I shared in the post John Builds Himself a Desk that John, the self-taught woodworker living in my house (ha), built himself a Mission-style desk using images from the web to inspire him.
Well John decided he wanted to replace our existing file cabinet, that we got for free secondhand, with a printer stand/file cabinet combo piece.
So he developed a design and went to work building it:
And here is the resulting piece!
The two drawers on the right of the piece are set up as file cabinet drawers, while the drawer under the printer is a storage drawer. I forgot to take a photo of it but the area under the printer pulls out for easier access to the printer!
We are pretty excited about it and we had fun purging old files and arranging our files in the new file cabinet drawers.
Did you notice the old computer sitting on the new printer stand/file cabinet? Well that’s the computer that John built with his Dad when he was 10 years old. John spent a career as a computer software architect and it all started with him learning to build a computer with his father as a kid.
Oh and what became of the secondhand file cabinet we no longer needed? Well serendipitously we discovered our neighbor across the street, a new father trying to keep up with life, desperately needed a file cabinet!
So John brought it over to his house and made him very happy!
Since snow is now here in Colorado, I figured to was time to finish the hat I started knitting at the end of 2025.
Here is John modeling the hat at my favorite part of hat knitting: the double pointed needles to finish the crown:
And here I am wearing the finished hat; and then an image of the top of the hat (I love the swirl that decreasing the stitches for the crown makes):
Yes I am snuggled in the Sunflower Granny Square blanket I finished last year (Sunflower Granny Square Blanket Assembled (and Holiday Decorating)) as it was pretty cold in Denver (a little blizzard occurred while we were watching the Denver Broncos football team lose the semi-finals).
So I kept the finished hat on after I took the photo and snuggled under my sunflower blanket!
First we stopped at the Up Top Cafe for some breakfast, coffee (John) and tea (me):
It felt like we spent a couple hours on their cozy couches (there is another sofa across from the one in the photo) eating breakfast and drink our hot beverages. I think we only spent an hour there actually but it was a delightful hour!
Immediately upon walking in we were greeted by the staff and a very cozy and cluttered (but the fun kind of cluttered) quilt shop:
And there was a dog napping that I had to just walk around, he didn’t want to be disturbed by shop visitors!
There was a second section of the shop where they had a huge fabric sale going on of older fabrics and a “Husband Seating Area” for John.
(John sat on the other side of this fabric on a table with sewing machines for sale.)
It was more cluttered than I captured in photos but I had a blast wandering around and even found some fabric that I could not leave the store without:
It’s the Northcott Fabrics Barn Quilt line and here are the fabrics I bough a couple yards of each (images from Northcott Fabrics website):
Not sure what I am making with these fabrics but I totally fell in love with them!
They also had a collection of antique sewing machines scattered around the shop like this one:
Lots and lots of buttons:
And another shop dog that couldn’t be bothered with shop customers – ha!
Back in mid-December 2025 I shared in the post Chaos in the Craft Room! that we had moved my quilting/crafting studio from the large Primary Bedroom to a small bedroom in preparation for putting our house on the market and moving to a smaller home.
Since then I’ve been playing/sewing/crafting in my new studio and doing some re-arranging to make it work best for me.
I added back in my tea station and little refrigerator (we tried to make it work in our Primary Bedroom but I didn’t like the low volume noise the refrigerator made when I was trying to sleep at night; and I missed easy access to tea as I need a couple cups a day to keep me happy, ha!):
Thanks to my friend K who attended the 50th anniversary 2025 Sisters Outdoor Quilt Show and got me a poster! (I used to attend it every year when I lived in Oregon for 14 years and had exhibited quilts in it along with my quilter late husband several times…and sold quilts)
I had to rearrange where I kept my projects in queue because this is what the area looked like previously:
Now the projects in queue are stored under my cutting table (I forgot to take a photo).
I added a floor lamp (left side of image below) to my half design wall area (we had to break up my former design wall to make it fit in the room). As we plan to sell the house and move next year to a smaller house, John didn’t want to install track lighting in this room like he did in my previous mega-studio that was in our converted Primary Bedroom (which has now returned to being a Primary Bedroom):
I am pleased with the floor lamp and it illuminates the design wall nicely.
I’ve done additional rearranging and here is what the rest of the room currently looks like:
You might think it would feel very cluttered moving from a large studio (see the post Thrifting for the Studio if you’ve recently joined us and haven’t seen my previous studio) but it feels COZY and like a HUG of CREATIVE INSPIRATION whenever I go into the room.
