A couple weeks ago an amazing surprise came in the mail from my friend Dana – a quilt!

Not just any quilt, but a quilt I’ve been watching her make via her Instagram posts (@chambersdalix) for a couple months – the Nova Star Quilt pattern by Then Came June, using amazing fabrics from Rifle Paper Co.’s Primera Citrus Collection.

Here are some screen shot images from her Instagram posts while she participated in an online quilt-a-long (QAL) for this pattern:

All the lovely photography above is by @chambersdalix.

So for many weeks I’d been following this amazing quilt progress on Instagram and little did I know it would be coming to my house someday.

Dana mentioned she was sending me a surprise (I thought it might be fabric scraps from this quilt as I’d been drooling over it) so I knew I was getting a package, but I nearly fainted when it arrived.

Actually I teasingly accused Dana of “attempted murder” since I nearly fainted dead when I opened the box!

Dana also sent me a beautiful handmade card with the quilt!

I hung it in my home office/upstairs guest bedroom so I can look at it every day. Feeling very loved!

We stitch together quilts of meaning to keep us warm and safe, with whatever patches of beauty and utility we have on hand.
― Anne Lamott

A Crafter's Life, From the Archives

Valentines (re-post)

February 14, 2021February 22, 2021 tierneycreates: a fusion of textiles and smiles

Happy Valentine’s Day!

I thought in honor of this day, and how far my life has come in a couple of years, I would re-post this Valentine’s Day post from February 14, 2019. This post was also featured, at the end of February 2019, on author Marie Bostwick’s blog: Coping With Grief by Helping Others.

I am in my 8th year of blogging and I have a large catalogue of archived posts and going forward I am going to occasionally share from the archives.

Valentines

A little less than a week ago I began having quite a bit of anxiety over how I was going to face my first Valentine’s Day without my Valentine. In December 2018 my husband Terry suddenly passed away. I’ve been with Terry more than 1/2 my life and we’ve never been apart on Valentine’s Day.

I was anticipating a painful day on February 14th, completely stricken my grief, perhaps not even able to get out of bed.

In the middle of my anticipatory grieving anxiety, I suddenly realized that doing something for others might be the solution to dealing with Valentine’s Day.

For the past 5 weeks I’ve been in a difficult but awesome Spousal Loss Grief Support Group that meets weekly. It suddenly hit me that all the widows and widowers in the grief support group with me were facing the same dilemma of their first Valentine’s Day without their Valentines.

So why don’t I invite them all the be my Valentines?

And that is just what I did.

For My Valentines

For the men in my grief support group:

Terry’s favorite cookies were the Molasses Crinkle Cookies that I loved to make. I’ve done little cooking and no baking since he passed so it was a pretty big thing to open my cookbook and actually bake something.

I made a huge batch of these cookies and it felt good to bake again, so good that I actually experienced a sweet moment of joy as I assembled the ingredients.

I put the cookies in a basket and included little sandwich bags for them to take as many as they wanted home.

For the women in my grief support group:

I gave them each little wallets. If you are new to my blog here is a post about the little wallets I made a zillion of since I first became obsessed with them – “Little Wallet Madness” . If you are not new to my blog then you know all about little wallets and some of you own some of my little wallets you won in my blog anniversary drawings!

For the group facilitator:

I gave her a set of my little heart pillows, as she has been helping us heal our hearts.

I then made “Oregon Healing Hearts” valentines using my circle punch and heart punch from my card marking supplies with Oregon/outdoor themed colored papers:

People had the option of an “Oregon Healing Heart” with a dog in the middle of the heart (as I consider dogs healing) or a plain heart:

Here is the whole set up I surprised them with earlier this week at our weekly Spousal Loss Grief Support Group:

I think it went over pretty well. The facilitator let me present them at the start of our support group meeting.

The men were willing to share their cookies and both the men and women got to take home some cookies if they wanted. There was laughter, smiles and hugs despite the difficult topics we discussed at that support group session.

Feeling at Peace

Today is Valentine’s Day and I feel at peace. I think it is because I stepped outside of myself and my grief and thought of others for a moment.

Day and night wallowing in my grief was not working for me, even if everyone expected and supported it. I had to try something else. That’s where my grief group came in, my unexpected valentines.

Grieving is hard work, maybe the hardest work I’ve ever done. It’s definitely a hobby I don’t recommend for anybody. But, if you’re suddenly find yourself a member of the club that no one ever wants to join, find a grief group. Part of what I have learned from this experience is, don’t try to go it alone.

