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".
I love trains and I am especially fond of old locomotives!
The day started with an hour road trip to Idaho Springs and a road trip is a great excuse to stop for snacks at a roadside convenience shop in the mountains:
Those were poor nutritional choices but they were delicious!
Snacks in hand, I enjoyed the mountainous scenery and tunnels along the way:
We had lunch in the darling town of Idaho Springs at BeauJo’s Pizzaknown for it’s “Mountain Pie” a pizza with a tall/large crust with accompanying honey to dip it in.
After that tasty experience, we wandered around downtown Idaho Springs, a former mining town, window shopping and stopping at one of my favorite charity thrift shops that I always visit when I am in the area.
And there was a 50% off sale, but I was good as I didn’t really need anything, I just like to browse!
Georgetown isn’t far from Idaho Springs, so a short drive and we were there:
From the parking lot you can see the train:
Waiting at the station for it to arrive:
We sat right behind the locomotive engine so we had a great view. Here are photos from the train ride:
We stopped at another station for a gift shop and bathroom break and I realized just how high above sea level were were!
My favorite part of the train ride was listing to this – so awesome!
And here is video I found on YouTube by a self proclaimed “train nerd” that provides a nice overview of the experience with history (we didn’t do the optional mine tour this time):
What? Two tierneycreates Beastie guest blog posts in a row? No actually I am sort of cheating – this is a re-post from October 2022. Since it is the tierneycreates blog’s 10th anniversary in October 2023, I’ve challenged myself to post everyday (or shall I say “torture you all everyday to another post”) and I thought I would pepper in some re-postings during this anniversary month of some favorite posts (yep, that’s my excuse for not doing new posts everyday, ha!).
This post is a very special memory from my first trip to Ireland with John, our friends K and M, and our Beasties! Plus we got to meet M’s new Beastie – “Matty” Beastie; and of course meet Helen of Crawcrafts Beasties who made all the Beasties happen!
Please see the “Postscript” section of this post for a special dedication.
Guest Blog Post: Beasties Return to Ireland! (October 11, 2022 re-post)
This is tierneycreates Beastie guest blog posting (if you are new to this blog, my story is on this post – I’m A Monster!!! and you can see all my posts at this link: Beastie Adventures).
You haven’t heard from Tierney or myself in a while as we’ve been in Ireland!
Tierney, John, John Beastie and I recently returned from Ireland and I got to see my maker Helen of Crawcraft Beasties & Knit with Helen; and Tierney got to meet Helen in person for the first time!
We had lots of adventures in Ireland visiting cities such as Dublin, Galway, Doolin, etc. I told Tierney I would get the blog posts on our trip started as she is still rather jet lagged.
Here I am trying to write this blog post (sitting at my desk that John built me, see post Guest Blogger: A Desk for Me!) while my dog Mikelet is trying to get attention from me as he missed me on my long trip (we did not take him for fear he might get misplaced during the trip).
We visited Ireland with Tierney and John’s friends K and M who visit Ireland a couple times a year. K’s family is from Ireland and she still has family there and M who is part Irish, is well versed in Irish culture and history.
K also knows Helen as she has been working with Helen to get her husband M his very own Beastie!
John Beastie, Tierney, K and I met up with Helen and visited a pub for a Beastie reunion with Helen. Here are a couple photos of our initial reunion, I could not decide which one I like best of my awesome maker so I included them all!
She was pretty pleased to see us again as she sends her Beasties out all over the world and rarely gets to see them in person again once they’ve traveled across the ocean!
After the pub, we all headed to Helen’s studio for a little tour of her studio, to meet the new Beastie for K’s husband M, and to take a little knitting class (Helen is a professional knitting instructor) to learn how to knit cables (which scare K and Tierney).
This is Helen’s new studio and although John Beastie and I were not “born” here but it was awesome to be in a place where our fellow Beasties are now “born”:
Here is a little photo tour of Helen’s bright and cheery studio:
After a little studio tour, it was time to meet “Matty Beastie” (and his dog Riley) the new Beastie Helen made for K’s husband M:
Matty Beastie comes with his dog Riley the Chocolate Lab (to see the Canine Riley check out the post Loved (or mugged) by a Lab, Tierney is Riley’s “Dog Godmother”), a pint of Guinness, as well as his PJs (if he gets tired of wearing his jeans) and his famous slippers.
Helen brilliantly added a magnet to Matty Beastie’s chest so he could hold up his pint of Guinness:
John Beastie and I took a group photo with our new friend Matty Beastie who we would now be touring Ireland with:
As you can see I was not sure where to look during the photo as Helen was also taking a photo of our group at the same time.
We got distracted during the photoshoot and Riley ended up sampling some of Matty Beastie’s Guinness!
I did take Matty Beastie aside and give him some tips on managing humans and how to get away with things right under their noses…
While John Beastie and I visited with our new friend, the humans Helen, K and Tierney) had a cable knitting class. Below is a photo of the class sample and a photo of Tierney clumsily trying to knit her first cable (she won’t be whipping out a new Aran sweater for me anytime soon…).
I am sure Tierney will do a post about it whenever she finishes that headband.
After the knitting class, we headed back out to a pub (the humans visited a lot of pubs while in Ireland) to meet up with human John and human M so he could be surprised with his new Beastie!
John Beastie and I watched with anticipation while M excitedly unboxed his new Beastie:
Matty Beastie was a hit with M and John Beastie had raise a pint to toast the newest member of our US based Beastie family!
Sláinte!
More stories to come on our Ireland adventures. Tierney asked me to include this photo as proof that she and human John really did come on the trip:
I am also including this photo – Tierney captured in a moment of pure joy hanging out with my maker Helen in person for the first time:
image courtesy of K.
POSTSCRIPT
This post is dedicated to Riley (2019 – 2023). The pup that “Matty Beastie” had with him was based on the real life Riley, see post Loved (or mugged) by a Lab. Riley suddenly passed in the summer of 2023 from an unknown illness.
