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).
I know you all have have missed me as it has been a while since I’ve guest blogger posted! In the image above you can see me and my dog Mikelet working on a post on my laptop.
The weather has warmed up in the Denver area and it was time to change from my beautiful Aran knitted sweater to my T-shirt (from my apartment inside Tierney’s studio):
Okay that’s better!
Now I need to go grab a couple Hop Monster IPAs and get my Beastie husband John Beastie and go enjoy the nice weather on the patio.
If you are new to the blog and would like some background on John Beastie, here is a link to the post from 2020 when I introduced him:Guest Blog Post: Mail Order Groom).
John Beastie and I got married in February 2022 the same time as human Tierney and John did (see post New Coffee (and Tea) Station and Some Big News ). John and I have separate spaces – I live on a shelf apartment in Tierney’s studio and he lives on John’s desk in his office.
After hanging out for quite a while with John Beastie on the patio, I invited him over to my shelf apartment to show him the new Colorado mugs I have for my tea and his coffee in the morning – just the perfect size for us!
(Eventually I asked Tierney to stop taking photos and just leave John Beastie and I to visit alone in my apartment…)
As part of my “A Year of Finishes – 2023“ project, I finished the last 8 drawstring/project bags of the bags I’d already cut out and interfaced.
Here is 1 of 8 that I will call “Get Your Kicks on Route 66” with Route 66 themed fabric:
I only had enough of this fabric to make one bag. I was originally making it for a family member who was going on a Route 66 roadtrip, but the roadtrip got cancelled. I like the lining fabric I found in my stash for it which represents the wheat fields you might see on an across America roadtrip.
The next two bags (2 and 3 of 8) I finished are from vintage pharmacy inspired fabric. I don’t have a name for these two bags, but here you go:
And here are the remaining bags (4-8 of 8). These five bags are made from the awesome Ruby Star Society fabric line called Purl. I think they would make perfect knitting/crochet project bags:
I didn’t photograph the linings but they were coordinating colors of teal or reddish orange. I have temporary drawstring-bag-photography-burn-out, ha!
So with the completion of these eight bags that is the “end of an era” of drawstring bag making.
John encouraged me to figure out just how many drawstring bags I’ve made over the past couple of years to include the ones I made and sold on my Textiles & Smiles Etsy shop in 2021 to 2022, given as gifts, and currently have on stock waiting to be listed on Etsy.
Guess what the number is?
105 or so!
That is why I think it will be quite a while before I want to make another one. There are so many other things to make, ha!
I was going to blog about 3 more drawstring/project bags I made but I thought I would spare you from another one of those mind numbing posts for a day or so – ha! I’m currently working on the last 5 drawstring bags I had cut out and interfaced months ago before I broke my ankle. I am so excited to be done with them. I can’t wait to list them on Etsy and not think about making drawstring bags again for a LONG time!
So this post is about a get together we had with our friends F and M last evening – we had an amazing Mexican food feast!
My husband John is of Mexican decent (he is 1/2 Mexican, 1/2 Irish) and learned to cook green and red chili as well as other dishes from his Mexican grandmother. Our friends F and M are of Mexican decent and have much experience making authentic dishes they learned from relatives. We decided while meeting for drinks last week that it would be fun to get together and have a homemade Mexican food feast to include:
Homemade refried beans
Green Chili and Red Chili*
Tortillas (corn and flour)
Chili Relleno Poppers
Tamales (Red and Green Chili Tamales)
Open Faced Enchilladas
Posole (a hominy and pork based Mexican stew)
Homemade Guacamole
Various toppings/fixings
*Note: According to John, a native Coloradan, Colorado Green Chili is made with Hatch or Pueblo Green Chilis, tomatoes, pork, flour for thickening, salt, garlic and water; Colorado Red Chili is made from Red Chili Powder, browned flour, water, garlic, salt and ground hamburger. Arizona’s Green Chili does not have tomato; and New Mexico Green Chili has potatoes and is called “Green Chili Stew”.
Here are the Chili Relleno Poppers which contained Mozzarella Cheese, Oaxaca Cheese, Green Chilis, wrapped in an egg roll wrapper and deep fried:
They are served with Green Chili (“sauce”)*
*(According to John you are not allowed to call it “sauce”, you must call it “Green Chili” but I didn’t want to confuse you with the terms “Green Chili” and “Green Chilies”! John says Coloradans are very pretentious about their “Green Chili” and do not want it referred to as “sauce”. By the way “Red Chili” is what I used to refer to in my previous life as “Enchilada Sauce”…ha!)