The purpose of life is not to be happy. It is to be useful, to be honorable, to be compassionate, to have it make some difference that you have lived and lived well.”
― Ralph Waldo Emerson

Feature Photo by Nicola Fioravanti on Unsplash

A Crafter Needs to Eat, A Crafter's Life, Bags Bags Bags, Books, Music, Podcasts

What I Did During My Blogging Vacation

February 11, 2021November 15, 2023 tierneycreates: a fusion of textiles and smiles

I’ve been on hiatus from blogging for a couple weeks to temporarily remove any “artificial” obligations in my life in order to have some time to “reset”.

Now feeling “reset”, I thought I would jump back into blogging with a little essay “primary/elementary” school style like the infamous “What I Did on My Summer Vacation“.

By the way I was not hanging out with the fabulous looking women at the beach during my hiatus, like those in the feature photo of this post (photo by Vitae London on Unsplash), I just thought it was a fun beach photo to use in the middle of semi-freezing winter in Denver!

Okay so now it is time to imagine me standing in front of our 4th grade class presenting this essay below (and perhaps my parents helped me make a slide deck for my images/photos)…

READING

Listening to audiobooks and turning the pages of actual physical books, I’ve done a lot of reading during the past several weeks.

I’ve finished the book City of Brass by S.A. Chakraborty, that I read for my virtual book club with a friend (see post Virtual Book Clubs):

Last Friday a friend and I had another card-making playdate like the one I shared in the post Card Making Playdate from last October and discussed City of Brass. In tomorrow’s post (why yes, I am going to now post frequently…hope you don’t grow tired of me) I will share what we made.

I recently finished the next book in our “Virtual Book Group” (but wait is it “virtual” if we are meeting in person, socially distancing of course, to discuss the book?) and it was quite the awesome page turner – The Guest List by Lucy Foley:

The Guest List — image credit – Publishers Weekly

It’s been a long time since I’ve read (actually I listened to the audiobook) the kind of book I absolutely could not put down. If you’d like to read a synopsis of the book – here is the link to the one on Publishers Weekly (no worries, there are no spoilers) – The Guest List.

Currently I am listening to an excellent (so far) Science Fiction/space novel – To Sleep Under a Sea of Stars by Christoper Paolini. I love it so much I’ve already bought the hard copy of the book as my library loan of the audiobook is about to expire and there are a zillion other library patrons waiting in line to listen to it next.

Image result for to sleep in a sea of stars — image credit – Paolini.net

It not just fiction books I’ve been inhaling, I’ve also read several new crafting books I picked up over the past couple of months.

I’ve been obsessed lately with making non-quilt items such as tote bags (see post Tote, Tote, Tote Bags) and pincushions (a future post); and love my new book by Ayumi Takahashi – Patchwork Please which features lots of fun things to make:

Patchwork Please!: Colorful Zakka Projects to Stitch and Give - Takahashi, Ayumi — image credit – amazon.com

I am sort of obsessed with “zakka” and Japanese author craft patterns. I love the aesthetics of their designs as well as the function. Here are many of the books in my home library collection of Japanese author craft patterns:

COOKING

For a while in the Denver metro area, our restaurants closed down again to inside dining during the pandemic. Finally they opened to 25% capacity and now I think they are starting to reopen to even 50% capacity (or perhaps I am hallucinating at this point as I have complete pandemic fatigue at this point).

While they were closed again, like in the early days of the pandemic, we tried to make fun meals at home and not get home cooking fatigue. Here are a couple photos of the delicious meals my partner John (a very good cook who used to actually cook professionally) and I made.

Delicious Irish Stew and Homemade Biscuits

Salmon Fried Rice

Nachos!

Pizza (with dough made from “scratch”)

Orzo Pasta Salad

Are you hungry yet?

One of my favorites that I could not locate easily locate a photo for was the handmade gnocchi with gorgonzola sauce and scallops that John made one night. I thought I was at a high-end restaurant!

Yes, I will not lie, I had packed on a couple “pandemic pounds” from all this good eating, but we do not eat like this every night. We do try and have salads for dinner a couple nights a week.

WALKING

To combat the effects of all those delicious home cooked meals, I’ve been going on a lot of very long walks. It is always a great way to listening to my audiobooks. Most of the times I take Mike my Miniature Schnauzer with me but many times I just go walking alone (then I do not have to stop for the “frequent signing in on bushes” that Mike loves to do on his walk).