In addition to being visually “warm and cozy” it’s also physically/temperature-wise warm and cozy because there is less space to heat compared to my big studio. In my post Magnetic Poetry to Ease My Soul I discussed, in the Postscript section, “Creative Restraints”/”Creative Limitations”/”Creative Limits”; and it appears that a smaller space to create in is really fueling/stimulating my creativity!
During the studio move and reorganization I’ve had an “archeological dig” of unearthing old projects in progress (or “UFOs”/Unfinished Objects as quilters like to call them). For example I discovered this partially finished table runner that would be wonderful on the table in our entryway:
I actually sold a couple of these when I had my Etsy shop going (see my post from 2017 – What’s on the Design…Ironing Board?) and I guess this one another one from 2017 that I was going to finish and list in my Etsy shop.
I continue to work on the English Paper Piecing hexie flowers quilt that I shared in my post ScrapHappy January 2026: Moving Forward on the Hexie Project ; and I love sitting my little studio and working on removing the hexie papers from the back of the flowers (so so so many to go…):
(I’ll share an update on the hexie quilt progress during February’s monthly ScrapHappy post.)
Over the next couple of months I’ll be saving updates on my long time English Paper Piecing hexie rosette project to share on the 15th of each month for ScrapHappy.
In my most recent post on this project, Revisiting the EPP Quilt, I shared that I’ve been working on this project since 2016 when I fell in love with the quilt on the cover of Issue 1: Oregon of Quiltfolk Magazine.
I paper pieced 99 rosettes from my fabric scrap collection, attempting to coordinate the colors:
And finally I’ve begun setting the rosettes into blocks using my collection of scrap denim with plans to trim each block to 6.5 inches by 6.5 inches.
But I had to find the most efficient want to attach 99 rosettes to the denim scraps without having to hand appliqué them to the blocks. I was afraid if I committed to hand appliqué all 99 blocks, it would be another 9+ years until I finished this quilt!
So I decided to find a way to use my sewing machine to do it.
I researched my Bernina sewing machine books on the Bernina sewing machine feet and sewing machine stitches, and discovered I could use the #20C foot to sew a blanket stitch around each rosette to attach it (I decided to use a little Stitch Witchery Tape to anchor the rosette onto the denim before machine stitching).
After practicing on scrap denim I was able to figure it out and attach my first rosette and from there I put together my first 9 blocks:
Here they are squished together to sort of give you an idea of how the quilt might look:
I have a long way to go but it is a start!
I did discover that in addition to removing the paper from the hexies in each rosette, I still have to stitch some of the rosettes fully together! So there is a lot of work to get this project done and we’ll see how much progress I will have to report next month 🙂
Oh and yes it will be a heavy quilt using scrap denim as the setting squares but it is going to be a wall hanging in my upstairs guest room, not a utility quilt for snuggling under.
(I was struggling to write this post with all the terrible stuff going in my country and in the world. Writing about my 2025 travels seems so shallow and trivial; but perhaps this post will be a brief distraction for you if you are feeling like I am…)
July 2025
Early in July we headed to Washington State in the Pacific NW to visit John’s cousin M and his wife R in Bremerton, WA. During the trip to Washington we also visited Poulsbo, Olympia, Mount Rainier National Park, Shelton (quilt shop), Port Townsend, and Port Angelas Washington. We also did a 24 hour trip to Victoria, British Columbia (Canada) via ferry.
Here are a couple photos from parts of the trip I did not blog about – the delightful Victorian-style Bed & Breakfast we stayed at in Olympia; an afternoon at Mount Rainier, and Poulsbo (Norway themed historic town founded by Norwegian settlers) for July 4th with John’s cousin:
Continuing the summer travel insanity, in August we went on two more major trips: 1) a roadtrip to South Forks Colorado to visit with some of John’s family; and 2) a trip to Southern Oregon and Northern California.
Both of these trips in my opinion are blog post worthy (and there was a very cool quilt shop visit during that first trip) so I will plan to post about them sometime in 2026. For now here are some random photos from the trips.
South Fork, Colorado: We stayed at an amazing cabin on the river with very unusual toilet paper holders!
We were pretty traveled out by September and managed to keep September to one major trip for John but two for me!
I went to with my sister to San Antonio, Texas to join her on her business trip. Then I went with John to Portland, Oregon for him to visit his son Z while I took at Watercolor Painting class (see post So I took a Watercolor Painting class…).
I didn’t post about the San Antonio, Texas trip but my sister and I had a wonderful time and I slept in the best hotel bed EVER at the luxurious resort (do not remember the name) her company put her up at. We had fun after her work conference exploring San Antonio’s Riverwalk and eating tasty Tex-Mex on the river.