Here are photos of the rest of the yummy Mexican Feast:
For dessert we served my homemade Chocolate Chip Cookies and Haagen Dazs Ice Cream:
And to close this post here is Mike the Miniature Schnauzer sitting between us as we all sat on the sofa (we served the food buffet style) watching the NBA Basketball Playoffs, trying to convince us to share our feast (we did not as there were no Schnauzer friendly foods on our plates, but he did get lots of pets from our friends while they ate…):
Recently I was looking for a different old post and came across this post from July 2017 that made me smile and thought it would be fun to repost! It is from my wonderful life in Central Oregon before I moved in April 2019 to the Denver Metro area after my husband suddenly passed in December 2018. Four years later there are days when I miss terribly my awesome old life in Central Oregon but the past is gone and I can only appreciate my new life and look forward to the future…
(I laughed when I reread after all these years that the chicken my friend named “Tierney” is the friendliest of the group, runs to greet you, and likes to snuggle!)
Update on “A Chicken Named Tierney”
July 15, 2017
Several months ago I posted that a friend of mine named her baby hen chicks after her close female friends. This is an update to that post – A Chicken Named “Tierney”.
A month or so ago I took photos of teenage “Tierney the Chicken” and her brand new chicken coop; and recently I took photos of young adult “Tierney the Chicken”.
The Teen Years Weeks
Here is the deluxe coop she and her hen sisters live in. It has an inside section and a sunroom:
Chicken Cooping in style
Here is teenage “Tierney the Chicken” and her sister “Gabrielle the Chicken”:
Here is “Tierney” and the other teenage hens getting a snack:
My friend Marla, mother to all the young hens, has a photo in her house of what “Tierney the Chicken” will look like when she grows up and becomes an adult Dominique chicken:
Young Adult “Tierney the Chicken”
“Tierney” is now a young adult and getting closer to her egg laying days. No eggs yet but my friend Marla thinks in the upcoming weeks she and her sister hens will lay their first eggs.
Here is a current photo of “Tierney” and her sister “Gabrielle” (and some other chicken “photo bombing” the shot, ha!):
My friend Marla reports that “Tierney” is the friendliest of all the chickens. She runs towards you first when you come into the coop and she likes to snuggle:
Chicken Cuddles
Truthfully I’ve never cared about chickens beyond enjoying the eggs they lay or an occasionally tasty chicken dinner. This is the first time I have ever seen a chicken snuggle! (Is it my fate to eventually become vegan now that I suspect most farm animals will snuggle?)
Maybe it is slightly weird my friend named one of her hens after me (and her other close female friends) but how many people get to say they have a chicken with their namesake!??!
I will close this post with a photo of the cool wind vane inside Marla’s backyard:
John recently built a “photo box” (not sure what to call it) for photography my items for my Etsy shop (TextilesandSmiles) and for photographing items for his Etsy shop (to be opened someday and hopefully called MightyMoeCreations). He designed it so it could be easily assembled and dissembled for storage.
The fabric is from my trip to the Missouri Star Quilt Company(MSQC) for a quilting retreat in early 2022. It is their custom fabric which is designed to look like traditional quilt blocks in a quilt. If you’d like to see the posts from my MSQC Retreat adventure here is the link to those 6 posts – Missouri Star Quilt Retreat.
I continue to shamelessly count each completed Project Drawstring Bag as a finish on my unfinished projects (that I started prior to 2023) for my project “A Year of Finishes – 2023“(if you are really bored, click on that link to see all blog posts related to this project…zzz).
After finishing the Colour Wheel Quilt (see post The Colour Wheel Quilt is Done) I was planning to start an improvisational art quilt project (preparing for the 6-day workshop I am teaching next year, more to come on that someday) but was not “feeling it” yet.
So I thought I would assign myself the goal of “making something each day” to keep my creating vibe going (even if it’s just one quilt block) and decided to continue making the drawstring/project bags which I will someday list on my Textiles & Smiles Etsy shop (when I reopen it again).
I made 4 more bags. They were quick to put together as I’d always cut out all the fabric and interfacing, as well as did the fusing, etc. several months ago.
I am getting a kick out of the fun fabric combinations.
Here are two for the bird/bird house aficionado:
I was practicing taking photos for the eventually Etsy listings so I have a lot of photos of these bags (and likely more than I needed to share on this post, ha!)
And for the person who likes a little woodland whimsy, here are another set of drawstring/project bags:
I love the lining in these two bags!
So there you go – 4 more finishes of unfinished projects I started prior to 2023 (I like to make very small accomplishments sounds very exciting, ha)!
My husband John is a self-taught woodworker (so many YouTube videos watched) as many of you know. I’ve featured some of his projects on my blog post category: From the Woodshop.
Recently he decided to take on some commissions and make a little money on the side with his woodworking. We figured he needed a business name and we came up with Mighty Moe Creations, as his nickname is “Moe” (a childhood nickname adapted from his middle name which he used as his first name when he was younger).