Here are a couple Black & White images I took on a wintry walk, in which someone had left a found glove on a branch for its owner to hopefully someday find. I got a kick out of the “composition” in the stark landscape created by the glove.

If you enjoy B&W images, I do have a series of posts where I feature B&W images – Life in B&W.

In case you are wondering – either the glove blew away or was reunited with its partner by the owner as the next day it was gone.

REFLECTING

During my break from blogging, I spent a lot of time reflecting and trying to figure out my life. As many of you know, I am in my second year of widowhood caused by the very sudden and very expected death of my life partner, Terry the Quilting Husband (see post Remembering Terry the Quilting Husband (TTQH)).

I’d been with Terry since I was in my early 20s and I am now on a journey to “reinvent” myself in my middle years of life as “Tierney minus Terry”, after what seems like a lifetime of “Tierney +Terry”.

In previous posts, I’ve discussed re-opening my tierneycreates Etsy shop and my original plan when I took a hiatus from blogging was to start blogging again in about a month when I was ready to re-open my Etsy shop.

Over the past several months, I’ve made a lot of items in preparation to re-open the shop but still could not move forward with re-opening the shop. I was struggling to figure out what the big block was for me.

Then while looking at some old photos on my Google Photos account which I rarely use, I found an old image of the joint tierneycreates business card Terry and I had together when he was helping me with my Etsy shop. He was listed as a “Maker” on my Etsy shop as he helped me with many of the items I produced by cutting out patterns and doing preliminary sewing, especially on items like Miniature Kimonos, which were very popular on my shop.

I realized that my tierneycreates Etsy shop is just too closely tied to memories of crafting with Terry and I am just not ready.

Part of my “widowhood journey” is trying to figure out what to do with what is basically a lifetime’s worth of memories with someone who is now gone.

After losing your spouse you are expected to go on with your life but what do you do with all those memories (and mementos) of a life previously lived? I think that is the $64,000 Question which I have yet to answer for myself (I’ve done a lot of reading on grief and the answers of other people’s journey but I still have to find my own answer).

But I have figured out that unless it is something critical, not push myself to do anything I am not ready to do, even if it seems like a good thing to do (like re-opening my Etsy shop).

(The above images are of Terry, Sassy, who passed in Dec 2017 a year before Terry, and I vacationing in Cannon Beach, Oregon; and of Terry modeling a quilt he helped me make)

CRAFTING

There’s been a whole lot of crafting over the past couple of weeks. I’ve found a lot of peace in making things. I feel very lucky to be a “Maker”.

Many of the items I’ve shared on my tierneycreates Instagram account but many I have not. I am going to save a discussion of what I’ve been working on for future blogs posts but I will share that I’ve been making more tote bags like I discussed in the post Tote, Tote, Tote Bags.

Here are some of my latest tote bags:

I look forward to diving into more about what I’ve been making in my future posts!

WAKE UP, THE ESSAY IS FINALLY OVER!

So that concludes my essay and I can safely assume the whole class is asleep now at their desks!

Oh wait, I see the teacher is also asleep at their desk! Maybe I won’t get a “A” on this presentation…

Postscript

Just a quick follow up to my post Redesigning my logo. I decided not to change my logo at this time and just figure it out at a later date.

A Crafter Needs to Eat, A Crafter's Life

Not Your Traditional Thanksgiving

November 29, 2020June 22, 2022 tierneycreates: a fusion of textiles and smiles

This past Thursday was Thanksgiving in the U.S. and traditionally it’s a holiday where family and/or friends gather and share a large meal featuring TURKEY.

However in 2020, time of the global pandemic, ongoing traditions likely did not work, especially with all the current COVID restrictions in place around the U.S.

In our region for example we are on “Level Red” restrictions and we are not supposed to congregate with people outside our immediate household. So that means no having relatives over for Thanksgiving.

My partner John has a son, daughter in law, and darling granddaughter in the area, as well as much of his siblings and parents in the Denver Metro area where we live. We could not gather with them for Thanksgiving due to the current restrictions in place.

I was not really in the mood for two of us to make and share a traditional Thanksgiving turkey dinner so we came up with the idea of John asking his son what his wanted to eat on Thanksgiving and John making it (he loves to cook) and dropping it off at his house. We decided to do the same thing with John’s elderly father and his partner who have been fairly homebound during the pandemic.

And what did John’s son choose for Thanksgiving dinner? He chose – CHICKEN STRIPS and MACARONI AND CHEESE, one of his favorite meals that his dad makes! John’s dad was happy with the same menu also so we made up several batches of homemade “mac & cheese” and chicken strips.