Many hearts were broken including of course K and M who were absolutely devastated.
They do have a new lab puppy which I featured in this post Bag to Celebrate a New Lab!, and their hearts are slowly healing.
John got to meet Riley in 2021 when we visited K and M in California:
Riley giving John lots of kisses
I met Riley in 2019.
Riley was my “dog goddaughter” and I first met her as a puppy a couple days after they adopted her and a couple months after my husband Terry had just died, when visiting K and M in California. Snuggling with their new puppy very comforting and healing:
Riley was not my dog but she and I had a special connection. I miss you Riley.
Hello! This is the tierneycreates Beastie guest blog posting (if you are new to this blog, my story is on this post – I’m A Monster!!! and you can see all my posts at this link: Beastie Adventures).
As October 2023 is Tierney’s 10th blog-anniversary month, I thought I’d better make an appearance with one of my fabulous guest posts (Beasties are full of ourselves, it is our nature).
Before I talk about the title/subject of this blog post, I should show you my latest accommodations in Tierney’s studio – I now have my own little apartment now in a wooden box John made:
It’s very cozy and filled with my favorite items.
Oh and you might notice a red ball next to my dog Mikelet (named after Tierney’s dog Mike) – like Tierney’s dog Mike, my dog Mikelet loves his ball!
Today I took him to the backyard to play ball:
And big Mike joined us, asking me to also throw his ball (which was too big for me to maneuver):
Mike was disappointed but he did agree to pose for a photo with Mikelet:
The two “Mikes” with their balls!
(Oh Tierney asked me to tell you all that big Mike is out of his cone/scoop and his boo-boo healed!)
I mentioned in my October 6th post The House That Won Halloween, I am so happy that I can return to my daily walks and walk the distances I used to walk before my awful left ankle break in January.
I go either for a long walk through the surrounding neighborhoods, like the one I did when I discovered the extensive Halloween decorations I shared in the post The House That Won Halloween; or I go on a “Nature Walk” on the extensive trails behind the neighborhoods in the area I live.
The “Nature Walk” is a much longer walk and it is quite the different experience than walking through neighborhoods. Most of the time it is just me on the trail and all I hear is the rustling of leaves, birds, insects chirping, or the rustle of an occasional rabbit or squirrel rummaging around the foliage.
The deciduous trees are now changing color on my “nature walk” and I took some recent photos:
I really like this photo I recently took on my “nature walk”, it came out very “stylized” but I did nothing but snap the photo:
There are also lovely evergreen trees on my “nature walk”, here are is of one I edited with some filter I randomly discovered on my iPhone:
And finally, you know I couldn’t pass on an opportunity for some Black & White photography on my walk:
I do enjoy the “neighborhood walk” (faster) but it pales in comparison to the beauty and peace of the “nature walk” (longer). I appreciate having both options!
October 2023 marks the 10th anniversary month of the tierneycreates blog and in addition to attempting to do a daily post each day of October 2023, I’ve been peeking through my archives and seeing if there is anything I would like to re-post. Here is a post from October 2016 I thought I would re-post.
The Tao of Quilting (re-post)
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 shares 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
I’ve been itching to work with recycled textiles again and the other day I put together a collection of pieces to work with from my recycled textiles stash (recycled clothing, jeans, home decor fabrics):
I wanted to make a piece that is primarily recycled denim but also includes home decor fabrics in warm colors with lots of textures. I decided to revisit a piece I made in my early days of improvisational/art quilting (circa 2012/2013) where I was working with recycled silk and linen couture fabric samples – Flying Triangles:
Here is my design wall with the piecing I’ve been playing with this evening. Note it is late at night and I did not bring out the “ring light” I use for photographing pieces so the image is dark:
I am going to keep playing, I started out setting recycled fabrics in oranges in denim; and next I will use some browns and golds, and I’ll see what else feels right.
I’ll share more images in the future as the piece progresses and I’ll even take the photos with better lighting!
Upcycling: The act of taking something no longer in use and giving it a second life and new function. In doing so, the finished product often becomes more practical, valuable and beautiful than what it previously was.
In Spring 2022 we did something crazy and changed our “Master Bedroom” into my studio and moved into one of the considerable smaller bedrooms in the home. Here is the link to the post on that story if you are new to this blog – A “New” Studio.
I’ve made a lot of changes since, and will someday share an update on it’s current configuration, but here is how the master bedroom was transformed in May 2022:
The master bathroom is off my studio (the curtains you see in the image above lead into the master bathroom) and the master bedroom closet is inside the master bathroom. The master bedroom closet is the biggest closet in the house; and I call it the “Big Closet”. (Actually it is about the size of the room I rented when I first went to college.)
It seemed silly to walk through my studio, and then through the bathroom to get our clothes, especially to John who like quick access to his clothes to dress for work in the morning. So a couple weeks ago we moved my studio storage from the two small closets in the other two upstairs bedrooms (one being the one we sleep in) into the master bedroom closet!
Here is my new studio storage in the Big Closet (and yes I have to walk through the master bathroom to get to it, but it is totally worth it to me):
I like that I had enough room in it to even put a table.
I’ve been working on getting my Etsy shop restocked (I even have 4 listings now up on my Textiles & Smiles Etsy Shop) and this closet gives me plenty of room to organize my items for sale as well as my crafting materials.
As far as my fabric stash, I’ve organized my entire stash to be on display in my studio so I can see exactly what I have and actually use it! No more fabric tucked away in a closet. I also did a HUGE fabric purge again and I am down to just what I am really going to use. I’ll do a post in the future about my new fabric storage and updated arrangement of my studio.
Oh and John removed the shelves (which stored my crafting supplies and my fabric) he built in the two smaller closets upstairs in the two other bedrooms, and installed closet organization systems for our clothes in those closets. So we each have our own small closet for our clothes but they are nicely organized. I also ended up purging a bunch of clothes when I moved from the large master bedroom closet to a small bedroom closet.
