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!
A month or so ago (this summer is a little blurry as it has been rather busy), I went with John to a large food and shopping market in Denver/Edgewater called the Edgewater Public Market. John was meeting some previous job colleagues there for a reunion. They are friendly people but I decided I would just wander the market on my own for the evening (if you check out the market on the link above it is pretty cool!), grab dinner on my own from one of the many eateries in the market, and read my book/work on my portable crochet granny squares.
While I was wandering the Edgewater Public Market I came across this storefront for The Tangled Ball:
A “yarn lover’s delight”! I love yarn and I had time to fill so after I ate my dinner, I wandered in. Next thing I knew I was sitting at one of the big tables in the shop with the owner and her husband (who is also a knitter and was working on a pair of socks) and working on my granny squares while chatting with them.
Here is what the shop owner was working on – a lovely knitted vest:
While we were talking at the table, working on our projects, I admired a cute project bag sitting on the table. The owner mentioned a local crafter made those bags but was no longer making the bags for the shop. She said she was looking into another source for project bags for customers to buy. I mentioned I make Drawstring Project Bags and she was interested in potentially selling them at The Tangled Ball.
If you are new to my blog, here are some examples of the drawstring project bags I make:
I’d planned to sell them again on my Textiles & Smiles Etsy Shop but I haven’t done all the product photography and writing of the listings to get them up on the shop yet.
So we agreed I would bring the bags by her shop in the future for her to see in person.
Before I get back to what happened with the bags and the yarn shop, here is a little tour for my fellow Yarn Lovers of The Tangled Ball:
I really loved the giant knitting needles with a Work in Progress (WIP) on the needles!
A week or so passed and I returned to The Tangled Ball to attend Colorado Makers Night Out held several times at month at the shop; and to bring a large sampling of my drawstring project bags for consideration to sell at the shop.
At the Colorado Makers Night Out I worked on my granny squares, while dining at the community table and visiting with some VERY talented and engaging knitters. Below are photos of my section of the table (my food, my project, and a drawstring bag I brought it in); and and amazing sweater (the photo does not do it justice) that one of the knitters was working on:
The other makers at the table were all beyond my skill set of knitting! (and I was the only person not knitting, ha, I was crocheting!) It’s was like sitting around with some of my blogging buddies who are knitting goddesses (you know who you are…) and watching in awe.
As far as the bags, the shop’s owner purchased about a 1/3rd of the bags I brought to try out at her shop. I recently found it she’s sold a couple of them so far!
I am so honored to sell my bags at a yarn shop but I will need to see if I can afford to continue sell at “wholesale prices” that the shop owner offers, when I do not buy my supplies at wholesale, etc. She owns a small business and is limited on what price she can pay for and then sell the bags for in her shop. It’s just the reality of the market.
I am going to get my act together and project bags up on my Etsy shop soon.
If you are a Yarn Lover and in the Denver area, I highly recommend this lovely yarn shop!
Our friends K&M are Retriever aficionados, and they appear to especially like Labrador Retrievers (“Labs”). They’ve had various “labs” as part of their family for years (Yellow, Chocolate, etc.) and now they’ve recent adopted a new Black Labrador Retriever puppy named “Murphy”.
While I was on the Oregon Coast (someday I will finish up my series of posts about that trip in July) I found this awesome fabric which was a tribute to Retrievers including Labradors, Goldens, Flat Coated Retrievers, etc., and I made them a drawstring project bag filled with treats for Murphy as a “Puppy Warming” gift.
Here is the front and back of the drawstring bag so you can see more of the fabric and all the different type of Retrievers included:
Here are photos my friend K sent me when they received the surprise Puppy Warming gift in the mail from me, including photos of the adorable pup Murphy!
I can’t wait to meet that cutie in person someday!
I’ve been busy preparing to restock by Textiles & Smiles Etsy shop and getting ready for another scrappy fabric quilting retreat at my house, I am having with a different set of friends. Below is the basket of scraps they can work from:
In between that, some road trip adventure with John, and the completion of a home renovation project (well John did most the work), I’ve managed to make a little progress on the scrappy solid color medallion wallhanging I’ve been working on – Strings Attached.
