people – I connect so easily with other New Yorkers!
It was a memorable trip and I just enjoy hanging out with my sister!
I’ll close this post with a poster on someone’s window in Williamsburg that made us smile:
I did ask my dog Mike but he is not ready to start up his Presidential campaign just yet…
I’ve been blogging about this quilt for 7 years, it is my oldest UFO. I won’t even bother linking previous posts as there are a lot of tierneycreates posts about this English Paper Pieced quilt, I will just give you the history and bring you up to speed.
In October 2016 the first issue of Quiltfolk Magazine (which was about Oregon quilters and I lived in Oregon at the time) was published and I fell head over heels in love with the quilt on the magazine’s cover:
I was determined to learn English Paper Piecing (EPP) so I could make this quilt and I purchased a book about how to do and enlisted the help of several quilters with EPP experience. My late husband Terry helped me punch out the hexagon templates from scrap card stock paper and in 2017 I began the journey to make 99 hexagon flowers (each one has 6 EPP hexies, so 594 hexies were needed) to make this quilt. I primarily used fabric scraps to make the hexies.
After a while I became proficient at making the hexagons or “hexies” to build the hexagon flowers for each block, and assembling the hexagon flowers. Over the next 7 years I would sporadically work on this very portable project. This project has been around the U.S. as well as to Ireland in various little project sacks I’ve stored it in.
In late April I went on a trip to New York City with my sister (separate post to follow) and finished the last of the 99 hexagon flowers at a tea house in Brooklyn that we frequented during our trip.
Tea and Hexiesin Brooklyn
Here are the 99 completed hexagon flowers:
Some of the hexagon flowers configuration are repeated because I had a lot of those scrap fabrics to work with such as the piles at the top of this image below:
And some have few to no repeats such as these solid color hexagon flowers at the bottom of the image below:
And finally I used up the left over hexies in various colors of solid color scrap fabrics to finish up the hexagon flowers (see the bottom of the image below):
So now that the 99 are done, I will use fat quarters to put together coordinating background fabrics to each hexagon flower.
If you are interested in learning EPP there are lots of free instructional website and videos online like this one:
Well you haven’t heard from Tierney in a while so I figured it’s time once again for me to step in and update you on what we’ve been up.
This is Mike the Miniature Schnauzer who lives with Tierney and John, who despite not having opposable thumbs is able to write a guest blog post from time to time.
Tierney and John had an upstairs deck that was on the verge of collapse. John had tried bracing some of the rotting sections a couple years ago but they were one crazy human-deck-dinner-party (you know if the humans started jumping up and down on top of the deck while dining) from a total deck disaster!
Their awesome friends from Bend, Oregon (where Tierney and I used to live) MJ and J (J has a lot of deck building experience) came and visited us last week; and thus began 4 days of deck demolishing and rebuilding.
MJ and Tierney documented the whole 4-day long project with photos; and I am going to share some of their photos (it’s impressive enough that I can write without opposable thumbs, taking photos with a smart phone would be nearly impossible…but with the right dog treats offered, I could try…) in this post.
First they had to take the existing deck-of-terror down:
The backyard got to looking crazy and there was no place for them to play ball with me (humans are thoughtless)!
Plus they kept chasing me back inside because they didn’t want me to get any splinters in my paws (perhaps that was thoughtful…but I wanted to play ball!!!)
Luckily and I had Tierney and MJ (the female humans) hostage in the basement den binge watching television shows and eating snacks while paying attention to me:
Here I am with MJ, one of my favorite humans in this world (she is lucky I love her!)
John and Tierney made sure the visiting humans ate well, making what looked like delicious breakfasts each morning; and what looked like tasty dinners in the evening like the Chicken Piccata with homemade pasta and Caesar Salad they served one night:
I did get nervous while they were working on the deck as it looked like the humans working on it could fall at any time. They of course made sure I was safe (which is what is most important).
Tierney and MJ helped out the male humans John and J by running some errands including a trip to Home Depot for something called “shims”. Of course Tierney and MJ took me with them and I had to help them find the shims:
You might notice Tierney has a bandage on her thumb – it’s not from working on the deck but carelessness while chopping carrots…
I was concerned when there was an attempt to scan me twice while we were in Home Depot – don’t they know the cash value of me would break a price scanner?!?!?!