I love sushi but I rarely eat raw fish sushi, just the sushi rolls with smoked or cooked fish; or vegetarian rolls. Well while in Montréal we discovered VEGAN SUSHI! One night we had dinner at Bloom Sushi and it was the best sushi I’ve ever eaten!
We sort of gorged ourselves on vegan sushi – the flavors were so amazing. (When I returned to Denver I found a vegan sushi place and John and I have since eaten there in downtown Denver twice. Who knew vegan sushi could be so delicious?)
If you are ever in Montréal I highly recommend Bloom Sushi even if you think it sounds weird to eat vegan sushi. In addition to the exquisite food the service was impeccable and the atmosphere was very zen, warm and inviting. My sister and I did not want to leave the place but it was eventually closing for the evening, ha!
NOTRE-DAME BASILICA
One morning we toured the breathtaking Notre-Dame Basilica and here are some of crazy amount of photos I took while we were inside:
Photos do not do it justice, so here is a video walk through I found on YouTube if you’d like to see more. I would say it is a mandatory tourist stop if you visit Montréal, even if you do not care for “churches”.
If you wonder what the massive pipe organ sounds like I found a video of it being played:
The outside was pretty awesome too, here are some photos from when we were on line waiting to get in (with all the other tourists!):
OTHER SIGHTS/ADVENTURES
We wandered the neighborhoods of Old Montréal, Downtown Montréal, Petite Italy, and a little of the Latin Quarter.
We had fun visiting many little shops, neighborhood eateries and bars. Below is an example of some tasty martinis we had.
The people of Montréal were so friendly and helpful. I brought along my terrible high school French and tortured the French-Canadians with it. Nearly everyone also spoke English so we got by just fine. I did get some giggles from my attempt at communicating in French and they quickly redirected me into an English conversation, ha! I did smile when I got mistaken a couple times for a local and the shopkeepers began speaking French to me.
This reminds me of years ago when my late husband Terry and I went to Denmark (to visit a friend); and then onto Amsterdam, Brussels, and Antwerp for a little Belgium beer holiday (we were really into Belgium beers at the time). While in Belgium, Terry a Napoleonic Era history buff, really wanted to visit Waterloo (Napoleon’s last stand). From Brussels we had to take a bus and then a train to Waterloo and NO ONE along the way spoke English, it was an all French speaking region of Belgium. I had to definitely pull out the very rusty high school French.
When we got on the bus first to get to the train, Terry and I could not sit together on the bus as there were only single seats available and so he sat in back. The gentleman sitting next to him spoke to him in French (Terry knew like little to no French) nearly the entire bus ride and Terry just kept eye contact and nodded. I kept looking back and saw that the guy seemed to think Terry was his new best friend and had no clue that he was not understanding a word he said! When we got off at our stop the guy wished him well in French and Terry nodded goodbye!
I teasingly asked Terry what they were talking about and he said he did not know but the guy was very chatty and seem to think they were having a very engaging conversation!
Okay so back to my Montréal trip. Bringing out my rusty high school French (which wasn’t even French-Canadian French) brought back that memory!
The best part of the trip was just hanging out with my sister and I look forward to our next sister adventure.
I’ll close this post (and this three part series of posts) with a sign that was out in front of Le BeauMarché where we’d by our groceries, that made me smile:
I know we are still a couple weeks out from Halloween but I was walking Mike this morning (more on that later) and discovered a house in my neighborhood that is winning Halloween in my opinion! Here are the photos which of course do not do their whole spooky vibe justice:
Can you imagine being a 6-year old kid on Halloween and your parents are trying to convince you to go up to that front door and ask for candy!?!? I would be like “H*ll to the No” (why yes, I would be swearing as a 6-year old kid if asked to go up to that front door – ha!).
Image credit: Avera Health
The family that owns this house has likely spent thousands of dollars on Halloween and clearly loves this holiday! The decorations are HUGE and very high quality, nearly (low budget) movie set quality on some pieces (like I said, the photos do not do it justice).
So earlier in this post I mentioned I was walking Mike. Some of you might remember in January 2023 I had a terrible twist/fall on ice and broke my left ankle in two places requiring surgery for my complex fracture. It’s been a long road to recovery but I am now regularly walking Mike again and able to go on long-ish walks. I am so grateful as it was the first time in my adult life (January to April 2023) that I could not go on daily walks. It was a rough time mentally, physically and even “spiritually” for me – going on daily walks is everything to me.
I’ll write more about Halloween later in this month, I’ve been thinking about some sweet memories from life in Oregon related to Halloween and will share in another post.
Mike the Miniature Schnauzer was going to do a guest blog post (like he’s done in these other posts in this category – Miniature Schnauzer Adventures) but this is his current situation which doesn’t lend itself to typing 😉 :
He’s of course playing ball even though he is in a cone (which we have renamed “the scoop” instead of “the cone of shame” as he uses it to scoop up the ball from the ground, ha!). Mike had a “hot spot” on his leg he was bothering, it opened up and now he is on antibiotics after a veterninary appointment and has to wear “the scoop” for a week while it heals.
A week ago we took Mike to the mall and he spent time in Macy’s department store.
Mike’s life has really evolved from when my late husband Terry’s and I adopted him from a rescue organization out of Portland, Oregon in September 2014. When we first got him he was suffering with anxiety and behavioral issues (you can read more of Mike’s story on this old post – Taking Chances: The Mike Hogan Chronicles).
Back in 2014 when we first adopted him I would have never imagined a time when he would go in a backpack to a department store. We were just trying to train him to walk on a leash and not be so incredibly aggressive when another dog (or human) walked by when he was on leash!
And now he goes to home improvement stores all the time in his box and gets pets from other customers and the staff at the store while being pushed in the shopping cart.
And he gets to go to department stores like Macy’s(okay now I am back to connecting this post into the title of this post, ha!) in his backpack!
A lot of this evolution is thanks to John from early on in our relationship encouraged me to give Mike a chance to have new experiences. I also have to thank my sister who encouraged me to take Mike to the Nordstrom’s Rack when she first visited me in May 2019 when I had just moved to Denver.