October 2025
We did one major trip in October and then had two separate out of town visitors during the month. In early October we headed to Baltimore, Maryland and visited my brother and his family in Delaware as well as my long time blogging friend Claudia (some of you follow her blog). Then we met up with my sister and her son and we traveled to Ocean City, Maryland to attend the Country Calling Music Festival. After that we traveled to New York City for a couple days with them.
I bought a cowboy hat while in San Antonio, Texas in September. In case you are wondering how we ended up going to Country Calling, my 21 year old nephew is a huge country music fan and wanted to go to his first country music festival so we went as a family group. It was an interesting “cultural experience” I’ve never had before!
November 2025
We had decided to take November and December off from major trips but then our plan fell apart due to fun trip opportunity temptation…
I went with my sister to New York City on her business trip; and then John and I went to Las Vegas, Nevada for his poker tournament. I posted about the Las Vegas trip related to over the top Christmas decorations in the post Christmas at the Bellagio Conservatory.
I plan to post sometime in 2026 about the New York City trip in November as I had a couple amazing experiences. Here is a photo of my sister and I enjoying our trip for now:
December 2025
And finally December…
You’d think we’d take the month off from traveling with the holidays but no we did not. We went to Hollywood, Miami and Fort Lauderdale, Florida – see post A Little Jaunt to Florida; and we spent a couple days before the New Year in Colorado Springs, Colorado.
I didn’t post about the Colorado Springs trips but here are some photos from the lovely lobby/lounge area of the historic Colorado hotel we stayed at – the Mining Exchange Hotel :
In 2025 I think I traveled more than I’ve ever traveled in my life (I feel like I was rarely home in 2025). John retired at the end of 2024 and we sort of went crazy with our new found freedom in 2025 (plus our beloved dog Mike had passed in July 2024 so we had no restrictions on planning travel – no more dog sitter needed).
We started out slow with one big trip a month and then picked up speed around May with cramming in more than one trip a month (you’ll see how crazy our summer got later in this post).
I didn’t post about all the trips – I as taking a blogging break for my mental health in the first quarter of 2025 and then I just couldn’t keep up with writing about my trips and traveling. If there is a related post I have linked it.
I’ve organized our 2025 travel summary by month and I did not include any day trips/playing tourist in Colorado for the day. We did have a lot of spontaneous day trips, especially when the weather was nice, in 2025.
January 2025
We began our year of travel with a trip to Las Vegas, Nevada so John could attend a poker tournament. I did not post about it.
Visiting with designer Elizabeth Hartman (whose patterns I love) during QuiltCon:
March 2025
In March we had a wonderful trip to the Sacramento, California region to hang out with our Northern California friends.
I didn’t post about the trip, but here is a photo from the trip during our wander around downtown Auburn, CA at the top of the stairs on the Placer County Superior Court on a gorgeous day (by the way I am not actually that much taller than John it was the angle/pose):
April 2025
In April John traveled to Portland to visit his son; and I went to spend a couple days with my sister in Baltimore, WA on her business trip. I did not post about it.
Here I am at this amazing and legendary Italian deli/grocery store in Baltimore we ate at twice – DiPasquales Italian Market:
There was seating right in the corner of the crowded market/deli where you are crammed in with the spices and pasta while you eat! But for me nothing beats East Coast Italian food (well short of actual Italian food in Italy…) so go ahead and cram me in among the groceries!
May 2025
In May we began having more than one big trip a month; and May was a month filled with travel to two concerts in two different parts of the US.
A trip mid May to Charlotte, North Carolina to see Joan Jett and Billy Idol in concert with North Carolina based friends: Concerting in the Carolinas and More
And then later in May, to celebrate my milestone birthday, we went to Las Vegas, Nevada and saw Bruno Mars – Birthday-ing with Bruno
June 2026
In June we had two EPIC roadtrips through Colorado.
Hundreds and hundreds of miles were traveled early in June and then if that wasn’t enough roadtripping for the month, we did a truly epic roadtrip across Colorado (like from one end of the other) in mid June (because we are truly insane…).
I never got around to posting this “across Colorado” roadtrip but in the span of a week we traveled to Pagosa Springs, Durango, Mesa Verde National Park, Four Corners National Monument (where Colorado, Utah, Arizona, and New Mexico intersect), Ouray, Gunnison, and Crested Butte, Colorado. From the Denver Metro area to across the entire state and back! EPIC!!!
I do plan to write some posts in the future about this cool trip as I’d like to share some memories on my blog. It is one of my favorite roadtrips of all time…to date!