We also took a trip to Target to buy J some additional clothes as he had “Man-packed” where he forgot to pack all the clothes he needed for the trip. Little did MJ and Tierney realize that there was a “Service Dogs Only” sign in the entry of the store (oops!)
No one said anything to MJ and Tierney about how I didn’t belong in there as they wandered around the store except to say “cute dog”. Well I guess that was my one and only trip to Targetunless I pursue a career as a Service Dog (but I am too grumpy to do that).
By the 4th day the male humans finished up the deck and they were so happy! Here are photos of the last stages of putting the deck together and making it livable again:
The deck is not completely done. John has to order something called “matching trim” for the deck, add post caps (whatever those are), and do some painting. But the deck is now very usable! The humans could even have a crazy human-deck-dinner-party if they wanted.
The last day of the project, the humans went out to dinner and then relaxed in the basement den for a movie night. If you look closely at the lower right hand section of the photo below, Tierney is actually working on the quilt she is hand quilting (see her post Hand Quilting Go Boldly) and perhaps sometime this year she will finish it!
Note: J and John are only snuggled as a joke for the photo, they did spend the 4 days working hard, not snuggling.
By the time we took MJ and J back to Human Storage aka “the airport” as humans call it (see the blog post “Human Storage” and Airport Lore) I was pretty tired because managing humans is so exhausting!
On the way to drop them off in Human Storage and then when I returned home
Well that catches you up on major recent events in my life. I will work on getting Tierney to blog on what she has been up to (before the deck project she had just returned from a trip to New York City with her sister) and to have her work on catching up on all her blogging buddies posts!
You’ve heard of “animal rescue”, well I’ve been involved with “handmade basket rescue” (smile)!
I know, silly, but when I am at a charity thrift shop and I see a handmade basket, I seem to need to bring it home!
Recently I picked up this basket at a thrift shop:
Which looks like a larger version of a Sotak Handmade basket pattern I made in the past:
On closer inspection turned out it was the same pattern!
I know the work it takes to make this basket, so how could I just leave one in excellent condition for only a couple dollars in the thrift store unloved?!!??! (Yes these are the justifications I tell myself…) I just had to give it a home 😉
I have this collection of Art Gallery Fabrics scraps that I plan to use to make this quilt my friend D made me – Then Came Jone’s Nova Star:
So I thought my new basket would be the perfect vessel to store those scraps:
Here is another basket in my studio (different pattern) I rescued a couple years ago from a thrift shop which houses a collection of precut flannel squares:
I hope I come across more of these baskets in the future when thrifting, as a crafter who appreciates the work that went into them, they are a special and useful find!
I was getting suspicious about Spring in Colorado. We had a streak of some wonderful weather with temperatures in the 60s to even 80 degree F (16 – 26 C) and I thought Spring was really here (even did a garden clean out in preparation for Spring planting) and then BAM – SNOW STORM!
But the snow is gone and the first trees to really pop in my section of Eastern Colorado are really popping – the Crabapple Trees!
This scene from my daily walk yesterday made me really happy:
Yay! The smell from the flowering Crabapples was so deliciously fragrant, especially coupled with the warm weather (70 degree F yesterday).
I am starting to believe it is really Spring (until the next snowstorm, ha!)
Oh and with Spring comes new musical adventures:
John used to play guitar when he was a teenager and was sort of a guitar prodigy. He shared he could have had a career in it if he had pursued when he graduated high school. Instead college and life distracted him and he never played again.
For the past year he’s been talking about wanting to pick up the guitar again, but hasn’t bought a guitar. I found a guitar at Costco (some of you might be cringing, ha, but it is at least a Yamaha guitar) – a Keith Urban guitar with lessons included, and convinced John we should buy it.
Well John is currently enjoying relearning the guitar! If you are on Instagram you can pop over to @tierneycreates and see John practicing his guitar.
Just wanted to share a quick up on my quilt in progress “Go Boldly”. This is a follow up to this post from March – Update on “Go Boldly” .
I am hand quilting it and really enjoying working on it (I put hand quilting the denim quilt “What Direction Do I Go?” on hold for now) and I’ve made quite a bit of progress laying it on my lap nearly every evening and working on it.
At first I was only going to hand tie it at each corner but then I decided to actual stitch the curves. Hand tying it did help stabilize it as it is nearly a Queen-sized quilt.