He wanted to have a wood branding iron to burn/emboss his name on wood items he creates and so we created a logo for Mighty Moe Creations using Canva:
I am new to using Canva but I was proud of myself of being able to draft a logo which he and I finalized.
Earlier this week the branding iron he ordered came in the mail and he has been practicing branding scrap wood until he perfects his technique and is ready to brand pieces he makes.
We were pleased how crisp the image comes out from the branding iron compared to the original logo we created and sent to the company that makes wood branding irons!
John’s been busy working on his commission piece in his workshop, a large 3D looking custom serving tray similar to the one in this post – From the Woodshop: Tray for our Ottoman.
John’s studio/woodshop in our basement is a “hot mess” right now but he’s making progress on his commission:
I can’t wait to see the finished commission with his new logo branded onto it!
Oh and here is Mike the Miniature Schnauzer peeking into the woodshop (he is never allowed inside the shop as we are worried about wood splinters getting into his paws) to see what his humans are up to!
The Colour Wheel Quilt is finally done. I just finished quilting and putting on the binding today.
It’s come a long way from this:
Here is what the sample from the book Quilt Color Workshop by T. Bruecher, B. Greenberg, L. Goldsworthy, and J. Adams (2014) looks like:
I made some changes to the original pattern and added a header created from the trimmings from the 30 degree wedges of each colorway I cut to create the wheel.
My plan is to use this quilt as a teaching aid when I cover color theory in the workshop I’ll be providing next year (which has now become two workshops at two different venues…more info to come someday…).
If you need a legend for the labeled colorways, here you go:
Primary Colors
Red (R)
Yellow (Y)
Blue (B)
Secondary Colors
Orange (O)
Green (G)
Violet/Purple (V)
Tertiary Colors
Red-Orange (RO)
Yellow-Orange (YO)
Yellow-Green (YG)
Blue-Green (BG)
Blue-Violet (BV)
Red-Violet (RV)
As you can see from the list above, “Secondary Colors” are formed by combining “Primary Colors”; and “Tertiary Colors” are formed by combining a “Primary Color” with a “Secondary Color”.
Kate @talltalesfromchiconia hosts a monthly celebration of reusing scraps and “scrap-happy challenges” called ScrapHappy Day on the 15th of each month and thanks to Alys @gardeningnirvana I found out about this monthly event and Kate let me participate!
Here is my latest scrap-happy project, which is currently in progress awaiting my machine quilting – the Colour Wheel Quilt wallhanging which I will be using as a teaching tool.
Again, 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.
In this quick post I thought I would share my latest stack, recently acquired when I browsed the library “unrestrained” (by common sense and no longer being hindered by hobbling around in a walking book):
Yes it’s a bit ridiculous and I am not sure what happened to me while browsing (I guess I had an “out of body” experience) the library. It was the first time I was able to drive myself to the library and browse independently since I broke my ankle in January 2023.
Surprisingly I was able to haul all these books to the library’s check out station using a tote bag (and taking the elevator, there was no way my ankle was going to get me all the way down the library stairs!).
My plan is to flip through these books while I have breakfast each morning.
I think that is all the time I should allow this stack as I need to keep working on finishing my Colour Wheel Quilt that I most recently blogged about in this post Update on the “Colour Wheel” Quilt.
I just finished wrangling the quilt, with just the batting attached (to act as interfacing), under the sewing machine to machine applique down all those letters. So I am moving forward despite distraction from my latest (and unrestrained) “Library Stack”!
Here is an update on the Colour Wheel quilt/wall hanging that I am making as a teaching tool on color theory when I teach an art quilting course in 2024 (see post A Year of Finishes: The Pivot) using fabric scraps.
The pattern I used is from the book Quilt Color Workshop by T. Bruecher, B. Greenberg, L. Goldsworthy, and J. Adams (2014) and the quilt is supposed to look the quilt on the book’s cover:
But I decided to modify the quilt a bit as I will show you below.
In my previous post on this quilt Colour Wheel” Quilt in Progress, I had a collection of 24 trimmings from making the “spokes” of the 12 sectioned color wheel and I was deciding what to do with them.
Well I decided to piece 23 of them together (1 trimming was sacrificed while I was experimenting with options) to make a banner for the top of the quilt.
Banner? What do you mean by “banner” Tierney?!?!?
Well I decided if the quilt was going to be a teaching tool I was going to add some additional details to the quilt as you will see below.
Before I get to that, let me show you the backing fabric I found in my stash for the quilt – a colorful butterfly fabric that had most of the colors from my the color wheel.