Here is one of my favorite photos from this roadtrip: John peeking in on the poker game of a group of taxidermied raccoons at a gift shop in Ouray, Colorado!
I think I will end this post before we get to July 2025 – a lot more traveling adventures to share in Part 2…
I thought I would share my craft project completion summary for 2025 in pictures:
Not a lot of stuff completed but then I did travel a lot in 2025 and I will share a summary of that in my next post 🙂
I didn’t include the links to the posts about these craft projects but if you are curious for more information on any of the projects let me know in the comments below and I will give you the blog post link, thanks!
I needed a portable knitting/crochet project for riding in the car and I decided it was time to start knitting another hat (same pattern I always use!):
I looked through my hand knitted hat collection and noticed that most of my hats are either medium or dark colored yarn and I don’t have any light colored hats. I found this variegated cream and light brown yarn in my stash.
Slowly making progress and looking forward to my new hat 🙂
For John’s birthday we headed in the middle of the month to Southeastern Florida for a little cold weather break, and visited Miami, Hollywood Beach, and Fort Lauderdale.
We stayed in Hollywood Beach on the water and enjoyed our breakfast on the deck of our accommodations each morning:
(not sure what setting John had his phone on that I am faded out in the image, ha!)
It was pretty windy in the mornings, and occasionally overcast; and this was our view at breakfast:
But then this was our view walking around the boardwalk of Hollywood Beach:
I love the mountains in Colorado but it is always nice to visit the ocean!
We wandered around the South Beach area and stumbled upon a luxury mall (Bal Harbour Shops) filled with luxury brand shops containing things we couldn’t afford (or wouldn’t want to waste money on, we have no interest in impressing anyone, ha!).
But they did have a bookstore (I bought a bookmark there) and they had turtles in their garden displays in the middle of the mall!
We definitely looked out of place in our casual clothes as there were many people wandering around the mall in very expensive clothes acting very impressed with themselves. We laughed because one very well dressed man looking John up and down (when John wasn’t looking but I saw it) with disdain. We weren’t offended we thought it was hysterical and wished the man well is his life of pretentiousness!
There were two beautiful young women walking around, very well dressed and looking like fashion models, and I complimented them on their style and they looked at me like: “why are you talking to us peasant?”. We knew it was time to leave the mall after that – ha!
We decided to give up on the Miami area and go visit Fort Lauderdale. We had fun spending a day at the biggest Outlet Mall in the U.S. – Sawgrass Mills. They have 350 stores and outlets and lots of fun places to eat.
We had “conveyor belt sushi” at SushiGami in the middle of the mall and it was delicious (and fun to select your sushi as it moved by on the conveyor belt.
We visited the craziest outlet/close out/bargain bin place we’ve ever seen – Super Bins.
Yes nearly everything was $1 and the place was packed with bargain shoppers. We got overwhelmed and I got tired of wandering around bins so we only left with some Airpod covers and two decorative pillow covers I found in the bins.
Here’s an image from the web to give you an idea of what it looked like, except it seemed even bigger and endless than the photo below:
Unlike Miami, people were very friendly in Ft. Lauderdale and I chatted with a lady wandering around the mall with a darling dog (Pomeranian?) that was very well dressed!
Back in the Miami area we went to the Bayside Marketplace at Pier 5 and John got to have paella on the water which made him very happy!
First I want to wish each of you a Wonderful Holiday Season and Happy/Merry Christmas to those of you who partake in Christmas like I do.
I thought I would continue my tradition of sharing some of the themed Christmas trees one of my local libraries displays each year. They are decorated by the library staff and you can tell they have fun decorating them each year!
THE LION, THE WITCH, AND THE WARDROBE (Chronicles of Narnia):
DEATH OF THE NILE:
There were so many wonderful trees on both floors (2 stories) of the library I only photographed a sampling. Here are the posts from previous years if you’d like to see a sampling of their past designs:
I’ll be back posting after the holidays but in the meantime I will be reading/catching up your posts…you know blogging activities seems to take a backseat during this busy season!
The other day I happened to be taking my daily walk at dusk because the day got away from me and for the first time I saw the holiday decorations at night in that particular street I walked (usually I only walk it during daylight). The “Halloween House” was looking quite Christmas Festive (and not nightmare inducing)!
A quick follow up to the post T-Shirt Quilt Assembled – today, two days before Christmas, I received in the mail John’s T-shirt quilt from the longarm quilter (who had longarm machine quilted an all over pattern).
Fresh out of the box…
I was tempted for a moment to get it trimmed (remove overhanging extra binding and backing), assemble the binding, attach the binding and then attempt to sew down the binding/complete binding the quilt 2 days before the holiday so I could give it to John on Christmas.