Since my previous post What’s on the Design Wall: Strings Attached, I’ve sewn all the section of the center medallion string pieced star together and done the first border:
There were so many Y-seams! It seamed like every seam (smile) was Y-seam – yikes! I got a little more proficient on Y-seams after doing so many in a row but I don’t have any great insight, tips or wisdom to impart, sorry.
Here is a reminder of what the completed quilt will sort of look like:
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.
On August 15th, ScrapHappy Day, I’d hope to share the completed quilt top for the VERY SCRAPPY wallhanging quilt I am currently working on – “Strings Attached” from August 2021 issue of AmericanQuilter Magazine, pattern by Lori DeJarnatt (see post What’s on the Design Wall: Strings Attached), but alas, I’ve gotten no further than what I shared on August 9th when I last posted about it.
So instead for ScrapHappy August I am going to share the story behind this VERY SCRAPPY quilt – Recycled Hope VII: All the Trimmings
I made this quilt during the COVID pandemic and it holds a lot of meaning, and I will share the “Artist Statement” on this quilt in a moment for the full background. First I want to tell you about my “Recycled Hope” series of quilts:
The Recycled Hope an ongoing series of improvisational art quilts using recycled materials to include denim as the primary fabric on many of the pieces, combined with other recycled materials. “Hope” and the interpretation of the word “hope” is the primary theme of infused into these pieces.Most of the fabrics were not reusable as clothing or home decor and were destined to end up in a landfill. Reimagining recycled clothing and other materials into art quilts satisfies my hopeful desire to honor the environment and make art that is eco-conscious. Ending up in an art quilt is a better outcome than ending up in a landfill.
Okay now that you know the background on this series of quilts (if you want to see the rest of the quilts in the series, check out my Portfolio page) here is the story behind this SUPER SCRAPPY quilt which measures 72.5″ L x 57.5″ W:
Missing my Quilting Community during the 2020 Coronavirus Quarantine and inspired by Amanda Jean Nyberg’s pattern “All Sizes”, I created a quilt from 15 years of scrap triangles collected from my quilting friends at quilt retreats and “sew dates”. Most of the scraps in this quilt are from the trimmings of blocks by many quilters as they made their quilts. Instead of going into the trash, nearly 600 scrap triangles from the trimming of quilt blocks compose this cozy quilt. This piece gave me hope that someday I can return to attending quilt retreats.
Hopefully for next month’s ScrapHappyDay post I can share newly completed work (smile).
HAPPY SCRAPPING!
As promised, here are the bloggers that participate in the ScrapHappy monthly posting event, check out their blogs linked below for their ScrapHappy posts:
Toward the end of July 2023 we met up with dear friends on the Oregon Coast. I am doing a series of blog posts about our adventures on the Oregon Coast – check out the blog category – Oregon Coast Adventures– for the other posts (note when you click the link this current post will be the first one that shows but keep scrolling).
After flying into Portland, Oregon, renting a car, and stopping in McMinnville, Oregon (see post Oregon Coast Adventures: First Stop -McMinnville, Oregon) we drove to Depoe Bay, Oregon and spent the night at a little motel right on the bay. We came in a day before our friends we to arrive so we could do a little sightseeing on our own and leisurely make our way toNewport, Oregon to meet up with them.
The motel itself was nothing to “write home about” but it had a tasty free breakfast included and some amazing views.
This was the view from our motel room window:
And here are photos of the beach area a little bit down from the motel where we did a little exploring before heading to a delicious fresh seafood dinner.
And of course I had to take a photo in B&W:
I love this photo! Looks kind of mysterious and moody!
Next post in this series I’ll share our adventures when we got to Newport, Oregon to meet up with our friends.
A quick update to the post What’s on the Design Wall & “Agriculture Report” on the string pieced wallhanging I am making called “Strings Attached” from August 2021 issue of AmericanQuilter Magazine, pattern by Lori DeJarnatt.