John set them up for delivery and then did a door drop off to each household for their “Thanksgiving dinners”!

We also included some ranch dressing for dipping the chicken strips.

John and I had the same dinner ourselves when he returned from dropping off the meals (which got rave reviews).

In a strange pandemic-times-way we “shared” a meal with family outside our household for Thanksgiving.

Here is Mike the Miniature Schnauzer asking for a sampling as the meals got boxed up for delivery.

Postscript

Speaking of Thanksgiving and cooking, if you like podcasts, head over to my blogging buddy, Portland based author Tammie Painter’s wonderful The Book Owl Podcast for the latest episode – Cooking Up Something Good – all about the history of cookbooks! It was another fun and informative podcast!

A Crafter's Life

Morning Ride

November 25, 2020November 24, 2020 tierneycreates: a fusion of textiles and smiles

Good Morning from my side of the pond. I thought I would share some recent images from my partner John’s early morning bike rides like I did in the post Good Morning and The Library Stack.

If in addition to making me look lazy with all his recent woodshop crafting projects, he has also been showing me up on physical fitness activities during the pandemic. Several times a week at 5:00 am in the morning he goes on a 20 – 26+ mile (32 – 42 km) bike ride (even in the chilly Autumn mornings).

He usually catches great sunrises on his ride, especially at the reservoir near our house.

Here is John just returned from a morning ride (and I have just risen from bed to make my way to my 20 foot commute to my home office, ha!):

Postscript

Greetings from tierneycreates Beastie, she has not guest blogger posted in a while (Beastie Adventures). She might have a post in the future!

Well John is not early morning bike riding currently as it has snowed in the Denver Metro area.

Here is tierneycreates Beastie in her Autumn/Winter outfit all ready for the cold and snow:

Thanks so much to Helen @crawcraftsbeasties for making her a scarf to go with her hat.

The scarf matches the scarf I knitted to match my hat I shared in this post – Scarf finally done.

A Crafter Needs to Eat, A Crafter's Life

Hello Autumn!

October 20, 2020October 21, 2020 tierneycreates: a fusion of textiles and smiles

I’ve shared many of the photos below already on Instagram but I thought I would pull them together and share a quick post about Autumn, my favorite season.

Fall Scenery

Who doesn’t love the colors of Autumn and the changing leaves?

Not only the color of the leaves but the sounds of the leaves? Usually when I’m on a walk I have my earphones in and I am listening to an audiobook, a podcast or music. Yesterday I went on a little afternoon walk and actually just listened to the trees – their dry autumn leaves rustling in the wind. It was sort of glorious.

In addition to the trees/leaves, we’ve seen some beautiful skies at sunset – my partner John captured these photos.

Fall Cooking

The other day it dropped to 48 degrees F outside so was it’s cold enough for homemade chicken noodle soup with handmade noodles!

On Instagram I shared these two images below, implying I made the soup…

But I was only adding extra noodles to the soup – actually my partner John made the soup and the noodles.

But I did make an apple pie – a perfect Autumn desert!

I was super tasty and we had it for desert after our soup and garlic bread for supper.

Now it’s time to pull out the stew recipes as well as the soups I like to make recipes. Cooler weather means lots of cooking (and maybe some more baking).

Postscript

Oh I will close this post with what Mike the Miniature Schnauzer is up to – providing emotional support for more home remodeling projects (see his guest post Guest Blog Post: A Whole Lot of Remodeling Going On) by going on trips to home improvement stores.

Here is his photo from the other day when he went to pick up more supplies and it looks like he’s trying to give the humans some directions…

A Crafter's Life

The Earth’s Wisdom

October 9, 2020October 12, 2020 tierneycreates: a fusion of textiles and smiles

I found a profound piece of “wisdom” taped to the inside cover of an old journal and wanted to share it with you, in case you also find it inspiring.

I do not know who to credit for this as I had no additional information on where I clipped this from; and when I tried to google it no result came up. So my apologies to whomever wrote these wonderful words I’ve copied below…

We should study the earth’s wisdom…
– Unknown

Tree

Have strong foundation. It will nourish you and stabilize you when life storms come.
Reach high and keep growing. Shelter and nurture others.
Share your fruit freely.

Volcano

Let it go! Don’t hold your fiery spirit in.
Your passion will create paradise in time.

River

Keep moving or you will stagnate. You are more powerful than you know.
As you move through life, simply being yourself, you will nourish, refresh, and create incredible beauty.

