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:
I got all 11 rows of 12 sunflower granny squares each, connected vertically. I also began connecting them horizontally.
It seems like I am so close, but so far away from finishing. I have many horizontal rows to single crochet together and then I need to do a border around the whole thing to “square” it/neaten it up.
Then I have all the ends I did not already weave/crochet in to weave in 😦
But I try to focus on far how I have come and how much closer I am to being able to snuggle under my sunflower blanket!
Weather is weird in my part of Colorado and it is at time trying to be Spring, then Summer and then switches back to Fall. To encourage Fall to come to us in full force (bring on 40 degree days!) I made a batch of yummy Pumpkin Cream Cheese Muffins:
I think I’ve posted about these muffins before but here is the link to the recipe by Sally’s Baking Addiction:
The recipe looks tedious because you have to make 1) the streusel topping, 2) the cream cheese filling, and 3) the pumpkin muffin BUT it is totally worth it. I put on some good music and before I knew it I had to components assembled and they were baking the oven.
John was naughty and have two once they cooled down but they were VERY tasty with our coffee/tea!
It feels like I floated far away from a regular quiltmaking practice and I’d like to return to it.
I’d like to always have some quilt, whether traditional or art, in progress on my design wall.
So I am easing back in by making a simple T-shirt quilt for John for Christmas (it’s not a surprise as I wanted him of course to have a say in what T-shirts he gave up for the project!);
I took 17 of his old T-shirts and backed them with interfacing and trimmed them to 12.5 inches by 12.5 inches.
The one in the middle, “Beards Turn Laziness Into Awesomeness” is not actually one of his old T-shirts but a joke T-shirt my friend S found for John while she and I were thrifting.
I am setting the interfaced T-shirt squares with a tartan looking flannel I found a couple years ago at a thrift shop.
I will bind the quilt once it is quilted with red flannel binding to “frame” it/coordinated with the scrappy red flannel I put around the center T-shirt to make it large enough to fit into the design.
Happy to have a quilt in progress up on the design wall!
It should come together quickly so I hope to soon have an update on this quilt!
I love New York City (NYC) and I’ve been there many many many times. This is a continuation of the post Time in Times Squareabout the couple days that my sister, John and my nephew L spent in NYC in October 2025. This post is a little bit about our wander from Soho to Chelsea one day, with most of the time spent in the West Village.
I grew up in Long Island, NY and Albany, NY. I remember when I was 14 years old in the late 1970s taking the train from Long Island to NYC with a high school friend. We were two teens wandering around NYC unsupervised. Perhaps not the safest idea nowadays but it seemed okay (maybe back then).
Because I’ve been to NYC so many times, when I visit, which is usually with my sister who loves NYC also, we like to focus on a specific neighborhood(s) and just enjoy our times like locals. We are very “un-touristy”.
Some Background on NYC and How I’ve Visited Over the Years
If you are not familiar with New York City, it is comprised of five (5) boroughs: Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, The Bronx, and Staten Island. The boroughs are then divided into neighborhoods.
For examples some of the well known neighborhoods in Manhattan are Greenwich Village, Soho, Tribeca, Chinatown, Upper East Side, Central Park, Hell’s Kitchen, Harlem, Meatpacking District, etc.
Image credit: Wikipedia
The challenge with visiting NYC is there is SO MUCH TO DO and SO MUCH TO SEE that you have to narrow your visit to just a specific section to really enjoy it (at least in my opinion). Here are some examples:
Back in 2017 when I attended Quilter’s Take Manhattan (see posts from my blogging category Quilters Take Manhattan), I pretty much only spent time in the Garment District and Central Park area (I spent the most amazing day on my own at the Metropolitan Museum of Art one of the most magical places in the world in my opinion).
When my sister and I attended New York Fashion Week in Manhattan in 2021 we primarily hung out in Soho and accidentally discovered the “Little Paris” micro-neighborhood that we didn’t even know existed (a cultural heritage project and micro neighborhood occupying the stretch of Centre Street between Grand Street and Broome Street – Wikipedia).
So what I am trying to explain in a very long-winded manner is when I visit NYC I focus on a small part of NYC each time I visit.