Previously the only store experiences Mike had were at quilt shops when Terry and I went quilt shop hopping. He was in the backpack on Terry’s back and no one could come near him!
So here is Mike at Macy’s last week:
People would come up behind John and pet Mike no problem.
Mike was pretty mellow and didn’t mind going up and down the department store escalators:
Mike even got to hang out in the mall Foodcourt after all that shopping at Macy’s:
Yes we let him have a little taste of our french fries, he’d been a good boy!
I just realized I adopted Mike nearly a year after starting my blog. Wow how time flies!
Do you love buttons as much as I do? I thought it would be fun to re-post this post from October 2016 on my button collection (smile)
BUTTONS (Repost post from October 26, 2016)
I just wanted to randomly post about one of my guilty pleasures in life – buttons!
I did not to intend to collect buttons, my button collection just sort of crept up on me…
Trying to be organized with my button collection
I am not sure how it began but I remember as a little girl playing with my grandmother’s button jar and being fascinated.
Then, many years later, my love of buttons was rekindled when I started making miniature kimono wallhangings and wanted to embellish them with interesting buttons.
Miniature Kimono with an antique button
I began picking up interesting buttons here and there – from craft shows, from shift shops, antique shops, and from a bookstore.
Card of antique buttons picked up at a used bookstore
I was even lucky enough to have a friend who let me raid her old button collection in search of cool buttons for miniature kimonos.
A couple of these buttons were raided from my friend’s antique button collection
This past May, my friend Dana, who was my “secret quilt sister” at our annual quilting retreat, surprised me with an “Vintage Button Jar” as part of my gift.
The jar contained lots of fun buttons such as the ones below:
Some cool large buttons courtesy of my friend Dana
Upon returning home from the retreat I attempted to cram my entire button collection into my new “Vintage Button Jar” but my collection was overflowing from the jar.
So now I keep the jar in my sewing studio to hold small packages and cards of special buttons.
Anyone else have an issue with buttons? Any secret (or not so secret) collectors?
It’s been a while since I’ve written any posts for my blogging topic category – The Library Stackwhere I share my latest stack of local library books I’ve borrowed; and this might be my last “library stack” post for a very long time.
Why? Because I overdid it this time…
A couple weeks (or a month ago), I went for a wander in our local Barnes & Noble bookstore and spent way too long in the Interior Decorating/Home Improvement section with lots of new and yummy design books.
Above is a small sampling of the two bookcases in Barnes & Nobles filled with new interior design books.
I noted many of the new book titles, went home and reserved them at the library. Little did I know they would all come in so fast…and continuously.
This was the first library stack:
I didn’t take any more photos but the books kept coming in until my stack was over 20+ books before I left for my trip to Montréal a couple weeks ago. While I was in Montréalbooks I had on hold kept coming available and John had to keep going to the library to pick them up each time I got a new e-mail until I returned to the US. It was getting ridiculous.
When I got back from my trip I tried to flip through as many books (drinking a lot of tea!) as I could knowing some I had to return in 21 days AND that more books kept coming in.
How did this happen? I don’t remember reserving that many Interior Design books but I think I made a mistake when I was putting books on hold and accidentally checked a whole screen page listing of books instead of just the one (or several books) I wanted on that page of the library listing.
I ended up with over 35+ library books which I had to make into 3 stacks!
After a while I became fatigued with Interior Design books and realized I’d really overdone it this time. I ended up returning all the books before their 21 day loan was up including 10+ books I didn’t even flip through.
Of all those library books, in the TRIPLE STACK, my two favorites were these two, I really enjoyed looking through these gorgeous books:
I enjoyed them on the front porch during a lovely day with milder weather.
But I think my “library stack” era has ended (or at least on hiatus for some time) and I am just going to focus on reading the books and magazines in my home library for now. I am currently quite disinterested in any home design suggestions – ha!
In honor of the 10th anniversary month of my blog, I am going to attempt blog everyday for the month of October. I’ll be catching up on adventures I’ve not yet shared. Perhaps eventually I’ll share my latest textile project(s) when I get back to working on them…
ANOTHER QUILT RETREAT IN MY HOME (SORT OF)
Back in May I had a “Scrap Happy Quilt Retreat” at my home for my friends D and K, who are both quilters – see series of posts in this blog category Scrap Happy Quilt Retreat, if you’d like to read about our “fabric-scrap-wrangling adventures.
My friends MJ and J got interested in “retreating” at my house – J is a quilter and MJ is not. I met J through MJ and MJ is a long time very dear friend of mine that I met when I lived in Bend, Oregon 2005 – 2018. We planned the retreat for late August 2023.
I thought it would work – MJ and J would come for 5 days and J and I would working on scrappy freeform log cabin quilts while MJ did some other craft and just hang out with us. MJ joked that we were going to give her macaroni, non-toxic glue, popsicle sticks and fingers paints (like in Kindergarten) to work with – ha!
I’ll share what MJ actually ended up doing later in this post (she creatively made her own retreat!) when our retreat in August happened.
But first I will share the huge fabric scrap pile J and I had to work with during the 5 days in August we had the retreat: it was a combination of my scrap pile and scraps that J brought:
I helped J find some type of inspiration fabric scrap in the pile that had a color palette (as how else to you start sifting through that “hot mess” to design a scrap quilt?). Once she found an inspirational scrap, she started pulling from the scrap pile fabric scraps that coordinated with the scrap to create a palette.
J took off and ran with the concept and before I knew it she was covering my design wall with her improvisational combinations:
Which evolved into these blocks:
I’ll share her pieced quilt top someday in a follow up post when she completes it (if she doesn’t mind me sharing the photo).
What did I work on? I started a new freeform scrappy log cabin but I didn’t like the direction it was going; and after a couple days working on it I recycled it into the scrap pile (and didn’t take any photos of it).