Mountain

Photo by Mads Schmidt Rasmussen on Unsplash

Lift your consciousness to a higher level. Everything is different from that higher perspective.
Your path upward may seem rocky but it will be worthwhile.

Ocean

Even if storms come, know that they are just on the surface.
Sync your awareness into your own depths where there is always calm. Even if your depths seem dark, they are rich with life. you hold, so much more than you imagine.
You are part of so much more than you realize. You may think you are a small wave but you are an intrinsic part of a large ocean.

Rock

Be still. Conserve your energy.
You have existed for a long time and have soaked in wisdom like sunshine.
Your power is your being, not your doing.

Garden

Beauty comes from diversity.
Don’t be afraid of the fertilizer in your life. You can use it to grow.
There are friends buzzing all around to help you grow. You are not alone.
You are a gift, beautiful nourishing and soulful.

Moss

It’s OK to be soft and gentle.
Be yourself, soak in the waters of life, and you will be able to grow even in unlikely conditions.
Your essence is comfort.

Feature image credit: Photo by Casey Horner on Unsplash

A Crafter's Life

Why Worry Now

October 8, 2020October 8, 2020 tierneycreates: a fusion of textiles and smiles

I was thinking about a different post to write this post on my morning walk with Mike the Miniature Schnauzer.

The trees have turned and the weather has cooled down and there was a delicious Autumn cool quiet to my walk this morning.

I enjoy listening to either podcasts, audiobooks or music while I walk Mike. This morning I was listening to music and one of my all time favorite songs queued up on my playlist – Why Worry by Dire Straits from of one of my favorite albums of all time – Brothers in Arms.

In the back of mind lately, always swirling around, are thoughts of the craziness going on in the world. Listening to this song gave me pause.

So I decided to save the post I was going to write today for tomorrow and instead share this song with you and maybe it can give you a little pause too if you have a lot of “thought swirling” going on in your head…

Courtesy of YouTube

Baby, I see this world has made you sad
Some people can be bad
The things they do, the things they say

But baby, I’ll wipe away those bitter tears
I’ll chase away those restless fears
And turn your blue skies into gray

Why worry

There should be laughter after pain
There should be sunshine after rain
These things have always been the same
So why worry now
Why worry now

And if you’d like to see a lovely live version of the song in a Mark Knopfler duet with the exquisite Emmylou Harris, here you go…

Courtesy of YouTube

I thought my soul would float away from peacefulness listening to this…

By the way if you enjoyed this duet they have a brilliant album together that I highly recommend (it’s in my music collection) – All the Road Running.

A Crafter's Life

The Calendar That Wasn’t

August 18, 2020August 18, 2020 tierneycreates: a fusion of textiles and smiles

Toward the end of last year (2019), we bought a large erasable calendar for the laundry room to keep track of all the things we had planned.

We had so many thing planned from March 2020 through Summer 2020 that we needed a central and visible place to keep track of everything and to make plans.

On this calendar were the basketball games we had tickets to attend, special events for my partner’s work, two conference to attend – one in Nashville and one in Orlando, a trip to Scotland and Ireland with friends in July (and a possible side trip to Paris to meet up with my sister who would be in Europe at the same time), parties/special celebrations to attend, and so much more.

Then COVID happened, and the calendar just stopped.

All those things got erased from the erasable calendar. It somedays it feels like an entire lifestyle got erased overnight.

I think why I struggled with this is that I was so looking forward to late Winter, Spring and Summer 2020.

Late 2019 was very difficult dealing with the first anniversary of my husband’s passing and early 2020 was difficult with my “snow anxiety” (see the Postscript section of the post The Hat from the Yarn from the Journey). I had made it through some “dark days” and I was so looking forward to all the fun ahead documented on our calendar…

I might be sounding whiny at this point.

We are starting to add a little to our calendar now but I do not see it returning to its pre-pandemic state any time soon.

I am okay with this, I appreciate any fun outside the home we get to have these days!

Postscript

Mike the Miniature Schnauzer has been pretty happy the past 5 months with both of us working from home and not going on any trips until recently (like our long weekend to Rocky Mountain National Park).

Speaking of Mike, here is an image that either he forgot to share in his recent post – Guest Blog Post: A Whole Lot of Remodeling Going On; or the tierneycreates Beastie forgot to share in her recent post – Guest Blog Post: Mail Order Groom.

Yes it’s a photo of Mikelet (tierneycreates Beastie’s dog) and Mike, ready to go on their walks. I put a red arrow in the lower left hand corner of the photo above so you would not miss Mikelet who is a considerably smaller miniature Miniature Schnauzer!