Here is the banner pieced from the trimming scraps, the backing, and the pieced main part of the quilt up on my design wall.
Looking at it on the design wall, I decided it was all feeling a little boring and it needed something. Then I remembered it is was to be a teaching tool so why not fully commit to it being a teaching tool and add letters and words to it?
So I did, and here is what the quilt currently looks like on the design wall.
I added “The Colour Wheel” to the banner made by the trimming scraps; and labeled each of the colorways.
The letters are just tentatively laid out, when I remove the quilt from the design wall I will measure out the proper spacing of the letters and words.
I continue to work on the Colour Wheel quilt/wallhanging that I most recently blogged about in the post “Colour Wheel” Quilt in Progress, but I am not ready to share my further progress (and I did come up with a plan on how to use the trimmed sections of the color wheel and incorporate them into the quilt!), so instead I will share an update on the batik table runner I made for a friend.
Back when I lived in Bend, Oregon (now over 4 years ago), I promised to make my friend L a table runner for her long dining room table which I had enjoyed several wonderful meals at over the years.
Finally back in December 2022 I started the table runner and made it from batik fabric scraps using the pattern Bamboo Shade by Aardvark Quilts. Here is where I was at in December 2022 – I had pieced it and prepared it for quilting:
I shared in the March 17, 2023 post7 Million Stitches+, that I was working on machine quilting the table runner on my new sewing machine.
Here is the completed table runner:
And here is the table runner on my friend L’s dining room table (she received it in the mail the other day and sent me a photo)!
It felt wonderful to complete that project and finally give her the table runner!
Oh I left out something from our visit to the Pearl Street shopping district thrift/vintage shop –Heady Bauer from the previous post. The shop had a really cool used instrument section where the staff encouraged you to pick up an instrument and play whether you knew how or not:
There was a father and son in the section enjoying the instruments.
John decided to pick up a used guitar and start strumming:
John used to play a lot of instruments when he was younger (the guitar, the piano, and even the saxophone) and at one point was even in a band. I encouraged him to think about getting a used guitar in the future and start playing again.
After an afternoon of wandering around the downtown Boulder shopping areaPearl Street, we headed over to the Boulder Dushanbe Teahouse for dinner. This tea house was a gift from Boulder’s sister city in the Soviet Union, Dushanbe. Here is a snippet of the history from the teahouse’s website:
In 1987, during his first visit to Boulder, Mayor Maksud Ikramov announced that Dushanbe planned to present our city with a Teahouse to celebrate the establishment of sister city ties. From 1987 -1990, more than 40 artisans in several cities of Tajikistan created the decorative elements our Teahouse, including its hand-carved and hand-painted ceiling, tables, stools, columns, and exterior ceramic panels. Often these skills are handed down from generation to generation within families. Lado Shanidze served as chief architect. In Central Asia, teahouses serve as gathering places where friends meet to talk or play chess over a cup of tea. Many teahouses are traditionally decorated with Persian art, characterized by the use of motifs from nature – stellar, solar, and floral, by the repetition of patterns, by form over representation and pattern over detail, and by lavish decoration and color. Our Teahouse accurately reflects this artistic tradition that dates back nearly 2,000 years. The master woodcarvers, including Manon Khaidarov and Mirpulat Mirakhmatov who helped reassemble the Teahouse here, have carved their names in the ceiling. The artisans who have painted it have written their names on a green painted area above the entry to the kitchen. A message carved in the ceiling reads “artisans of ancient Khojand whose works are magical”.
Here are some photos I took while we visited the teahouse, but there are much better photos on the teahouse’s website.
They have an extensive tea menu, hundreds of teas are available. As an obsessive tea drinker, I enjoyed browsing their menu book of teas!
I ended up gong with one of the “teas of the day” which was a rose and lavender infusion. I had a lovely pot of tea along with our lovely meal. (And my pot of tea came with an little hourglass so that I would know when to put the infuser basket out of my tea pot!)
This teahouse reminded us of how many hidden gems (well at least hidden to us) there are in Colorado. We plan to spend the Spring and Summer exploring more of Colorado and finding more of those “hidden gems”.
After the teahouse we continued on our thrifting/thrift store adventures and stopped at the awesome Goodwill in Boulder. There John found an amazing deal – a metal craft beer sign to join his collection of craft beer signs in our basement bar area, for 75% off the retail price!
The sign was in pristine/brand new condition and still had a plastic protective sheet over it (which was removed for the photo above).
I found some amazing used books – several of which were recent publication hardbacks – for only $2 each!
This particular Goodwill was recommended to me by someone I’ve followed for a while on Instagram – @boulderthrifter. She was kind enough to give me thrift shop recommendations for our trip to Boulder.