Here is the front of the quilt on the floor of my studio, all wrinkly from having it on my lap for hand quilting:
And here is the back of the quilt which was pieced from the leftover blocks and leftover fabric:
Here are a couple more photos of the quilting and Mariss @Fabrications has NO NEED TO WORRY that I will fly over to SA and steal her hand quilting teaching opportunities – ha! But I don’t plan to enter it in any shows and hand quilting it makes me happy 🙂
I am using some rainbow colored variegated heavyweight thread from a collection of thread that I bought back in 1999 at my first sewing expo show! Good thing I didn’t get rid of it – ha! I did use it “someday” as I probably kept telling myself to justify holding onto it 😉
As I mentioned in the post Rock & Roll Icons’ Guitars and Outfits, John and I recently returned from a trip to Miami and Hollywood, Florida where John attended a poker tournament.
Before John played in his day long poker tournament, we spent a couple days wandering about in Hollywood and Miami (South Beach), Florida.
Here’s a little photo travelogue of some of our fun adventures.
HOLLYWOOD, FLORIDA
We stayed at the Marlin Beachside in the Hollywood Beach area, right on the beach:
Images credit: Tripadvisor
They had free bikes for guests, so every morning we went for a 8 – 10 mile bike ride along the beach on the boardwalk and then to breakfast:
Nearly every evening there was a free rock concert on the boardwalk by a cover band. Some of them were kind of “cheesy” but one evening they had an amazing band that did excellent Classic Rock covers. Here we are enjoying the music!
SOUTH BEACH, MIAMI, FLORIDA
We had a rental car to get around and we spent an afternoon in the South BeachArt Deco Historic District in Miami.
Our wandering about the outdoor shopping district began with a visit to an amazing German bookstore – Taschen Books. There are only two US bookstore locations for this store – in Hollywood, California and in Miami, Florida.
The store featured mind blowing oversized coffee table books, which started at around $80 USD in price. My favorite of their books was one about the world’s most beautiful libraries:
They had on display an amazing book on Ferrari race cars that retailed for $7500 USD and was encased in a special display case, which John, a race car buff, enjoyed looking through with the required white gloves on his hands.
Image credit; Taschen Books website
Wandering around the shopping area, we came across a very cool window display at one of the many art galleries around the Art Deco District – a display of human sized matches with human heads!
We had paella for lunch under a tree in one of the outdoor courtyards in the Art Deco Historic District. While waiting our food, beautiful flowers keep falling from the tree about onto my plate.
Something special about flowers falling from the sky and arranging themselves on your plate while you await your delicious meal.
Finally the paella arrived and I removed the flowers from my plate to make room!
Towards the end of the meal a rain of a liquid substance came down on John. Turned out a HUGE Iguana in the tree above was spitting at him or something!
We didn’t realize at the time it was only a harmless Iguana – our mind went to other things like a poisonous Gila Monster! So we paid the check quickly and got out of them – ha! The restaurant staff gave John some clothes with some type of cleaner on them to clean his arms where the “Iguana-rain” had fallen!
After that we wandered over to a jazz concert in the park in front of the beach area and then wandered along the beach
It was nice to put my toes in the Atlantic Ocean!
We had a wonderful trip and thanks for reading!
(IFor someone who lives very far away from palm trees, it was cool seeing palm trees bending with the wind at dusk along the beach!)
I spent a day at the Hard Rock Hotel wandering about and donating some money to slot machines while John was in his poker tournament.
The hotel’s decor was a tribute to Rock & Roll and when you first enter the hotel they have guitars on their doors:
The also have a guitar shaped Guitar Hotel!
Image credit: kayak.com
The hotel had an AMAZING collection of Rock & Roll memorabilia, primarily instruments (mostly guitars) and outfits that Rock & Roll icons played and wore. For those of you who love music like I do, I thought you might enjoyed some photos of their displays.
The Guitars
Here is a selection of some of the awesome guitars on display:
In case you have trouble reading the sings below the guitars in the images above, they are in order: Lenny Kravitz, Tom Petty, Geddy Lee (Rush), Eric Clapton, Johnny Cash, and Nancy Wilson (of Heart).
The Clothing
Here is a sampling of some of the outfits worn by Rock & Roll icons they had on display:
The signs might be difficult to read in the image above so here are the artists attached to the clothing in each image in order: The Supremes, John Lennon (The Beatles), Buddy Holly, Jimi Hendrix, Prince, George Michael, Keith Moon (The Who), and The Temptations.
Of course the images I share in this post do not do justice to what the guitars and clothing looked like in real life. It was amazing to see the displays of Rock & Roll history in person.