(Yes these are the silly things we do to entertain ourselves these days…)

A Crafter's Life, Independent bookstores

A Friday Frolicking Adventure

May 13, 2020January 30, 2023 tierneycreates: a fusion of textiles and smiles

Before I dive into this post I’d like to ask you to revisit my previous post if you’d like to: Liebster Award Nomination. I decided not to make it a two part post (because originally I was falling asleep towards the end of writing it) and to just go back and edit the post and finish it up. You will see towards the bottom of the post a header: “Update 05/12/2020”; and under that header you will find “Eleven (11) Facts About Myself”, my nominations of 7 blogs and the corresponding questions I’ve posed for the nominees to answer. I did go ahead and notify the 7 nominees in the comment section of their blogs. So if you’d like to read the rest of my ramblings related to Anna at Homeschool Guru nominating me for a blogging award head on over there (smile).

And now onto the previous Friday’s frolicking adventure…

Indie Bookstore and Antique Shop Browsing!

I am off work on Fridays (I work Monday – Thursday) and my partner John and I decided to have a little adventure. We heard last week that the town of Castle Rock, Colorado was relaxing their business closure rules during the pandemic and would allow some businesses to open.

Masked and gloved we headed out to Castle Rock as we checked and their independent bookstore Sudden Fiction Books was open! It feels like its been eons since I’ve been able to wander through a bookstore or a public library so I was so excited to browse.

I love independent (indie) bookstores and I’ve blogged about them in the past – Independent Bookstores (wonderful & magical places). I try to support them whenever I can.

We had an exquisite browse at Sudden Fiction in downtown Castle Rock, which sells both new and used books and we left with quite the stack of new and used books (mainly science fiction). Here are photos from that visit.

2020-05-08_14-10-18_835 — In case you cannot read this through the hand sanitizer, it says: “Don’t make us move all our post-apocalyptic fiction to the non-fiction. Wash your hands.”

Here is my partner John all masked and gloved while browsing.

I had a lovely chat with the shopkeeper while maintaining social distancing and trying to talk through our masks. We occasionally we did have to repeat ourselves as some words do not enunciate very clearly through a mask!

On our way out of the bookstore we noticed there we other shops open in downtown Castle Rock to include an antique shop!

The only shopping I’ve done in the past couple of months was at grocery stores or “box stores” (Costco, Target, Home Depot) and what a pleasure it was to actually wander/browse through an independent retail shop.

Here are photos from our inside and outside wander (they have an outdoor garden kitsch section) at The Barn in downtown Castle Rock. We bought some new yard art there to support the business.

In the garden section out back I was particularly fascinated by their huge collection of large rusted letters. We photographed them in both color and black & white.

But alas, I could not figure out why I needed them so we did not leave the shop with any large letters!

We also ate lunch in Castle Rock at a new place called Cuba Cuba. We were allowed to walk in and order at the bar (maintaining social distance of course) and then we had to wait outside on the patio for our food. Inside the restaurant was lovely and we look forward to the day we can go inside and dine (or even sit outside on their nice patio and dine). But we happily ate our Cuban sandwiches in the car.

All the things I used to kind of take for granted pre-pandemic. What a treat it was to be able to browse in downtown Castle Rock on Friday!

Postscript

Speaking of Castle Rock, we were excited that Castle Rock had loosened some restrictions but unfortunately not all Castle Rock business behaved as the Colorado governor had mandated when the restrictions were loosened as you will see in this online news article:

Governor Suspends Castle Rock Restaurant’s License After Mother’s Day Opening Goes Viral

A Crafter's Life

The Positive People (Surprise Gift)

April 29, 2020 tierneycreates: a fusion of textiles and smiles

The other day I was surprised in the mail by a wonderful gift from a blogging buddy, Claudia McGill!

The three clay figures measure approximately 3.5″ each and each had a positive message inside (be happy, be well, be safe):

I have apt named this trio “The Positive People“.

I regularly follow Claudia’s blogs Claudia McGill and Her Art World and Claudia McGill Writes Poetry, Did You Know That?. She’s one of those artists, that after reading her musings or seeing her prolific art of many mediums (clay, painting, inks, etc.), you begin to feel like you’ve been rather lazy!

Seeing her work and her color palettes always inspires my creativity.

I’ve also started to follow her third blog (yes, like I said above, she can make you feel like you’ve been quite lazy – ha!) Sometimes You Get So Confused, which talks about her art drop offs in public places and her musings as she navigates life.