BEFORE HEADING HOME
The next day we had another Independent Bookstore adventure, this time at The Bookworm – Boulder’s largest used books bookstore (after a delicious breakfast at The Buff, a Boulder breakfast top spot).
I knew The Bookworm was my kind of place because when you first walk in you are greeted by the bookstore dog!
After petting the dog for a while, I went on to browse their HUGE used book selection.
John and I had a wonderful browse in this bookstore.
Right before we headed back to the Denver Metro area, we stopped at a cool used art supply shop, Art Parts: Creative Reuse Center. I love art supply reuse centers! I’ve written about them in the past in posts such as Who Gives a Scrap?.
I had a fun browsing at this shop and left with some free art quilting magazines.
John and I decided to play tourist in our own state and spend a couple days last week in Boulder, Colorado (if you click on the linked “Boulder, Colorado” you’ll see a lovely little video giving you a feel for Boulder, Colorado from the bouldercoloradousa.com website).
I couldn’t help myself, it is early Spring and the landscape is still pretty stark around Colorado so I just had to take the photos in Black & White!
The Lodge has a cool two-level lounging area and they also serve craft beers and have a daily “Happy Hour”. The accommodations were decent although sparse, but you couldn’t beat the $70 a night price.
Excellent value for the money; and if you are really looking to save money, they also have like a $22 a night hostel (you share a room with others). There were lots of young outdoorsy adventure seeking type dudes staying there, I am sure they were enjoying the low rates for the hostel area.
John and I spent some time in the lower level of the Lodge, sipping craft beers and reading (John) and crocheting (me with my travel granny squares making project).
I loved this cool piece of art in the Lodge:
THE ADVENTURE BEGINS
So Boulder has a lot of independent bookstores and a lot of cool thrift shops, and visiting them was part of our plan while in Boulder!
We started our adventure with a trip to the downtown Boulder shopping areaPearl Streetand spent time wandering about the Boulder Book Store.
The bookstore was pretty amazing; and I could have spent a day there (but there was so much more to see in Boulder). The original building that houses the bookstore was built in 1899 and you can see the historical architecture throughout the building.
Here are a couple photos to give you a flavor of what it was like to wander about the bookstore:
I had my favorite (and now well worn) tote bag in tow; but I was well behaved and only filled it with one new book from the Boulder Book Store.
I also filled it with some new stickers for my water bottle, laptop and John’s tool chest (which he covers with stickers) as they had an amazing and reasonably priced sticker collection:
After the bookstore, we wandered around the Pearl Street shopping district and stumbled upon this very fun thrift/vintage shop –Heady Bauer. I was already having an awesome day so I appreciated the sign in front of their door: “Best Day Ever”:
When first entering the shop you see a huge wall display of crocheted blankets, including granny square blankets, mounted on the wall!
Seriously creative art and recycling!
I bought a used book there (I didn’t want the book from our first stop to be lonely!) – an original edition (complete with 1970s cover art) of one of my favorite science fiction books of all time: Rendezvous with Rama by Arthur C. Clarke.
It will be fun to re-read it in the version that it was originally published.
Oh we had a laugh when we stopped at the clothing store Free People to look around (I do like some of their clothes). Do you remember when I was endlessly working on drawstring bags? Well we came across a line of pants that to us looked like “drawstring bag pants”!
I feel like I could definitely learn to make those pants!
I’ll continue the rest of our Boulder adventures in my next post, and I want to close this post with some really cool embroidery art they had in the Free People store above their clothing displays: embroidered coffee and tea burlap sacks:
Thought I would share a quick update on the Colour Wheel quilt/wall hanging I am working on using a pattern from the book Quilt Color Workshop by T. Bruecher, B. Greenberg, L. Goldsworthy, and J. Adams (2014).
I labeled the image with the colorway name, I don’t have my actual design wall labeled.
Over the past couple of days I’ve ironed and trimmed the scraps to the size required by the pattern:
Then I made the strata for each colorway, cut into a wedge with a 30 degree ruler and put them backup on the design wall in order:
It is really cool in person, I am surprised how nice the color wheel layout looks!
Now to sew it all together, add a white center, and appliqué it to a background square.
I have two sets of trimmings (from each side of each strata to create the wedges) of each colorway and I am working out an idea of what to do with them.
Most likely I will use them for some type of inner border for the quilt. I laid them out on the design wall to hang out until I decide what to do with them.
I did not realize the scope of the project when I decided to do it…
This is a follow up to the post Color Sorting, in which I share my plans to make a Color Wheel out of fabric scraps like in the book Quilt Color Workshop by T. Bruecher, B. Greenberg, L. Goldsworthy, and J. Adams (2014), that I borrowed from the library.