And that’s what we did in October. We stuck primarily to the Manhattan neighborhoods of West Village, Soho, and Chelsea.
The Tiniest Yarn Shop
While in West Village we discovered what I call the “tiniest yarn shop I’ve ever seen” – West Village Knit & Needle. There maybe smaller ones but was impressively small!
We took the narrow stairs down to the shop in a brownstone’s basement:
There was barely enough room for John, my sister, my nephew and I to maneuver around (they were great sports stopping at bookstores and craft stores whenever I came upon one) but here is a little tour:
The staff was very friendly and one of them was working on an amazing cabled cardigan:
That is some serious cable knitting. I tried to learn to knit cables when we were visiting Ireland in October 2022 in a class taught by Helen of Knit with Helen but I have yet to finish the cabled knitted headband project she gave me to take home!
Helen is the one who knitted the tiny cabled sweater worn by the tierneycreates Beastie:
tierneycreates Beastie with Mattie Beastie (both wearing tiny cable knit sweaters by Helen) and John Beastie in Dublin, October 2022
(By the way we are returning to Dublin in 2026 on our way to visit London for the first time. Aer Lingus flies out of Denver now and we can fly directly, for a reasonable price, to Dublin and then hop on an hour and a half flight to Heathrow. We had such a wonderful time in Ireland 3 years ago we want to stop there again for a couple days before heading to the UK)
I am all over the place in this post, what was I originally blogging about? Oh yes – wandering around the West Village in Manhattan.
We Snuck in Some Thrifting
While wandering around West Village we came upon a charity thrift shop – Housing Works Thrift Shops and just had to peek in.
My sister and I love thrifting (we usually find a thrift shop or two on our sister vacations) and I seem to have corrupted John, who at first appeared to be tortured whenever asked to accompany me into a thrift shop. He now seems to enjoy them and was excited to pop into this thrift shop for a wander.
Yes that’s John in the photo above buying something at the thrift shop.
And a Couple Other Places
We didn’t just torture John to thrift stores and yarn shops, my sister surprised him with a visit to the famous Garber Hardware a family owned and operated hardware store in business since 1884.
John was happy wandering this cool hardware store!
We also visited a couple independent bookstores and this one was my favorite – Three Lives & Co.
I had a wonderful chat with the bookstore staff who told me that surprising a lot of people from Colorado has visited there store recently (what?!?! are a bunch of fellow Coloradans all sneaking over to NYC?!?!). John bought a book as did my nephew but I just bought some postcards and bookmarks, as I need another book in queue to read like I need a hole in the head!
We also ate our way through the neighborhoods we visited picking up little treats, snacks and tastes here and there. There is SO MUCH GOOD FOOD in NYC its difficult to even put into words.
For example while wandering we stopped at a wonderful little tiny sushi counter and got a little sushi roll snack to fortify us for our continuing adventures.
Okay you might be asleep now but that’s the end of this post 🙂
Postscript
I misled you, there is a little bit more to this post.
In this post I mentioned the tierneycreates Beastie (Beastie Adventures). I realized she has not “guest blogger post” for a long time on my blog. She used to be quite active. I used to also have Mike the Miniature Schnauzer (who passed in July 2024) “guest blogger post” quite a bit. I think when he passed I just stopped with the “guest blogger” postings.
But in the future I will be bringing back the tierneycreates Beastie as a guest blogger. She has been primarily hanging out in her “apartment” in my studio and I realize it’s time to take her on some adventures again (I have to give her stuff to blog about!) 🙂
Update on the post 48 Granny Squares Now Connected – I now have 84 sunflower granny squares joined together vertically! I am plugging along 🙂
So 7 out of the 11 rows of 12 granny square each, are done and just 4 more rows (48 granny squares) to go.
Then I am of course going to single crochet them together horizontally and add a single crochet border all the way around to anchor everything. After that I will decide if I want to make a fancy border, etc.
Revisiting a Hat I Started Last Winter
I made 137 sunflower granny squares while riding in cars, planes, trains and sitting at events beginning May 2024. Now that the making of the individual sunflower granny squares is done (and the blanket is finally being assembled) I needed another portable project.