I’ve given the three clay figures, The Positive People, she generously gifted me, a special place in my tierneycreates studio!

Feeling pretty lucky to continue to meet so many awesome people in the “blogosphere”!

Postscript

I shared in the post Paved Trail Inspirations, that people (likely kids/families) were writing positive messages in sidewalk chalk in the paved trails near my house which I walk everyday. Well, I like to vary my walks to include walking in neighborhoods, and during these walks I am now finding inspirational painted stones, likely done by kids, tucked here and there in neighborhood sidewalks.

These are unusual and challenging times and I love that people (real life “Positive People”) are trying to reach out to each other with encouragement!

A Crafter's Life, tierneycreates

Home Gallery

April 21, 2020 tierneycreates: a fusion of textiles and smiles

I am taking a break from posting about the natural geologic beauty of Colorado like I did in my previous two posts. Instead I have a sort of follow up to my 04/16/2020 post Solo Show Seattle Municipal Tower (re-post).

My first solo show at the Seattle Municipal Tower (sponsored by the City of Seattle’s Office of Arts and Culture) ended in July 2019, and I’d already moved to Colorado. The City of Seattle ended up purchasing 3 of the quilts from the show for their permanent collection; and private collectors purchased 2 more, so that left 7 quilts (or 6 I forget) to be returned to me.

Thanks to my friends Colleen, Donna and Judy, the quilts were held for me until I attended a quilt retreat in Washington state in November 2019.

I noticed when I picked up the quilts that had not sold, the City of Seattle had also included all the placards from the show! Below is an example of one of those placards created by the City of Seattle’s gallery curator and his team:

I was not sure as to what to do with these placards, but after moving back into our current house (after due to the COVID related financial crisis we decided not to buy a new house), I decided to create a gallery in my house with the remaining art quilts and their placards.

The gallery is scattered about the house upstairs and downstairs; and is found in hallways as well as bedrooms.

I also mounted on the wall of my studio the placards for the quilts that sold as well as the main poster for the show.

I am not sure how long I will leave the placards up along side the remaining art quilts, but for now I find it entertaining. I guess when you are stuck at home during the COVID times you have to discover new ways to entertain yourself!

Postscript

Speaking of entertaining oneself, I’ve been thinking about the instruction/suggestion below that I discovered on a morning walk as sidewalk/walking path art (see post Paved Trail Inspirations):

Social isolation is the standard now in the “time of COVID” (how I refer to these times), and my partner John and I have been trying to be creative with finding simple ways to entertain ourselves (besides exhaustive online television network watching).

One of the things we do a couple times of week is having “walking cocktail hour” when we take Mike our miniature schnauzer for a walk in the evening. We load our portable tumblers with our cocktails – a microbrew for me, an Old Fashioned for him, and head out on our dog walk!

And no one knows what is our tumblers…(smile)

I always wonder what pets are thinking about the COVID times and the humans always being around. I already telecommuted full-time and now my partner is also telecommuting, so we are always home together. Here is Mike trying to make the best of us both working on our laptops and fitting in a snuggle with the humans…

A Crafter's Life

Home Office Tips and Tour

April 10, 2020April 15, 2020 tierneycreates: a fusion of textiles and smiles

Some of you might now be working from home for the first time during the COVID times. I’ve been working from home (or telecommuting as my employer calls it) for over 14 years.

Instead of “telecommuting tips”, I thought I would share some home office tips and a little tour of my home office.

Home Office Tips

Make it cozy and comfortable
Try to make it feel like a separate space from the rest of your home
Don’t stay in there all day! Stand up every 1/2 hour from your desk and at least every couple of hours leave the room to take a little break.
Have a TV or music in the room or listen to podcasts or something – you can simulate having background noise like you would at work
Let your pet (cat, dog, iguana, porcupine, etc.) hang in the room with you and have a cozy spot for them

Tierney’s Home Office Tour

My home office is shared with the upstairs guest room and I’ve decorated it with my favorite schnauzer/dog themed art, some quilts and some tchotchkes!

It makes me smile to work in the room (and during a really boring conference call, I can lie on the bed and listen to it…)

Oh – if you’d like to see close up photos and read more about the flags about the guest bed, here is a post I did in May 2017 on these flags –The Flags Outside My Window

I’ve also turned the closet of the guest room/office into a multipurpose closet with 1/2 of the closet for off season clothes storage (and a place for guests to hang their clothes); and non-sewing craft storage.