I didn’t realize how ambitious this project would be when I decided to create the Color Wheel to use as a teaching resource when I teach an art quilting workshop in September 2024.
I’ve finally completed sorting 8 different scraps for each of 12 colorways to create the quilt, and it is all up on my design wall:
It took a long time to get to this point and it involved a lot of fabric scrap archeological digging through my fabric scrap collection!
I started with reds, purples and oranges using this box of scraps:
By the time I got to greens and blues, which I saved until the end, I was coughing from fabric scrap dust!
I feel like I really know the color wheel now after a couple days of working on this project. I feel like I’ve lived and breathed (literally) the color wheel in fabric!
If you are curious how the colors breakdown, or want a refresher, here you go:
PRIMARY COLORS
Red (R)
Yellow (Y)
Blue (B)
SECONDARY COLORS
Orange (O)
Green (G)
Violet/Purple (V)
TERTIARY COLORS
Red-Orange (RO)
Yellow-Orange (YO)
Yellow-Green (YG)
Blue-Green (BG)
Blue-Violet (BV)
Red-Violet (RV)
I’ve labeled them on my Design Wall image below:
Red-Orange, Yellow-Orange and Blue-Violet took me a long time to figure out. I thought I knew color but I did not know/understand Tertiary Colors as much as I thought I did.
It was a good, even if painful at times, exercise to complete.
Now I need to iron all those scraps, cut them to the size in the pattern, sew each set of the 12 sets of 8 strips together and use a 30 degree ruler to cut them into wedges.
The order you see the individual strips arranged in might change as I refine the order of the fabric strips for each of the 12 colorways.
I am hoping to eventually get the fabric scrap lint out of my lungs…
I was updating my tierneycreates Newspage (the latest information on my art quilting adventures) with this information and I thought I would also share it as a quick blog post.
I use color in art quilts intuitively: selecting “what feels right” for a piece. I am inspired by combinations found in nature, color combinations that I see in publications, and colors that I enjoy seeing together.
Below are a couple photos from my inspiration board in my studio:
I also have a palette that I love to use, an example is in my quilt below The Lesson & The Equation:
You can also see my palette repeated in this poster from first solo show in April 2019:
(It’s funny but it took a while for me to realize that I actually have a palette that I repeat!)
That being said, I have studied “color theory” in both formal art quilting classes as well as by reading many books. For example I love Joen Wolfrom’s book Color Play: Easy Steps to Imaginative Color in Quilts (2000), the first book I ever read on color theory.
In order to challenge and “break the rules” when creating innovative art quilts, first you have to understand the rules! Although it might be disinteresting to some of the students in my workshop, it is a foundation of artistic creation and one I should cover during my workshop.
I realized that if I am going to teach an art quilting class next year (see post A Year of Finishes: The Pivot) I need to brush up on color theory. I thought the best way to do this was to create a project I found in the book Quilt Color Workshop by T. Bruecher, B. Greenberg, L. Goldsworthy, and J. Adams (2014), that I borrowed from the library.
I am making the Colour Wheel Quilt on the front cover, which will serve as a class visual for my workshop as well as refresh my understanding of Primary, Secondary, and Tertiary Colors; and Pure Color, Tints, Tones, and Shades.
I have a lot of sorting to do to find the strips from my large collection of fabric scraps for the piece.
Currently I am sorting through my box of Reds, Purples, and Oranges to begin the project (I’ve organized many of my fabric scraps into wine crates that liquor stores have my kind enough to gift me or sell to me cheaply).
At first it was tedious, but then it became fun. It is a productive way to revisit my fabric scraps.
I am having fun mapping out the 6-day workshop I will give next year. I am planning to ship to the venue a large amount of my fabric scrap collection for the students to use if they like during the workshop. I am ready to move on from my crazy fabric scrap collection* and start digging into my crazy fat quarter collection (and create more scraps – ha!)
*75% of my fabric scrap collection is from fabric scraps others have given to me. So it is from others’ fabric choices. I am ready to primarily work from my fabric choices in the future…
Funny how you get sentimental over a sewing machine…
Last year I got my Bernina Aurora 440 QE (Quilter’s Edition) sewing machine serviced at a local Bernina dealer called Thread Play with Bernina. It just needed routine maintenance work and a “tune up”.
The awesome Bernina Service Technician told me when I picked it up after the service was complete, that I had sewn over SEVEN (7) MILLION STITCHES the machine!
Wow that is a lot of stitches!
I got really sentimental when I found that out as this Bernina sewing machine and I have been together since 2006, when I did a “24 months same as cash” financing to buy it. It was the most expensive sewing machine I ever imagined buying. But I’ve made so many things on the machine from utility quilts to art quilts; and lots of craft projects like bags, I definitely got my money’s worth!