So what did MJ work on? Well not any crafts, ha! She abandoned us in my studio and ended up having a cooking retreat with my husband John.
Like the retreat I had in May with my friends D and K, John did all the cooking. MJ helped John do all the cooking and got cooking lessons from him on some of his specialities. Here they are in a lesson:
She also enjoyed hanging out with Mike our dog (MJ is a “dog person”) and binge watching Netflix shows. Here life is very busy back in Central Oregon and she enjoyed just relaxing and helping cook as her “retreat”, while J and I were upstairs in the “quilters sweatshop” working on our scrappy projects!
MJ also ran errands to the home improvement store with John and Mike, and she got trained on how to push Mike around in his box in the shopping cart as John does!
We had a “make/top your own pizza night” for dinner one night, it was so fun. John and MJ pre-baked the pizza crusts and we got to add our own toppings and hang around the oven waiting for our delicious combinations!
We got out of the house and spent a couple hours or a 1/2 day on various adventures.
One day we went to Castle Rock, CO and visited The Barn, a consignment/antique venue (sort of like a nicely curated flea market), that I love and is so fun to wander.
Here are some boots at The Barn I just could not live without (just kidding, definitely not my style):
It is such a fun wander to meandering around The Barn; and as mentioned on their website: “When you walk into The Barn you may feel many things. Among these feelings could be a sense of comfort…..like you have come home. Many customers express these sentiments…it has come to be known as ‘Barn Therapy’.”
After The Barn we had cocktails and delicious appetizers at the Ecclasia Marketacross the street, sitting in the Sinners & Saints/Gluttony & Graze area of the market on the comfy sofas.
We also stopped at my favorite indie bookstore in Castle Rock – Sudden Fiction Books.
All of us brought books and J bought so many books we wondered how she’d get them all in her suitcase (she did ship them home), especially some amazing Children’s books for her grandkids. This little bookshop has an amazing curated collection.
They also had this adorable little miniature room display (that lit up) inside one of their bookcases!
One day I did take J to a quilt shop – we visited Holly’s Cabin quilt shop and J was amazing by their extensive collection of curated Kaffe Fassett fabrics on display:
We had beautiful weather (though a little warm in the afternoons) while MJ and J visited. Every morning MJ (who loves to walk like I do) and I took Mike on a couple mile stroll around my neighborhood. John introduced me to what we call “the nature hike” near our house – miles and miles of wooded trails surrounding and connecting different neighborhoods. I’ll share photos from my new favorite daily walk/hike someday.
This is a pretty nice way to start October, which is the 10th Anniversary of my tierneycreates blog month (first blog post on October 27, 2013): Issue 28 of Quiltfolk Magazine – Colorado – hits newsstands today, October 1, 2023, and is available for purchase online.
Before I go any further, I want to give credit to those involved with the article:
Photography: The photographer was Melanie Zacek (Instagram: @melanie.zacek), and her stylist was Kimberlee Zacek (Instagram: @kimberleezacek)
Writer: The writer who did my interview was Dr. Sharbreon Plummer (Instagram: @sharbreon)
Guess what? Quiltfolk has provided me with a 20% coupon code (TierneyQF28) to share with family, friends and my social media family (those of you who have been with my blog a long time, we are practically family now aren’t we…or am I delusional, ha!):
I thought it was creative that they took one of the photos from the photoshoot for the article and made it into the coupon 🙂
Here is the link if you are interested in the issue (hey we can still be social media friends even if you do not read the article, no obligation): Link to Issue 28: Colorado Info/Purchase page: https://www.quiltfolk.com/issue-28-colorado/
Although they are providing me with three (3) free copies of the issue since I am one of the quilter’s featured in it, I did go out to this link to buy another copy with the coupon code and discovered it worked for the year subscription also, so I got that instead.
Additionally I discovered they were having quite the special deal for their introductory $80 per year subscription price: besides the 4 quarterly issues include in the subscription, you could get one back issue for free (and Issue 28 – Colorado was one of the choices…) but you also got some free fabric (Riley Blake Shades of Autumn 5″ squares) and the ability to buy 2 more back issues 60% off! Not sure how long this deal is going to be active but wanted to make you aware of it.
I know I sound like a salesperson for Quiltfolk, but I just wanted you to be aware of this awesome deal.
Quiltfolk provided me with the photos from my photoshoot to share what I wanted on social media. I’ve selected a few of my favorites to share with you.
In the photo above they made me take off my glasses because of the glare from the sun causing my lenses to be very dark (they are Transition lenses). I never take off my glasses, I’ve been wearing them since 2nd grade and I feel naked without them, so I was trying to control my super awkward feeling!
Well that’s my big announcement to start October 2023 and my 10th Anniversary Month of being a blogger!
Here is Part II (or “deuxième partie”) of my series of posts (there will be three total) on the little holiday my sister and I took a couple weeks ago in Montréal, Québec, Canada. Please see this post for Part I –Bonjour Montréal! (Part I).
Montréal has the feels of an old European city and there are so many wonderful photo opportunities. My sister and I decided to take some photos in Black & White and here is a selection of our photos from our sightseeing:
There we so many amazing doors! I had to control myself and not take hundreds of photos of doors an entrances.
One door in particular caught my eye – not because of it’s amazing architectural style but because of it’s message:
Sounds like great advice!
The next post on this trip I will finish sharing some of our adventures, but tomorrow I have a special post with some fun news to share (smile)…
After my trip with my siblings to Saltsburg, Pennsylvania for the classroom dedication at The Kiski School (see posts The Kiski Sibling Road Trip, Part I and The Kiski Sibling Road Trip, Part II), my sister and I flew from the Pittsburg, PA airport to Montréal, Canada for a little holiday.
I had a laugh at the Montréal airport when I saw this:
I guess that is a fairly universal symbol on how to get to the bathroom!