I used a variegated ball of yarn I found thrifting with little idea of what the different colors would be since it was already rolled into a ball and I could only see a little of the color changes!
It was my leap of faith hat!
So on Friday John’s son Z was visiting and we took him to the Denver Film Festival and saw the premiere of the film Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery, starring Danile Craig, I brought my hat and worked on it in the car on the way to the event and at the event before the film showing began (we arrived early to get good seats and had a bit of a wait before the movie started).
Here’s some additional images from the festival including the lovely Chihuly chandelier that hangs in the Ellie Caulkins Opera House where the film was premiering.
The film was really fun and I recommend it when it premieres on Netflix in December.
I was so inspired by your awesome comments on my post 137 Sunflower Granny Squares Completed that I decided to make a big push yesterday to start getting the blanket assembled from a year’s+ of granny squares made while on the road (as a passenger of course, it’s difficult to crochet while driving, ha!).
“Fantastic! A truly graphic representation of the miles spent on the road”
“All those little squares of sunshine!”
“It will be so beautiful to sleep in a field of flowers!”
“Miles of travel and happy memories, a field of flowers to keep you warm.”
“A certain amount of serendipity seems to fit in with the carefree sunflower theme.”
I searched YouTube for the best method to put them together and decided to go with single crochet. I looked at a bunch of videos and went with this simple one:
So here are 48 of the blocks joined into 4 rows and laid upon the “Design Carpet”.
I have 137 as I mentioned in the previous post on this project, and I am thinking instead of using 120 for a 10 by 12 block layout, I should use 132 for a 11 by 12 block layout.
In case you are curious of what my plan is, first I am crocheting vertical rows and once all those are together, then I was connect the horizontal rows with single crochet. So it will be a bit unwieldy until that part but it will make less ends to weave in.
It was actually very relaxing once I got my rhythm to join the granny squares together. While joining them I fell into some sort of strange YouTube rabbit hole and ended up binge watching Barry Manilow performance videos.
Okay so I shared a little about this back in 2016 in this post Shameless “Thrifting” (wow I have been blogging so long) but when I was 12 or so I was OBSESSED with Barry Manilow.
While other kids of my demographic were obsessed with the Jackson 5/Michael Jackson, I was totally in love with Barry Manilow. I remember having a giant poster of him in my room (not sure where I got it) and my father walking into my room and being appalled (my parents were more traditional R&B and Jazz music people).
So I remember when I was around 12, Barry Manilow had his first TV special. It was like 1977 and there were no VCR, TiVo, etc. recording options and most things were not replayed from live telecasts. My parents made my sister (my brother wasn’t born yet) and I go to a party with them on the night on the Barry Manilow Special.
I had a complete meltdown and thought my world was ending because I had to miss the Barry Manilow Special. My parents were not understanding and I was made to go to the party.
(Note this is not me but image from web)
While working on the blanket last evening and falling into the “Barry Manilow Rabbit Hole”, I did search YouTube for any videos/clips from that special I missed back in 1977 (which Barry Manilow ended up winning at Grammy for so it must have been good!) and I found a couple but could not find the full special. That would have been fun to sit back all these years later and finally watch it.
My musical tastes have changed quite a bit over the years but whenever I hear Barry Manilow I get nostalgic for that innocence of a 12 year old girl who thought his songs were all that love and relationships were about.
Well I am sure that is more about me than you wanted to know but occasionally we overshare while blogging, ha!
The other night John and I decided to try something different in the evening.
We both have miniatures to assemble – he has a miniature wooden antique car 3D puzzle to assemble, and I have a miniature bookshop that my stepson bought me as a gift to assemble.
So after dinner we went to my studio and sat at my studio table with the Denver Nuggets basketball game on and perhaps a whiskey (sometimes you need a “crafting cocktail”) and got to crafting for the evening!
Here is John working on his project (which had like a million pieces, ha!):
And here I am with mine:
Luckily we had our new glue gun we found at Costco as we had several incidents where tiny pieces broke as were were trying to connect them.
The Glue Gun saved our sanity!