I started quilting around 1999, while living in Seattle, WA, on a basic Singer sewing machine. A year or so later into quilting, I upgraded to a Husqvarna Viking sewing machine. I thought I had made it to the “big time” on that $300 machine!
As a beginner quilter I bought my fabric at discount stores like Joann Fabrics in Seattle. After a couple years of quilting and being influenced by other quilters, I began buying more expensive (and higher quality) quilting cotton fabrics from Quilt Shops.
By the time I moved to Bend, Oregon in 2005, I only bought fabric for quilt projects at Quilt Shops and one of those shops was Sew Many Quiltsin Bend, Oregon.
Sew Many Quilts is a Bernina Sewing Machine Dealer; and every time I shopped there I began to drool over the beautiful engineered (that Swiss engineering and all metal internal parts) Berninas they had on display. Too many conversations with the friendly staff led to the purchase of my first Bernina!
Fast forward to 2022: My original Bernina is over 16 year old and although I’ve faithfully maintained it (nearly annual maintenance/tune-up visits; and staying on top of routinely cleaning and oiling it myself after each major use), the technology and features of Berninas has significantly advanced.
And now I am drooling over the latest Bernina models…
In early 2022, John decides to buy me one of the latest Berninas – the Bernina 770 QE Plus:
It is an AMAZING sewing machine, light years in features and functions than my old Bernina 440 QE.
But it just sat around looking pretty on the table in my studio, yet not being used. Despite my amazing new sewing machine, I keep sewing on my old and beloved sewing machine with 7 million+ stitches on it!
Recently I made myself put away the Bernina 440 QE and start using my dream machine the Bernina 770 QE. I made myself “break up” with my “longtime sewing buddy” and give the new machine a chance.
As part of the A Year of Finishes – 2023project, I worked on quilting and adding the binding to a table runner I made from Batik fabric scraps (see post Update on Batik Scrappy Table Runner) for a friend which I promised a table runner many years ago.
I just did straight line quilting with a Walking Foot but the quilting was a breeze and so quick! It took half the time (or less) than it would have taken to quilt the table runner on my old Bernina.
I am now at the point where I am sewing down the binding so the table runner is nearly done and ready to ship off to my friend.
After she receives it I will share the full photo of the finished piece.
I hope my old Bernina is okay sitting around in its case not doing anything. Sigh, I love that machine so much but I need to be with more awesome technology now! My first Bernina sewing machine will always hold a place in my “sewing heart” and I am so grateful it got my through 7 million+ stitches!
(What I’ve left out from this story is how in 2021 I impulsively bought a used Juki sewing machine, but I’ll save that for another post once I figure out what I am going to do with the Juki. We ended up not getting along very well…)
Postscript
While I worked on the table runner, Mike the Miniature Schnauzer lounged under my studio cutting/work table.
He looked especially cute because he was snuggling with his favorite toy – Beary. Mike used to rip out the crotches of his toys (we do not know why) but he stopped a couple years ago. John and I thought the photo looks like Beary is looking gratefully at Mike because he still has his crotch – ha!
My art quilt, Langston Hughes: Pioneer Poet now exhibiting at the Booth Western Art Museum in Cartersville, Georgia (outside of Atlanta, GA) as part of the WCQN show Black Pioneers: Legacy in the American West
The show opened on January 28, 2023 and runs through May 21, 2023, and curated by Women of Color Quilting Network (WCQN) founder Dr. Carolyn Mazloomi. I was not able to attend the show opening due to my broken ankle and subsequent surgery. (I did attend the show’s first opening at The James Museum of Western & Wildlife Art in St. Petersburg, FL in January 2022 – Black Pioneers: Legacy in the American West show opening weekend, Part I )
On the Booth Museum’s website they have a 3D Tour of the exhibit:
Here are some screenshots which include my quilt:
I appreciated being able to virtually see the show/exhibit since I could not attend the show opening.
This is the second venue for this exhibit/show, there are two more venues to go:
Yes I am shamelessly counting each completed Project Drawstring Bag as a finish.
Before moving on to prepare for the art quilting class I am teaching next year, I finished another round of project bags which I will someday list on my Textiles & Smiles Etsy shop.
Recently I completed 11 bags in a sweet Marimekkofloral fabric for the top of the bag; and a lovely Moda Grunge fabric for the base:
I made them in sizes small to extra large and I might sell them in sets like this:
I love the two floral fabrics I used as linings that I found in my stash:
I still have fabric cut out and interfaced to make like 15+ more bags but I’ve put that all away for now!