Nope. I went ahead and showed John the quilted quilt and put it away to deal with until after the holiday! He knows it is eventually coming into his life to snuggle under…
I also had a couple of last minute gifts I was going to make and then decided this year no last minute crafting. (The intended gift recipients won’t know what they did not receive!)
Perhaps I will be better prepared next year – ha!
Postscript
Photo from the longarm quilter Sew Colorado Quilting after she completed the machine quilting at her house:
A representative from the PNW Quilting Bloggers Comfort Quilt Drive reached out to me via my Inquiries page on my blog (which forwards to my email) asking if I could share this with my blog followers (edited a little bit for flow).
I have no background on, experience with, or affiliation with this project so it is at your discretion to decide to participate and you can contact the project coordinator directly for more information.
From Monique Arnold of The Sandpiper Project:
Just over a month ago, we launched our 10th bi-annual Comfort Quilt Drive, and with it came a wonderful idea: reaching out to the vibrant and generous quilting community here in the Pacific Northwest.
The Sandpiper Project is a community outreach dedicated to bringing comfort, spreading joy, and offering hope to children facing critical illnesses—primarily pediatric cancer.
Our work goes beyond delivering quilts. We also serve as ambassadors, using quilt auctions and community engagement to raise awareness and vital funding for nonprofit organizations that support children and their families during the most difficult seasons of life. The Sandpiper Project began as a way to pay forward the extraordinary care and compassion our family received when our oldest daughter was diagnosed with ovarian cancer at age 16.
In just four years, our community has: -Delivered over 1,300 handmade quilts to major children’s hospitals -Raised more than $100,000 for 12 children-focused nonprofits across the Pacific Northwest
Today, I’m reaching out with a heartfelt invitation. We would be honored if you—and your readers or followers—would consider participating in this year’s Comfort Quilt Drive by donating a quilt & helping us share the drive within your quilting community. Each quilt becomes a tangible reminder to a child that they are seen, cared for, and not alone.
This year’s quilts will be delivered to: —OHSU Doernbecher Children’s Hospital (Portland, OR) —Randall Children’s Hospital (Portland, OR) —All Ronald McDonald Houses in Oregon and Southwest Washington
The drive runs from November through January 15, 2026. If you choose to participate, we would love to feature your quilts, acknowledge your blog and community, and keep you updated on the meaningful ripple effects your generosity helps create.
Thank you for the beautiful work you do and for considering being part of this season of comfort and hope.
Warmly, Monique Arnold The Sandpiper Project c/o Wish Ambassador Lizzie Arnold 3650 NW Witham Hill Drive Corvallis, Oregon 97330 moakey2@icloud.com Facebook Group: The Sandpiper Project – Quilting the Fabric of Hope
The Sandpiper Project on Facebook Being Able To Say “Wish Granted!” Is AMAZING!
So a couple days ago John and I decided to switch back my studio to another room and our bedroom back to the primary bedroom.
In case you have no idea what I am talking about, see this post from June 2025 – Thrifting for the Studio.
My studio is located in the former Primary Bedroom of the house. A couple years ago my husband John and I decided we didn’t need that much room for our main bedroom and moved to a smaller bedroom. Originally it was a carpeted room but in summer 2024 John put in a floor.
I’ve always had a small space to sew and craft until I met John and then a couple years ago we turned our primary bedroom (which is fairly large) into my studio.
However In my small crafting spaces I created entire bodies of work such as those I exhibited in my solo show (see 2019 post Solo Show Seattle Municipal Tower, Part III) The Wardrobe Meets the Wall.(And no new body of work has occurred in my large studio!)
I made that entire TheWardrobe Meets the Wall collection of 12+ quilts in a tiny little back bedroom of my house in Oregon where I had to use part of my hallway as my design wall.
I know of course I traveled a lot in 2025 but this has been an ongoing problem – I don’t seem to be as “creatively inspired” in a large space. I just had a gut feeling that I needed a cozy little space of creativity again.
So we switched the rooms back and Chaos in the Craft Room ensued:
Moving the contents of my large studio and walk in closet into a much smaller space was quite the undertaking!
The good thing of this move is I spent a couple days preparing for it and purging what I didn’t really need. It seems that I thrifted stuff to fill the space – I expanded to fill the space…
It took a couple days after we switched rooms to settle into my new room, which is less than half the size of the space I had in the primary bedroom, and here is what it looks like now:
Yes my design wall had to be split into half as it wouldn’t work in the room in it’s full size.