We stayed in a 2-bedroom AirBNB in Old Montréal – it was a large loft with brick walls, huge windows with a lovely view, and a nice kitchen in an old building. I didn’t think to take photos of the place (and I cannot find it on AirBNB again to use their photos) but here is a photo of me with the kitchen behind me in which we made many meals:
Every day we’d go to the local market place (Le BeauMarché) around the corner from our AirBNB and buy groceries, like these strawberries:
My sister has been to Montréal many times but never stayed in Old Montréal, and it was a great location for my first visit. Here are some photos from our wanderings around the area – we stopped in lots of wonderful shops and tried out different markets/eateries:
And here is a YouTube video to give you a walk through tour of this mind-blowing market:
It was difficult to leave MarchéJean-Talon and when I return to visit Montréal with John someday (he’s never been there), I think we are going to stay in Little Italy (Petite Italie), at an AirBNB (with a kitchen!) and go to the market each day for supplies to make our food (John and I love to cook).
Trying not to make this post too long so I’ll continue with the story of our trip in my next post.
Our mudroom (please see link if you are outside the U.S. and unfamiliar with this term), was fairly generic – a place to do our laundry, use the utility sink, store some shoes, and to hang clothes as they dried. It had generic white metal racks from a home improvement store.
It is the way you enter our home from the garage and the first area of our home visitors might see if we bring them in through the garage (i.e. if we pick them up from the airport in our car, etc.)
John decided to make our mudroom a lot more interesting by building storage and adding convenience items.
You can see a little of the white metal shelving we had before and the hideous brown old storage unit to the right that we had.
After the bench was complete, he worked over the past 6 months (sporadically), to complete the rest of the mudroom storage build out. Here are some photos of John’s work in progress:
And Mike the Miniature Schnauzer had many trips to the home improvement stores to get supplies!
Mike loves being in his box riding around in a shopping cart!
And finally here is the completed mudroom!
Definitely worth the wait!
John designed the entire storage piece himself not using any formal plans, just inspiration from images online and YouTube videos!
I’ve shared background on my father’s legacy in older posts such as this post – Creative Inspiration: Stories My Father Told Me (re-post) His legacy is more than I’ve shared in previous posts and in this post you will learn even more.
As I shared in the previous post, my younger brother, younger sister and I traveled to Saltsburg, PA to attend the ribbon cutting ceremony/dedication ceremony on Tuesday September 12, 2023 of a classroom at The Kiski School where my father, Raoul A. Davis, Sr. (1931 – 2008) was the first African American graduate (1950). (He attended The Kiski School for his Senior Year of high school)
Below is the placard to be mounted in the dedicated classroom:
To give you all the background on this, I am going to share the excellent post my brother did in the social media platform LinkedIn:
Yesterday we celebrated a legacy. Seventy-four years ago yesterday, my father, Raoul Davis Sr., courageously walked through the halls of The Kiski School as its first African American student. Returning to those same halls and seeing the reverence with which he is remembered, touched my heart in ways words can barely express.
The Kiski School has long stood as a beacon of excellence, nurturing young men to become their best selves. My families gratitude to the entire Kiski community is immeasurable – from the dedicated staff and the spirited students to the school’s leadership, who made me and my sisters feel like we were home. A special nod to Carla Ross and Mark Rhodehamel, whose warmth and dedication were palpable throughout our visit.
To hear the current students express appreciation for my father’s willingness to be a trailblazer was humbling. It’s one thing to know your parent’s worth within the confines of home, but quite another to witness the far-reaching impact of their bravery. Kiski set the foundation for my dad to go onto to the founder of the URBAN LEAGUE OF LONG ISLAND, INC. Serve as the Executive Director of the Urban League of Albany. He loved working with the National Urban League going back to Vernon Jordan.
He worked with street gangs in New York City on creating truce, and served with distinction former NY Governor Mario Cuomo to celebrate African American culture in the state.
In 1949, the foresight of Dr. Clark, the headmaster at the time, is a testament to Kiski’s enduring spirit of inclusivity. By actively recruiting my father and ensuring he had a memorable experience, Dr. Clark did more than just integrate the school; he set the stage for a more inclusive future.
As Kiski steps into its 136th school year, the Raoul Davis Sr. ’50 Classroom stands not just as a brick and mortar testament but as a symbolic commitment to honor diverse histories and ensure that every student recognizes the strength that lies in unity and diversity.
Kiski’s commitment to celebrating trailblazers and preserving the legacy of those who’ve paved the way is commendable. My father’s story, intertwined with Kiski’s, reminds us of the unwavering spirit of those who dare to be the first and the institutions that support them.
Thank you, Kiski, for keeping the legacy of Raoul Davis Sr. alive and for reminding us that true legacies are built on the foundation of courage, determination, and resilience.
The Kiski School is a private all-boys preparatory (prep) school that was established in 1888. Here we are arriving at the school and were warmly greeted by the two security officers at the gate who took this photo:
Two awesome Directors from The Kiski School, Carla and Mark (who were also responsible for making the classroom dedication happen and are in the first photo below), gave us an amazing tour of the school’s grounds. Here are some photos from that tour:
As you can see in the photo above, The Kiski School overlooks the town of Saltsburg and there is a lovely view!
During the tour, my sister came up with the awesome idea of a cool group standing/feet photo around The Kiski School image on their rug in the administration building:
(Just a little humor: my sister and I both have an obsession with dapper mens footwear – there is something so cool about a dapper pair of mens shoes. We really got a kick out of the wonderful shoes that the Director Mark wore – the brown shoes to the right – and we became obsessed with them! We might have to convince our husbands to get those shoes! Ha!)
The ribbon cutting ceremony was an experience I cannot put into words. It was VERY stirring.
A touching speech was given by a young man of color who was the current Class President. He shared how my father’s legacy has inspired him. Here we are in a selfie after the ribbon cutting ceremony with that amazing young man:
My siblings and I were trying to keep the tears out of our eyes (we weren’t always successful) during the speeches. Then we got to actual “cut the ribbon” with a giant pair of scissors to the new classroom dedicated to our father. They gave us a pair of giant scissors to keep to commemorate the event.