I finished string piecing the 8 sections of the center star:
And then tried my hand a the first “Y-seam” (when 3 or more seams come together and they DON’T make a right angle per the geekybobbin.com) to join the first two star sections:
You can see in the photo above I got so excited joining one section that I started laying out the first border (instead of just piecing the whole center star first).
In the comments in the first post on this quilt, one of my blogging buddies asked me to share any tips I had on doing “Y-seams”. My first tip would be: “No, avoid them” but since I really wanted to make this piece I could not get around it.
Luckily the pattern designer had dots on her template for the center star sections that were a 1/4 inch away from the edge of the points; and she instructed the reader to make the same dots 1/4 inch from the points of the four squares and four inset triangles (the blue fabric) and match them with the dots on the star sections.
Sounds scary (and it looked scary) but it worked. I just got to do this 3 more times and then I can assemble the center star. I wonder if I can then get some sort of Certificate of Completion (I would frame it!) for those Y-seams – ha!
Toward the end of July we met up with dear friends (the kind of friends that you’d also consider family) on the Oregon Coast.
These are friends I met in Bend, Oregon where I lived for 14 years until my husband Terry suddenly died in 2018. I haven’t been able in the 4.5+ years since moving to Colorado to bring myself to return to Bend, Oregon for a visit (such an awesome life…nearly perfect… was lost there and I still have some trauma from coming home and finding my life partner on the floor dead in the house I’d plan to live in with him the rest of my life…too painful to return yet…) and I didn’t want try to ask my friends to come all the way to Denver again to visit us, so the “compromise” was to meet up the Oregon Coast (via Portland, Oregon).
It wasn’t much of a “compromise” as I love the Oregon Coast; and John (my new life partner) hasn’t been to the Oregon Coast, one of my favorite places in the world (or the places I’ve been in the world), and I was so excited to share it with him.
Central Oregon Coast map from aaroads.com/guides/us-101-or/
The plan was meet up with our friends in Newport, Oregonon the Oregon Coast the next day after flying into Portland, Oregon. We rented a car and here was our travel route (with lots of beauty along the way to see on the Pacific Coast Highway/Highway 101):
Image from Google Maps
But along the way we decided to stop in McMinnville, Oregon for lunch and to visit a quilt shop I had visited many years ago (I think before blogging as I could not find a blog post about it, ha!) – Boersma’s Sewing Center.
John sat in “the husband area” (ha!) with the vacuums (they sell sewing and vacuum related items) while I browsed.
After the quilt shop we headed to a lovely brewery (Two Dogs Taphouse) nearby for a delicious lunch:
We loved that they had a cozy sitting area, actually like a living room, that you could relax in with your beer and your food and watch TV:
After lunch we stopped at Third Street Books (how can I pass up an independent bookstore?) on our way to our car:
And then off to Depoe Bay (the town before Newport as you head south down the Oregon Coast) where we would be spending the night until we met up with our friends the next day in Newport, Oregon.
I was going to blog more about my recent Oregon Coast trip but there are so many photos to sort through so I thought I’d just post about a new wall hanging I am working on and my “Agriculture Report”. (What is an “Agriculture Report”? Well One of my blogging buddies @quiteayarnblog has an ongoing series of posts called “Agriculture Report” whose title always cracks me up because it is an update of what is going on in her garden.So I had to adopt that term for my garden report)
WHAT’S ON THE DESIGN WALL
I have so many projects in queue – unfinished projects and new project with imaginary and actual deadlines – but I was having a “squirrel” moment and cleaning out old quilting magazines and came across this pattern, String Attached, in an old issue of AmericanQuilter Magazine – and had to make it!
I am not sure why I fell in love with it but I did. I’ve done very little “string piecing” in the past but I thought it would be a great way to work down my collection of solid color fabric scraps:
I dumped them out and selected fabric scraps for the little quilt. I decided to stay away from dark or medium purple but to have red-violet and pink instead. I also tried to select fabrics similar to the sample one in the pattern.