It was a pretty fun evening, I think we crafted for like 4 hours. We are going to do this on a regular basis during the late Fall and Winter season.
I don’t seem to be able to control my attraction to fabric scraps – various little bits of tasty fabrics. I’ve culled/curated my collection over the years and have donated the scraps I’ll never use to the charity thrift shops to sale in bundles.
I tell myself that I must use up what I have before I pick up more scraps, but new fabric scraps keep finding their way into my life.
I was doing pretty well controlling my obsession until we went on a day trip to Fort Collins, CO last week and stopped at the relatively new retail location of Pink Door Fabrics in Frederick, Colorado on the way to Fort Collins.
And they had toward the back of the store a SPINNING BIN OF FABRIC SCRAPS!!!
They had organized the fabric scraps (which were fat quarter to nearly half yard sized scraps!) by color and/or fabric line. The spinning bin was some type of industrial organization bin that was repurposed into a fabric scrap bin.
They had a “fill a bag” for a flat rate set up and I filled…two bags.
I started out filling only one bag but the staff was so friendly and got a kick out of how excited I was about their spinning fabric scrap bin and one staff member decided to go out to the Pink Door Fabrics Warehouse behind the shop and see if there were scraps for me to choose from.
She brought back this plastic tub of scraps:
So I ended up filling two bags. Very full. They even let me have fabric overflowing the bag. (I am pretty sure they were happy to get rid of the scraps).
I know I should show you my haul but I forgot to photograph it before I put it away in my already ridiculous collection of fat quarters and fabrics scraps.
If you’d like a little tour of the quilt shop here are some additional photos:
Pink Door Fabrics has an amazing collection of well curated fabrics with a focus on modern quilting style fabric lines such as Ruby Star, Tula Pink, AGF Studio, Riley Blake, Alison Glass, Tilda Fabrics, Anna Maria, Tara Faughnan, Moda, etc.
They also have a nice little seating area in case you have someone with you that doesn’t want to wander the fabric stacks – ha! (hint John)
I really loved this quilt they had displayed:
Postscript
After the “spinning scrap bin” incident, we headed on to spend the day in Fort Collins (which is about 1.5 hours from our home) and found a delicious Ramen place we never tried before (we love Ramen); as well as stopped at one of our favorite Fort Collins breweries – New Belgium Brewery and had a tasty sampler!
Well they are at it again and they keep winning Halloween in my opinion!
The other day on my neighborhood walk I took another series of photos of the annual Halloween display of one of the area houses. Posting again for those of you who love Halloween (of course my photos do not do their display justice, it is so awesome and epic in person!)
Postscript
Bonus photo: John loves Maple Leaf cookies from Trader Joes and they finally had them in stock at our Trader Joes. He posed with this cookies in the pumpkin display in front of the store!
After lots of time on the road during various roadtrips in 2025 I’ve exhausted my supply of “center flower” yarn for the Sunflower themed Granny Square blanket I’ve been crocheting while riding in the car.
So it is time to make it into a blanket!
There are a total of 137 granny squares!
This might seem tedious but I counted and photographed how many of each different mix of yarns squares (21 different versions of the square*) of the 137 squares I made (the count of each type in lower right hand corner):
I’m not using all 137 squares in the blanket. I figure I will make a 10 square by 12 square blanket and use 120 squares and save the rest (17) for a couple small projects like a pillow or something like that.
I decided not to use the “design carpet” to lay out the sunflower granny squares. Instead I separated them into VERY ARBITRARY “light” and “dark” piles, trying to make the piles as even as possible:
So I’ll post my progress as I crochet together alternating “light” and “dark” squares to make the blanket!
*(Why so many different versions for the granny squares? Well I was using up miscellaneous yarn I had thrifted over the years)
It been countless years since I visited Port Townsend, WA…not since when I lived in Seattle, WA for 8 years and would stop there on the way to British Columbia (which we visited as much as possible)…. Port Townsend is a city on the Quimper Peninsula in Washington state known for its beautiful waterfront and natural scenery at the northeast tip of the Olympic Peninsula; and many historic Victorian buildings remaining from its late 19th-century heyday. It is also a hub for numerous annual cultural events, and a maritime center for independent boatbuilders and related industries and crafts. (Wikipedia).