Recently I blogged about “baby approved” (well multiple kids in one family used the same quilt, so perhaps I should say “parent approved”) quilt in the post AReminder on Why I Make Quilts; and Mike the Miniature Schnauzer discussed a “(multiple) dog approved” quilt in the postGuest Blog Post: Dog Approved.
Well, just to be fair, it’s time to share a “CAT APPROVED” quilt!
A couple weeks ago I sent my stepson Z a quilt I made in 2016 from fabric scraps using a “log jam”/improvisational log cabin piecing technique. Recently he sent me photos his rescue kitty Morticia enjoying the quilt!
I remember lingering around the quilt during the show, waiting to hear comments by attendees to the show (like a “quilt stalker”…I know it was pretty silly but I was so excited to have quilts hanging in the show).
This quilt has been sitting around in storage for a while and thought it would be happier if it was enjoyed in someone’s home (and by kitties is a bonus) instead of gathering dust.
This is Mike the Miniature Schnauzer guest blog posting for my female human, Tierney.
Getting ready to write something brilliant…
I want to use this post to encourage the crafters following this blog whether they are making blankets or quilts, that whatever warm and cozy item they make, make sure it is “DOG APPROVED”.
Don’t just focus on human comfort, also focus on canine comfort!
Here is a recent example of a “dog approved” quilt, actually multiple dogs approved.
Earlier this week, Tierney’s longtime friend MJ had surgery to her arm. (MJ, Tierney and their mutual friend J call themselves the “Surgery Sisters” since over the past several months each of them have had surgery to some body part. I think this is a poor choice for a hobby but humans are going to do what they are going to do…)
Here is a photo MJ sent Tierney of her recently operated body part:
Ouch! That looks painful. I might even give her some sympathy for that (especially if it would impair her from petting me if she was visiting).
Well Tierney, having recently had surgery herself on her left ankle (which she broke while being careless on ice while walking me), thought she would send MJ a nice surprise to snuggle under during her recovery; so Tierney sent MJ a quilt that Tierney made many years ago and MJ always liked.
Well MJ received the quilt in the mail the other day and sent Tierney this photo, reporting that the quilt was DOG APPROVED!
I mean if a quilt or blanket is not DOG APPROVED, why even have it?!?!?
The quilt has a nice flannel backing and so it will be great for dogs to snuggle in. Unfortunately Tierney did not think to photograph the quilt before sending it out the door to MJ (duh!).
MJ is one of the humans I am able to tolerate.
When we lived in Central Oregon before moving to Colorado, MJ and her husband would let me stay with them at their home when my humans went out of town. She even forgave me after a certain “crotch biting incident” when Tierney first adopted me and I had (behavioral as the humans call it) “issues”. See the post Taking Chances: The Mike Hogan Chronicles (re-post)for Tierney’s side of the story of when she first got me from the dog rescue organization…
Well all I know is that I am awesome now and the humans are lucky to have me in their lives!
Okay that’s what I wanted to share in my guest blog post. I now need to return to managing humans. Here I am keeping my male human calm during a thrilling movie we are watching.
After writing the series of posts about auditing my existing unfinished projects, releasing/donating some of those projects, and coming up with a plan to finish over half of the remaining projects in 2023; the Universe has surprised me and I have to suddenly pivot.
Seemingly out of the blue (but not really out of the blue), I received an invitation to teach a 5-day or 6-day art quilting workshop at an very awesome venue in 2024. It is a first-major-crafting-related-teaching opportunity absolute dream.
At this time I am not sharing where it is or what I will be teaching until my curriculum and program name is approved and my workshop appears in the venue’s catalogue. I will also share in the future the specifics of how this opportunity came to me.
But you all are welcome to attend my workshop which will be limited to ten (10) students. And it is in an awesome and kind of famous place in regards to crafting workshops. That’s all I got to say at this time (smile), more to come later in 2023 or early in 2024.
So my major pivot from working on those unfinished projects is that I need to work on class samples and my curriculum, etc. I do have an extensive training/teaching background but that is in the healthcare industry. This will be different than teaching health care professionals how to use software; or doing a new hire orientation – ha!
So that’s my news.
I am going to finish up one more set of those drawstring/project bags and quilting a gift table runner; but I put all the other unfinished projects away!
Yes, I am counting each individual drawstring/project bag as one finish…
So I finished 9 more drawstring/project bags recently as part of my A Year of Finishes – 2023 Project.
Five (5) rainbow fabric bags:
With either a coordinating floral or a yellow striped interior:
I also finished four (4) gray/copper knitting themed bags with gray flannel bottoms and trim:
I had this cool Moda fabric in my stash that I made the interior of the bags:
I am probably going to finish one more set of the drawstring/project bags and then stop. Recently an exciting opportunity for 2024 has come my way and I need to pivot on my priorities. More in a future post!
tierneycreates 