The hotel and casino was beautiful inside and I really loved this entire wall of seashells they had on display:
More on our recent trip to Florida in another post, just wanted to share a little about my visit to this hotel/casino.
Needle-arts crafters (knitting, crocheting, cross-stitch and other needlework) seem to be good people based on those I’ve met through blogging, so I thought I would try for the first time to join a Knit/Crochet Group instead of a quilting group.
One of the area libraries, Arapahoe Library, had a Knit/Crochet Group that met once a week.
I already belong to three Denver area library systems (have library cards), so why not add one more to my list (they are fairly laid back on who can get a library card and there are a lot of libraries systems in the Denver Metro Area), so I went to visit one of the Arapahoe Library branches for the first time – the Smoky Hill Branch.
I was so surprised on my first visit as this branch had a cafe, an awesome used bookstore, and a free seed library where you could take 3 packets of seeds a day!
Of course I had to browse through a stack of used books (that I didn’t buy) at their bookstore while enjoying a hot chocolate and a danish at the cafe:
Other cool things I discovered while doing a self-tour of this library was kits for book groups which included 10 copies of books, and an awesome Craft book section (where else would I have headed first, ha!):
So for the past three weeks I attended the weekly meetings of the Knit/Crochet Group and I met some nice people. Here I am at the group meeting working on another knitted hat; and checking out a wooden yarn holder bowl another attendee’s woodworker husband made her:
I decided not to continue with the group as the venue was too large (space for 17 people) and I wasn’t getting any work done on my project and I was getting a little overwhelmed by the crowd, all their energy and stories. I appeared to have fully transitions to an Introvert post-pandemic!
I might try another group someday in a smaller venue.
FINALLY in April 2024, Tierney has finish the blanket and has put it on the upstairs guest bed as the warmer weather season covering (though she appears to be confused as it is not officially “warmer weather”, we are just getting warm days here and there):
I know, I know, you were hoping to see me stretched out on this bed relaxing like you did in other posts, however I am boycotting this blanket as I wanted it to only be for ME as she led me to believe while she was making it!
Happier times when the blanket was in a configuration that worked for ME…
Oh Tierney has come in the room and bugged me while I am writing…
Don’t bug me while I am writing! A lot of concentration is required when you don’t have opposable thumbs!
Oh, Tierney stopped by to ask me to tell you she got a cute new radio while thrifting last year during her trip to Florida with her sister (see the post Sisters’ Trip to Englewood, Florida) that she placed next to the bed in this room:
She says it is a “Tivoli Radio” and she got it for only $5 when normally it would retail for over $100 and it has a wonderful sound. This means nothing to me as a dog, but I am passing this along at her request (why doesn’t she just write her own darn posts if she wants to share something??!?).
Okay I have to go find somewhere to nap now after all this typing and I can’t just go lay down on the bed behind me as I am boycotting it…
(Oh and I am not going to even address that weird post Tierney had yesterday – Imagining Mike Playing Sports – I am going to learn how to use that app and write a guest blog post with images of Tierney playing sports!)
I downloaded a new app on my iPhone called MS Copilot which can generate AI images based on instructions.
There was a tiny bit of a learning curve on how to word things so the AI could understand what I wanted, but here is Mike my Miniature Schnauzer playing with three of the professional Colorado based sports teams.
The Denver Broncos Football Team:
He’s trying to catch a pass to then score a touchdown!
The Denver Nuggets Basketball Team:
(The AI used an older team uniform for the Nuggets, not their current one) Mike is getting ready to shoot the ball into the hoop!
The Colorado Avalanche Hockey Team:
Mike is going to send the hockey puck into the goal net!
I know there are a lot of scary things about AI but this app appears to be one of the non scary, fun things!
A couple weeks ago I decided to organize my paper-crafting supply stash. Before I started quilting, I started card making with a group at my job in the breakroom at lunch time (I guess paper-crafting is a “gateway drug” to quilting, ha!).
In my stash I had a stack of calendar pages I picked up somewhere (thrift store) from 2016/2017 of Colorado nature scenes. For a moment I thought about just recycling them, but then I thought: I could make a set of cards for visitors that they can use as sort of postcards to send Colorado greetings to their friends and family back home. (I might even provide them with a PEN to write with and STAMPS for mailing, ha!)