Inside the classroom was a slide presentation of photos from our father’s time at The Kiski School and the amazing art by the artist Yvonne Davis (no relation):
One of the photos in the slideshow (“Class of 1950”) was of our father standing on the back steps of the school. My siblings and I got a chance to stand on those exact steps during the tour before the ribbon cutting:
We got chills when we stood where our father stood 73 years ago, I cannot put into words what I experienced but it was amazing.
After the ribbon cutting ceremony we met with an amazing group of students in the school’s library, answered their questions, and had a panel interview for their school’s newspaper. We were interviewed by an engaging young man who definitely has a future in journalism if he likes!
It was an experience I cannot put into words, talking with the group of young men in the library post ribbon cutting. It was like interacting with a group of glowing beacons that were going to help improve the future of our world. It is a moment in time my siblings and I will never forget and we are so appreciative to The Kiski School for giving us this moment.
We also got to see the collection of communication that the school kept on file from the time our father attended, including this piece of correspondence from 1949:
Little did our father know when he wrote this letter in 1949 what his amazing legacy would be!
I’ll close this post with the amazing stained glass window in the same building as the school library which really captured my attention (the photo does not do it justice):
I thought I would do this post in two parts since I have a lot of photos to share.
Monday September 11, 2023 I met up with my brother and sister in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to embark on a road trip to Saltsburg, PA to attend the ribbon cutting ceremony/dedication ceremony on Tuesday September 12, 2023 of a classroom at The Kiski School where my father, Raoul A. Davis, Sr. was the first African American graduate (1950). I’ll tell you more about that in the next post but in this post I will just share some photos from our first sibling road trip in over 20 years!
Here we are in my brother’s car headed out on our 5+ hour road trip. My beautiful sister wasn’t ready for the impromptu photo (I surprised her) so here are the sections of the photo of my brother and I:
We stopped along the way for a meal/snack and here are a couple of the poor nutritional choice we made (ha!) – well it was a road trip and you have to enjoy some “road trip food” at truck stops when you roadtripping!
Besides chatting with my brother and sister on the road trip, I did try to be productive as a passenger and I worked on some English Paper Piecing hexagons during the trip for the quilt I will someday finish (see post The Horizontal Diaries, January 30, 2023):
After a long day of road tripping, we stayed overnight in a hotel in Pittsburg, PA and then in the mid morning headed to Saltsburg, PA for the ribbon cutting ceremony. But first when we got to Saltsburg we had lunch at a delightful little cafe in downtown Saltsburg:
Downtown Saltsburg looked like a time capsule from the 1940s/1950s/1960s – here is the “old school” parking meter we put a quarter in (yes one quarter) to pay for our parking (I thought it needed of a B&W photo):
Here we are outside the cafe before heading in for lunch dressed for the ribbon cutting ceremony:
It was an awesome roadtrip with more awesomeness to come later that day at The Kiski School!
Thought I would close out my series of posts about my visit to the Oregon Coast at the end of July 2023 with a couple favorite photos from the ca-zillion (an even higher number than “zillion”) photos I took during the trip.
(If you are just joining us you can catch the rest of the story in this series of posts (scroll down when you click the link to get to the 4 earlier stories from this trip) – Oregon Coast Adventures.)
Our Oregon based friends MJ and J who know the Oregon Coast very well, took us on road trips from Newport to Florence, Oregon along Highway 101. Many of the photos below are from those stops and apologies I do not remember all the names of the places so I just omitted them – ha!
It was so wonderful to be back in Pacific NW and walk among the old growth forests/trees – oh how I missed them and their dense foliage! I remember many a wonderful solitary or group hike in these types of forests during the 22 years I lived in the Pacific NW (8 years in Seattle, Washington and 14 years in Bend, Oregon).
I’ll close out this post with what might be my favorite photo from the trip:
It’s the 15th of the month and time for my monthly “ScrapHappy” post as part of the ScrapHappy group I belong. 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.
For September’s ScrapHappy post I am going to reveal my completed quilt top for the wall hanging Strings Attached, which I previously posted about in late August – Made Some Progress on “Strings Attached” .
Last week on Instagram (@tierneycreates) I shared the nearly completed quilt top (one more border to go):
And here is the fully completed quilt top!
It will have a thin red binding after I quilt it – here is the binding next to the quilt top:
It took a while to string piece on muslin the 4 last border strips – a lot of fabric scraps were used!
Here are the completed strips – front and back images (so you can see how they were sewn onto muslin):
I noticed when I was moving the quilt top around to position it for piecing on the borders, it looked cool when in was backlit with sunlight. The sunlight was fading when I took the photos below but it sort of gives you the feeling of what I was seeing:
I am going to quilt it on my machine in similar way to how the sample quilt from the pattern is quilted (eventually…for now need to set it aside and move onto other things…):
As promised, here are the bloggers that participate in the ScrapHappy monthly posting event, check out their blogs linked below for their ScrapHappy posts:
Continuing my series of posts about our trip to the Oregon Coast in late July to visit with our dear friends MJ and J.
(If you are just joining us you can catch the rest of the story in this series of posts (scroll down when you click the link to get to the 3 earlier stories from this trip) – Oregon Coast Adventures.)
On our way to meet up with our friends I had John stop at a “boutique” Goodwill Thrift Store. I’ve never been to one before. I chatted with the staff member who greeted me when I entered and she said they sold donated “luxury” and “upscale” items there.
It was unlike any Goodwill I’d been to before (if you are familiar with Goodwill thrift/charity shops then you know many of them are very cluttered and kind of run down looking).
Friends of our friends let us stay at their amazing vacation home in Newport. One of the owners is a quilter and the gorgeous vacation home was filled with quilts! (My kind of place to stay at!)
They even had a quilt in the master suite bathroom!
The house had a wonderful view out the back of the Newport Bridge and a lovely piece of stained glass in the entry way window:
It was nice to stay in a cozy home for a couple days on vacation with our friends as we were able to make delicious meals and have a movie night one evening. John of course made his famous “sausage and gravy” for breakfast one morning to the delight of our friends.