Besides giving me a small cozy space to work in to stimulate my creativity, John and I also made this switch because we are considering selling the house someday and moving to a smaller Ranch-style house. We recently toured houses in a cool new development in another section of the Denver Metropolitan area and fell in love with a one story house with a basement that could be finished however we liked.
We aren’t ready to sell/move just yet, but we were going to have to switch the rooms back anyway someday in order to put our house on the market.
So what became of my huge stash of craft supplies (most of them thrifted)? Well I moved all the sewing related supplies that didn’t fit in the studio shelves into the closet in my new studio:
The non sewing supplies got moved to the closet in the upstairs guest room which had previous housed my clothes, which are now moved into the walk in closet off the primary bedroom.
And…
As far as the Primary Bedroom, John and I took a couple days and turned it into a relaxing bedroom sanctuary. I want it to be our private sanctuary so I am not sharing any photos.(I recently saw on YouTube a tour of a Hollywood actor’s home on the Architectural Digest channel and she wouldn’t show her bedroom because she said that was her private sanctuary. That inspired me!)
Well here’s to getting into my cozy new studio and creating!
Now that the T-shirt quilt for John (see post T-Shirt Quilt Assembled) and sent to the Longarm Machine Quilter for professional quilting, I realized I need to start working on ANOTHER QUILT in order to meet this goal – ha!
So I decided to pull out a dusty old project – my English Paper Piecing (EPP) hexie flower quilt top that I started in 2016 after seeing this quilt on the cover of the premiere issue of Quiltfolk Magazine – Issue 1: Oregon (I was living in Oregon at the time):
I finished paper piecing 99 hexie flowers (which each contained 7 paper pieced hexagons) in May 2024 from fabric scraps (that I sort of tried to coordinate).
Okay so let’s summarize:
Began project in 2016
Finished EPP flowers in 2024
Now in 2025 decide to finally make it into a quilt top…
I pull the project out of my UFO (unfinished objects for the non quilters) pile:
After auditioning a bunch of options, I decided to set them in my collection of scrap denim, using various shades of denim. Here’s one example:
But before I can machine applique (using a blanket stitch) the hexie flowers to the denim squares (I will cut the squares initially to 7×7 inches and then trim to 6.5 x 6.5 inches after they are stitched), I have some less than pleasant work to do 99 times…
REMOVE THE PAPER FROM THE BACK OF EACH HEXIE FLOWER!
I’ve set up this project as a sit-in-front-of-the-TV project for evenings and put them all in a basket in the living room:
I’ll update you on my progress and hope to soon have some appliqued square up on the design wall in my studio.
(By the way: you might be curious about my choice to set them in denim, which is heavier than a quilting cotton. Well I plan to use the quilt as a wallhanging, not a cuddle under/utility quilt. I have a bed I plan to hang it above.)
Recently I discovered a previous work friend who I stay in touch with on social media had a very challenging 2025 with some very big life changes.
When I had my Etsy shop open she had supported it by purchasing several items including some drawstring bags.
So to send a her a little treat after all she’d been through in 2025, I made her a little drawstring bag and matching little wallet:
If I ever get the Etsy shop up and running again and sell the drawstring bags, I’d like to give and option of a set with with a matching little wallet.
Yes – because I have exciting news! John (Human John that is, not John Beastie my knitted life partner) built me a new tower to live in.
Here are my previous accommodations in Tierney’s studio (in a box John made during his earlier days of woodworking):
And here is my new home – a three story tower!
Before I show you a closer tour, here are a couple photos from the build of my new tower home:
Here are close ups of each floor and my roof garden 😉
Top floor – my dressing room and closet:
John built me a freestanding closet that can be moved; and Tierney found at gift shop this summer during her travels tiny hangers that she put away hoping someday I would be able to use them! (You might be curious about the container of Vaseline on the top shelf of my closet – Human Tierney and John also found that traveling this summer and thought it was very cute – a Beastie sized personal care product!)
Middle Floor – My Craft Room!
Beside sewing/quilting, Tierney found miniature versions of the other crafts for that she enjoys like drawing/coloring and knitting.
Lower Level – the Living Room
Now I have a room to hang out with John Beastie in and listen to music on my new turntable (see yesterday’s post), have tea and drink some Hop Monsters IPAs (my favorite craft beer).
Rooftop Garden
I might have been influenced by Tierney but for some reason I really love Sunflowers...
So I am very pleased with my new home, what do you think?
Postscript
Tierney thought I should store my colored pencils like she keeps hers – upright in containers for easy access, so she just now put mine for me in a little Colorado mug!
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).