I’m still working on the cards, but here is a close up of the ones I’ve completed so far:
Since I had to trim off the section of the calendar page that provided the details of the photo, I hand wrote the details on the bottom.
The only problem is I do not have the original calendar book and so I do not have the name of the awesome photographer who took these photos to credit. I did indicate on the back of each card that these are recycled cards so no one will think I took these wonderful photos.
So the plan is to keep a stack of these cards on the writing desk I moved from the library (when we got the dining room table to put in the library, see post A Table Runner for the New Table) to the guest room. I am glad we were able to fit the little table in the guest room as I know when I am visiting someone I appreciate a little desk in the room.
(Oh and if you are wondering what the is document with the quote “Be yourself…” behind the cards in the images – I am working on creating my first journal – it is going to be on my first 5 years in Colorado. I was inspired by my friend J who is a prolific journal and amazing artist!)
Every Winter I say to myself: “I should share this story on my blog”, but then Winter passes and I forget. Well it just turned Spring and there is still a little bit of snow on the ground in Colorado so I am giving myself permission to go ahead and share it now instead of waiting until next Winter (smile)…
If you are new to this blog let me give you a little bit of background to the story I am about the share. I am a widow and my husband John is a widower. We were each together with our late partners, who both passed in 2018, for over 30 years (I was with my late husband Terry since I was 20 years old). John and I met in 2019 when I left Bend, Oregon and moved to Denver, Colorado to try and start a new life after my devastating loss.
John and I have each lived quite a bit of life before we met each other and one of the fun parts of getting to know each other has been sharing our life stories. In this post I am sharing one of my favorite stories John has shared.
Misadventures in Ice Fishing
Years ago John and his brother-in-law went ice fishingin Deckers, Colorado. (If you’ve never heard of “ice fishing”, I put a hyperlink above for more information).
It was a 10 degree F day (-12 C) and when they were done fishing, they went walking across the frozen river to get back to his brother-in-law’s truck which was a mile away. While traversing the frozen river, the ICE BROKE near the shore, and they fell into the icy river. They pulled themselves out of icy river and shivering they agreed that no matter what they would keep walking and not stop until they got the the truck (if they stopped they could become hypothermic and run into life threatening issues).
They had to walk close to a mile to the truck feeling like they were freezing to death. When they got to the truck they started the truck, stripped down to their underwear to get the freezing cold clothes off their skin, and threw their wet clothes into the back of truck.
Driving back to John’s brother-in-law’s house and running the heat in the truck at full blast, suddenly they saw law enforcement lights behind them, it was a Colorado State Trooper following them and signaling for them to pull over.
Image credit: Colorado State Patrol
So there they were in only their underwear, two middle aged men on 10 degree F day (-12 C) driving around in a pickup truck, and a Colorado State Trooper is pulling them over! There was nothing to do but pull over to the side of the road and face the State Trooper!
When the State Trooper walked up to the passenger side of the truck and saw the two men in just their underwear he did a double take. John and his brother-in-law immediately said to the State Trooper: “This isn’t what it looks like, he is my brother-in-law”. Then they went on to explain what had happened after they went ice fishing, the breaking of the ice and fall into the river, and why they were only in their underwear.
The State Trooper (who was probably trying his best to keep a serious face) said: “The reason why I pulled you over is there were clothes flying out of the back of your pickup truck onto the highway”. The State Trooper didn’t give them a ticket and let them just continue on their way home to get warm (and get some clothes on).
If only they had thought to put the wet clothes in a more secure place they wouldn’t have given the State Trooper a story he probably still tells to this day!
Postscript
To my dog Mike, my late husband Terry was his whole world.
One of the very sad things that happened when my husband Terry died was that he passed suddenly at home while alone with our dog Mike the Miniature Schnauzer. Mike had to be with Terry’s body for a couple hours before I came home to discover him.
I thought Mike would be traumatized for the rest of his brief dog life and I tried to give him all the love I could after Terry died while dealing with my terrible grief and my trauma of finding the love of my life dead on the floor in front of the Christmas tree.
I remember taking Mike on walks after Terry died and every time Mike would see a man in the distance walking towards us, he would wag his tail and think it might be Terry joining us. It was unbelievably heart-breaking.
Then I met John after moving to Colorado and Mike (who is a “guy’s dog”) completely fell in love with John and I think John healed Mike’s heart.
Here is a photo that always makes me smile – Mike all snuggled to the new love of his life – John:
tierneycreates 