The pattern calls string piecing on foundation paper but I decided to use muslin instead.
And here is the beginning of the center star on my design wall:
I am hopeful so far but I have some Y-seam type piecing to do when I get all 8 points to the center star done – yikes!
AGRICULTURE REPORT
My little upstairs patio garden is doing well this year, probably due to the ridiculous amount of rain we’ve been getting in the Denver Metro area. John and I joke we are now living in “Den-attle” or “Sea-enver” (Denver + Seattle).
I have tomatoes, peppers, and various herbs growing along with some Marigolds for pest control.
I was excited the other day to harvest my first tomatoes of the season!
Yes there were three cherry (small) tomatoes, but it was still exciting (smile).
It’s been a long time since I’ve added a post to my blog categoryLife in B&W where I let my inner Ansel Adams run free (smile). So it was time to share some of the Black & White photos I took while recently visiting the Oregon Coast. I’ll tell you more about the trip in a future post, but for now here are photos from our visit to Yaquina Bay State Park in Newport, Oregon and the Yaquina Head Lighthouse:
While at the state park beach area we enjoyed looking for life in the tide pools (the tide was low), a visiting with a park ranger who gave us a great overview, looking at large rocks covered with endless mussels, and trying to carefully walk on the rocks on the beach near the tide pools (the beach is entirely made of black basaltic rocks) without wiping out on Cobble Beach!
If you’d like to see more and see some of what we saw but in actual color, here is a video I found on YouTube:
The photos are courtesy of the couple who run “Dog Camp”, they send me daily photos! His new crush is named Gracie and she is entangled with him in the second photo. We were informed that Mike was obsessed with her during dog camp!
Before John and I left for the Oregon Coast to rent a car and have a road trip (John’s never been to the Oregon Coast and I know it fairly well) and to have a reunion with some of my very dear old friends, John stopped by his Dad Chuck’s house to drop something off. He brought Mike with him (who loves Chuck so much!) and there was another Goose and Mike incident, ha! John of course took photos (smile).
Here is Mike getting loving from Chuck while Goose looks irritated:
Goose then whispers something in Mike’s ear:
Mike tries again to convince John that Goose is trouble:
And finally Mike just walks off:
John says Mike spends a lot of time barking at Chuck and at him when Goose is around. It is like Mike is saying: “get him out of here”!
Hopefully they will eventually learn to get along but for now he remains Mike’s nemesis…
Next post I will tell you about my Oregon Coast adventures!
I hate being behind on reading my blogging buddies posts, so I wasn’t going to post again until I caught up. I haven’t caught up yet but I am only like 3 – 4 days behind now so I am allowing myself to do this quick post!
As I mentioned in the February 6, 2023 post What’s On the “Design Carpet”, I am a nervous front seat passenger in a car. My best bet is to do something to distract me while I am a front seat passenger (especially when my partner John is driving, ha!). So I’ve been taking a granny square crochet project on the road whenever I am a passenger and I’ve made a bit of progress.
Instead of the “Design Wall” in my studio, I thought I’d show you my progress on the “Design Carpet” in my living room – ha!
Here is what the granny squares looked like in the beginning of the project:
I decided to add to more rows in a different color gray to float the centers:
And now 5 month later, I have 50 granny squares completed:
You might notice one very dark gray bordered granny square in the image above:
Well I have 30 more granny squares to complete and I plan to make a lot of them with that darker gray yarn (Currently I plan to make an 8 by 10 granny square blanket, so I need 80 blocks to complete it).
If you haven’t guessed it, I’ve been using up my collection of random gray acrylic and acrylic/wool blend yarn, including two different variegated grays/blacks yarns from my stash. So it will be another “scrappy” granny square blanket like these two I made previously:
I seem to have a thing about gray yarn as I notice there is a lot of gray in that blanket above!
I’d love to someday make a super “scrappy” granny square afghan like the one I came across in the blog post Scrappy July by View From Our Hill. She has like 16 different yarns in each granny square block – check out the link!
tierneycreates 