John and I had a delicious lunch at thr Sirens Pub with a wonderful view of the water:
Then we wandering around the shops in downtown Port Townsend including a fiber shop – Diva Yarn & Trim.
A shop with yarn and fabric is always my kind of place.
While walking in the waterfront area we came across two ladies playing guitar and accordion and singing in French. Their music was so wonderful I tried to find their tip jar to give them a little something but they said they did it just for fun not for any money.
They didn’t mind if I filmed the area with their music in the background:
It was a glorious day in Port Townsend, WA!
Postscript
When we first arrived in Washington State via the Seattle (SeaTac) airport, we stayed in Olympia and the next day drove to Port Townsend and then on to Port Angeles to take the ferry to Victoria, BC. On our way to Port Townsend, we stopped in Shelton, WA and visited one of my favorite Washington state quilt shops – Annie’s Quilt Shoppe.
I bought some very reasonably priced fabric to support this awesome shop (that perhaps I did not. need, ha!).
I always get a kick out of this sign in front of the shop that some of the quilters reading this post might have seen in front of other quilting shops:
Now that my year of travel has slowed down (only one more trip to go this year), I am easing back into my studio to make things. (Perhaps someday there will be more “tierneycreates” posts vs. “tierneytravels” posts in the future…)
John and I are obsessed with U.S. National Parks and ended up visiting 6 this year (I’ve only blogged about 2 of them so far as I am quite behind in my travel posts – Badlands and Wind Cave National Parks) and when we redecorated our basement guest room we did it in a Colorado and National Parks theme (see post “Pieces of Colorado” Now Hung in the Guest Room):
What you can barely see in the image above is some of the art on the wall are framed pages from a book I found thrifting for $2.99 (retails for $34.99) of 63 of the iconic Anderson Design Group National Park Posters on individual pages:
Image Credit: Anderson Design Store website
I took this amazing 9″ x 12″ book apart and framed 16 or so of the 9″ x 12″ to use as art in the basement and in the stairwell leading to the basement.
So when during our trip to South Dakota we stopped at a quilt shop in downtown Rapid City, SD (see post A Wander About Downtown Rapid City, SD) and they had the Riley Blake Designs National Parks Poster Panel featuring miniature U.S. National Park Posters by the Anderson Design Group, I had to have it!
Image Credit: Riley Black Designs website
Instead of letting it gather dust in my “impulsive-purchase-quilt-panel-collection”, I decided this week to actually make it into a wallhanging and hang it 🙂
I decided to use strategically placed fusible web tape between the panel and the batting, and the batting and the backing to hold it all together for quilting instead of thread basting or pinning it:
Here the wallhanging hung in the stairwell from the 1st floor to the basement:
Here is a close up of some of the miniature U.S. National Park posters on the panel which mirror some of the posters I hung on the wall from the Anderson Group book I thrifted:
My machine quilting on this quilt was very simple – I followed the lines in the panel and outlined the individual states, the miniature posters, and the longitude and latitude lines. The finished wallhanging measures 33″ tall by 43″ wide.
Of course now the MANY other panels in my “impulsive-purchase-quilt-panel-collection” are envious of the National Parks Map panel as they would also love to be completed wallhangings and hung (or made into quilts). 😉
Thought I share a little on a recent travel before I work on catching up on my blogging buddies’ posts.
My epic year of travel continues and just a couple of days ago I was in New York City for a couple days with John, my sister and nephew. We had a blast during our 2 day trip to NYC and I will blog more about the trip at a later date, but here are some photos from our couple hours in Times Square.
I hadn’t been to Times Square in like 10 years. We used to stop there every we went to NYC but then it lost it’s excitement for me (super “tourist trap” to the max) and on my annual (or biannual) trips to NYC with my sister in the past we would skip it and just visit places like Brooklyn (see post Springtime in Brooklyn).
We spent about 3 hours in Times Square including our time to eat and I think I am now good for another 10 years – ha! (It is so many people and non stop overwhelming visual stimulation).
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