While in Newport we wandered around the Nye Beach area and I could not wait to get my toes in the sand and then the ocean!
The town next to the beach is charming (they have flowers everywhere!) and we had fun wandering about and of course I had to stop at the local independent bookstore!
John and my friends were very patient while I got my bookstore browsing on. They had a lovely new and used book collection.
I’ll close out this post with a couple more photos from our wandering around Newport to include some cool art made from recycled rubber tires in downtown Newport.
Thanks to my friends K and L, I’ve recently discovered that Quiltfolk Magazine has posted a preview for the issue and if you’d like to see it here is the link – Issue 28 Reveal.
Here is a screen shot from that link of me (Tierney Davis Hogan):
I’ve been sent the draft article to review as well as a proof of the photos to assist with captioning but I haven’t seen the complete article yet – can’t wait!
Before July’s trip to the Oregon Coast gets to be too much of a blur in the place, I should probably continue my story about the trip. I am going to jump the end of our trip and the road trip to return from Newport/Oregon Coast to Portland, Oregon to fly home back to Denver. Also I want to share a little quilt shop tour of the “out of the way, down the road, in the back of the woods” quilt shop we came across in Tillmook, Oregonon our way back to Portland.
If you are just joining us you can catch the rest of the story in this series of posts (scroll down when you click the link to get to the 3 earlier stories from this trip) – Oregon Coast Adventures.
Here was our route from Newport, Oregon (on the coast) to Portland, Oregon (inland). We took a different route back to Portland than the one we took to the Oregon Coast (where we went through McMinnville) in the post Oregon Coast Adventures: First Stop -McMinnville, Oregon:
Let’s talk Tillmook first, as it was the one quilt shop stop I made while visiting the Oregon Coast area. Technically it is not on the coast as it is a little bit inland but we’ll pretend like it is the coast.
I asked John if we could stop in Tillmook on our way to Portland as it’s been many years since I’ve been to the Tillmook Factory/Tillmook Dairy Co-opwhere the dairy products I love (seriously yummy ice cream and cheese, etc.) come from.
On our way there I saw a sign for a quilt shop –Sew Little Timeand I asked John to pull off the main highway and follow it. This took us into some back roads and I was beginning to get suspicious if there was actually a quilt shop there…
(Can you see the news headlines: DENVER COUPLE DISAPPEARS LOOKING FOR A QUILT SHOP IN RURAL TILLAMOOK)
But finally there was after driving deeper and deeper into the rural area – at someone’s house!
Once I convinced myself to walk in, I discovered a lovely little shop with wonderful and very helpful staff.
This is the shop where I found the fabric to make the bag from our friends K & M who just got the new lab puppy (see post Bag to Celebrate a New Lab!):
The had older fabric lines and a lot of “country/rural life” themed fabrics but they are a small shop in a neighborhood and likely gear their fabric selections to what people in the rural community wanted (Tillamook has a large farming community and we saw some gorgeous farms as we drove around). The staff was so warm and friendly I would stop there again even if I am not sure what I would buy there (unless I had a friend who just got a new tractor and I was making a gift with tractor fabric…). The shop does not appear to have a website but here is an article about them from the Cannon Beach Gazette – With ‘Sew Little Time’, go quilt shopping.
After the quilt shop we headed to the Tillmook Factory/Tillmook Dairy Co-opand wandered around a bit and shopped in their giant “gift shop” of dairy delights!
Not for the lactose-intolerant!
Before we got to Tillamook, we stopped in Pacific City at the Pelican Brewing Company and had snack and a craft beer, then wandered along to beach.
Our flight back to Denver was in the early evening, and before we dropped our rental car back off at the Portland airport, we stopped in downtown Portland for an early dinner at Deschutes Brewery and a wander around Powell’s Books.
It was fun to take John to two places I love (Deschutes Brewery and Powell’s) for the first time!
I likely have another story or two in me about this trip so stay tuned for more Oregon Coast adventures in the future.
One of my favorite bag designers is Svetlana Sotak of Sotak Handmade out of the Netherlands. The drawstring bag pattern I use is one of hers. I love that buy purchasing her patterns she licenses handmade craft businesses to sell them on a small scale, all she requests is that you credit her as a pattern maker, like I’ve done in my Etsy listings in the past. (Note she sells her patterns on Etsy and that is where I purchase them in the US market)
I have several of her patterns and I recently tried out the pattern Lagom Storage Bins:
Image credit – sotakco.nl
Here are the three Lagom Storage Bins I made in the smallest size (the pattern has 5 sizes!!!) as gifts for friends:
The first one was made with Marimekko fabric from Finland was sent to my friend W in Central Oregon. The cool shark fabric is from my friend D when she came for a quilt retreat to my house in May (she brought awesome fabric for me as a hostess gift). The Asian fabric is from my stash and was actually selected by my sister for a future project she’d like me to make her for Christmas – a whole backpack out of that fabric.
As far as the Marimekko fabric one, here is how my friend W is using it in her home(thanks to W for the photo!):
The other two storage bins were given as welcome gifts to my friends MJ and J when they arrived at my home for a little quilting/girls retreat a couple weeks ago (I’ll share a post someday about that):
I didn’t enjoy making the baskets as much as I enjoy making the drawstring bags but I might just need to make more of them to get a true feel for what it is like to make them.
They do use two types of interfacing, which makes them a little more expensive to make that the drawstring bags, but they do not have a drawstring to have to thread at the end of the process (which is sometimes a little tedious when you just want to be done!).
I haven’t decided if I will offer them someday on my Etsy shop or not. First I have to grow to love making them 🙂
Oh and speaking of baskets, here is an amazing giant bag made out of recycled plastic grocery shopping bags my friend MJ brought me as a hostess gift when she came for the retreat. A friend of hers crochets them from her stash of grocery bags.
I always appreciate a thoughtful hostess gift, especially handmade!
tierneycreates 