It’s been a while since I’ve done a guest blogger post and I know you all have missed me!
For Thanksgiving I decided to visit my partner John Beastie (see his story at this post Guest Blog Post: Mail Order Groom) who lives in the basement in John’s (Tierney’s husband) desk area (I would have invited him to my home in Tierney’s studio but it is currently being remodeled by Human John, more in a future post):
(Tierney found that strange sign “A fart is a wish your butt makes” at a little shop in Maryland while she was vacationing with her sister earlier this year.)
John Beastie served us a non traditional Thanksgiving meal of spaghetti and meatballs (his trademark dish) on the table John made me a couple years ago (see post Guest Blogger: A Desk for Me!) perched on the new table John made himself (see post John Builds Himself a Desk)
After dinner, John Beastie, who loves bourbon, brought out his bottle of Monsters Mark for an after dinner drink.
I’m not into bourbon like the human Tierney is so instead I asked him if I could show him my new record player – a Teeny-Tiny Turntable!
I then pulled out two bottles of Hop Monster IPA for us (I’m more of a craft beer Beastie than a bourbon Beastie) to enjoy while listening to some of my records.
My turntable came with a couple records that play a snippet of music of different musical genres and a book on 10 historical Chart Topping Record Albums.
John Beastie started reading the Teeny-Tiny Turntable book and I suggested that we play some music instead.
I wanted to listen to “Classic Rock” but John Beastie wanted to listen to “70’s Funk” and once I put the music on something strange started to happen:
I thought at first that John Beastie was having a seizure but then I discovered he was dancing! Well what he described as dancing…
(And yes the music you hear in the video is actually the music that comes out of the Teeny-Tiny Turntable when you put a record on!)
I made big progress and got the whole Sunflower themed Granny Square blanket all attached (horizontal and vertical) using a single crochet stitch to join the squares in both directions.
Here it is on the “Design Carpet”:
Here is another photo:
Now I am adding a single crochet border around the whole thing, likely several rows of single crochet, I’ll decide as I go along.
And then it will be time to weave in all the thread tails that are hiding in the back!
Oh I did try to make finishing the granny square blanket a portable project on like to I did with the individual granny squares, where I would work on them while riding in the car…
But it was a disaster and we had the “Great Hunt for the Lost Crochet Hook” in the car as well yarn tangling and blanket in my feet tangling disasters. So I had to finish it in my living room sitting in a chair to limit the drama – ha!
House Holiday Decorating
After I got the blanket assembled I felt very industrious and with the help of John got the Christmas tree up and the fireplace mantle decorated for the holidays!
It was fun to pull out our ornaments and various decorations and see them again! I missed these three holiday bears that I’ve had for over 25 years – they’ve held up pretty well:
I also put up this copy of The Night Before Christmas that John has had since he was a child.
The pages are on the verge of falling apart but I like reread it every year.
I’ve been looking for ways to comfort myself during strange times. I shared in the post Flowers on the Table, my keeping fresh flowers on my kitchen table to brighten my world.
Another things I’ve been doing is playing with a set of Magnetic Poetry words I found a couple months ago thrifting; and writing (albeit bad) poetry on a magnetic bulletin board.
The challenging and yet cool thing is that my poetry is limited to the magnetic words provided in the set, however Creative Limitation/Creative Constraint is known to be a good thing (*see the Postscript section below for an AI summary of the research on this topic).
Most of it has been forgettable but I really like this piece and thought I would share:
THE FEROCIOUS ETERNITY by tierneycreates
but perhaps
above a vast sacred sky
seeps only the fresh clean
liquid of time
yet with delicious rhythm
we wake
we listen
and we embrace
the ferocious eternity
of a universe
I haven’t written any additional poems since this one as I do not want to take it down right now. I find it strangely comforting and empowering.
Speaking of ways to comfort/empower yourself during “strange” times, if you don’t already follow her, my blogging friend Laura of Laura Bruno Lily has a powerful creative piece she did as part of the Fall of Freedom program where creatives express Activism through art. Here is a link to the post which contains a video of her piece:Fall of Freedom 11/21 – 22, 2025.
If you are struggling with our strange times, please share if you like, what you are doing to to comfort and/or empower yourself, in the comment section below.
While traveling in September, I ran across a framed print of the 1961 Norman Rockwell painting, The Golden Rule, and it definitely gave me a pause for thought:
*Postscript
As a creative person you’ve likely already heard about the concept of “Creative Limitations” or “Creative Restraints”. If not, here is an awesome summary by Google AI of research and thoughts on this concept.
Limitations foster creativity by preventing overwhelm, forcing a more focused approach, and encouraging innovation within boundaries. Instead of being paralyzed by limitless options, creators can use constraints to find novel solutions, distill ideas into their most impactful form, and become more resourceful. This happens because limitations act as a “creative anchor,” stimulating the brain to make new connections and discover solutions outside of standard methods.
Limitations spark creativity by:
Prevent decision paralysis: An abundance of choices can be overwhelming, leading to “analysis paralysis.” Limitations simplify the creative process by narrowing the field of vision, allowing for deeper focus on the task at hand.
Encourage innovation: When faced with a restriction, creators must find a new path to achieve their goal. This can lead to more unique, original, and efficient solutions than they might have come up with if they had unlimited options.
Force efficiency and focus: Limitations, such as a time limit or a limited budget, can force creators to prioritize what is truly important, leading to a more streamlined and impactful result.
Stimulate the brain: The brain grows by forming new connections. Constraints can act as a catalyst for this growth, pushing the brain to create new branches and associations that lead to creative breakthroughs.
I know this is why I love working with a set group of fabrics or fabric scraps when making a textiles project. One of my favorite scrappy projects was Seattle Scrappy where I was given/challenged with creating a piece from a bag of my friend’s scraps.
I only used those scraps for the quilt top. I used a recycled thrifted cotton bed sheet for the back and hand quilted it with thrifted Perle Cotton thread I already had in my stash.
Do you need any help getting in the mood for the upcoming Christmas holidays? Do you want to see where Christmas has “exploded” and holiday cheer is spewed everywhere? Well I have a post for you 😉
John and I were recently in Las Vegas for his poker tournament and we stopped one day at the Bellagio Hotel’s Conservatory and Gardens where they had outdone themselves on Christmas decorations.
Here we are, overwhelmed with holiday cheer 😉
I don’t mean to make fun of it, the display was actually very lovely and the Bellagio’s team did a spectacular job with the design and decorations.
I got a kick out of the miniature train set circling one of the Christmas trees on display. It reminded of the electric train set we got from my grandfather that always chugged around our Christmas tree when I was a kid.
After touring the gardens we popped into the over the top Christmas Shop at the Bellagio where many items cost a mortgage payment.
But they were beautiful to look at and we had fun browsing the very crowded shop.
It’s been a while since I posted about one of my husband John’s woodworking projects.
I set up a website/blog for him for his Mighty Moe Creations – but I never got the posts from my tierneycreates blog on his woodworking transferred over so it is not really a functioning blog yet.
So for now I will continue to share his crafts on my blog 🙂
John was tired of his desk which he bought used like 15 years ago from a neighbor:
He wanted a smaller profile “Mission” style desk and found images like this one on line to inspire him:
With no formal project plans or any instructions, John figured out how to build himself a desk. First he had to learn a new skill – using little dowels for joining the railing on the side pieces of his desk:
He was pretty proud of himself for making it through that which was the most challenging part of the build.
From there he went on to build the rest of the desk:
Then stain and polyurethane it:
And finally to add era/style specific handles to the drawers that he had to special order:
Here is John very happy at his new desk!
Now he plans to build a coordinating station for his printer with an attached 2-drawer file cabinet.
(In case you are wondering what the sign behind John in his bar “Pog Mo Thoin” means, it is Gaelic for “Kiss My Arse” – we picked it up in 2022 while in Ireland. John’s nickname is “Moe” and so he got a kick out of the sign!)
Things have been mighty strange, sad and stressful here in “America-land” and this summer I decided to combat the ugliness I would see in the news (when I could bear to check it) with BEAUTY.
I decided to try to always have a bouquet of flowers on our kitchen table. I’ve continued the habit into the Autumn and plan to take this practice through the Winter and beyond.
I started with pulling flowers this summer from my garden and putting them on the upstairs patio table:
By the way here are our last roses of the season in our rose garden in the front of the house (I had some of them in a bouquet but didn’t photograph it):
Then I moved to purchased flowers each week (or every other week if the bouquet was especially hardy) and here are some of those bouquets:
The bouquets really make my kitchen table happy and add some happiness to our lives!
I got John’s T-Shirt Quilt assembled and I am shipping it off to the long-arm quilter. Not sure if I’ll have it back for Christmas as she is of course backlogged this time of year!
Just a reminder from my previous post on this quilt – I will have red binding to it to frame it and pull in the scrap red flannel I used in the center to make the center T-Shirt fit with the others.
Oh and here is a photo of the basketball themed flannel (John loves basketball and was even playing in an intramural league where he was the oldest guy and the referee nicknamed him “Old School” – ha!) that will be on the back:
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