I had a mismatched collection of baskets I’ve collected over the years and I used them in an old storage shelf/bookcase (that fit perfectly in 1/2 the closet) to store my paper crafting, jewelry making and miscellaneous craft supplies. I am pleased with the re-purposing.

It is a fun room to work in. It might seem a little busy and overstimulating to some people but it works for me. Create a space that works for you!

Who knows how long you will be working from home during these times, so my suggestion is to make it a fun and stimulating place to work!

One more thing to add – I am very grateful to my employer for really supporting their workforce as most of the company transitions to telecommuting. We have increased video conferencing meetings; wonderful updates from leadership team via video; as well as frequent webinars on taking care of yourself as a remote worker and managing stress during these uncertain times.

Postscript

So what is this craziness in the image below??!?!

Well you will find out in my next post…

A Crafter's Life

Perspective

April 1, 2020April 1, 2020 tierneycreates: a fusion of textiles and smiles

The dictionary site merriam-webster.com has a fantastic definition of the word Perspective:

the capacity to view things in their true relations or relative importance

This is the perfect description of what I’ve attempted to do when my partner and I had to make the difficult decision last week to back out of our new house we were having built. So we cancelled the purchase just a couple weeks before closing.

The house was nearly complete and was quite lovely:

But due to the current financial crisis (and the hit we took in the stock market, etc.) and the global pandemic/its related uncertainty, it did not feel like the right time to buy the new house or to move, so we decided to stay where we are at for a couple more years.

So we’ve spent the past 5 days unpacking our boxes/containers and settling back into life at our house.

I was sad for a brief moment (just a couple tears, not an “ugly cry” or anything) of not getting the new house, but then here is where “perspective” really came in:

We already live in a nice neighborhood with neighbors we know and plenty of green spaces to walk about in (while keeping social distancing)
We are both employed and are doing great telecommuting together
We are both healthy and feel safe
Our current home is comfortable and we had fixed up/repaired anything needing repairing before we put it on the market (we took if off the market last week of course)
Mike the miniature schnauzer loves his current home

Keeping “perspective” we realized that the bulleted items above are way more important than getting a brand new house.

In addition to unpacking over the past 5 days, we’ve been re-imaging how our home is decorated and reconfiguring layouts in various rooms. It has been a really fun way to spend our time (when not working at our jobs) when we have been housebound due to the statewide “stay at home” order.

One the big things I did was to unpack my sewing/crafting studio and reconfigure it!

Here is my studio in progress:

In my next post I will show you my unpacked and reconfigured studio (or perhaps I’ll have a guest blogger, the tierneycreates Beastie, give you a tour!). My partner built me a new design wall for it!

Postscript

In the suburban section of the Denver metro area in which I live, we are allowed to go outside for exercise during the “stay at home” order. Behind our home are walking trails and we can see families walking or bike riding through the day together. More than I’ve ever seen prior to the pandemic.

I think this pandemic is unbelievably horrible and I am sorry for all the lives and livelihoods lost. If there could be any silver linings in these dark days I think it would be how we seemed to have paused from our busy lives and perhaps shifted our perspectives to what really is important. It seems like many families are spending so much more time together and making the best of it.

Today during a virtual/video conference call work meeting, our department leader asked what is the first thing we plan to do when the pandemic is over. Most people said go visit a family member or friend we had not seen in person and give them a big hug.

I’ll close this post with an image of the sidewalk art (by some of the kind hearted people of the Denver area) I discovered as I walked my dog the other day.

Remember this always:

Feature Photo by Nathan Dumlao on Unsplash

A Crafter's Life, tierneytravels

The Relaxation Vacation Experiment

March 23, 2020August 18, 2021 tierneycreates: a fusion of textiles and smiles

I began this post a couple of days ago and then got really blue about what is going on in Italy and other parts of the world, not to mention my own country. But I think we need to carry on with “regular life” as much as we can (while we socially isolate and for some while we “shelter-in-place”), so I pulled myself out of my blueness and I am finishing up this post that might seem a little frivolous at this point but…

Remember mid-February? Remember when you had access to all the toilet paper you needed (or could possibly dream of) and terms such as “social distancing” were not part of your vocabulary/life?

Well let’s take a brief break from our global pandemic in this post and let me share my semi-failed experiment in my first planned “complete relaxation vacation” (but if I could go back in time, knowing what I know now, I would not have failed at the relaxation vacation experiment!)

Cabo San Lucas, February 2020

As mentioned in my previous post, Cabo San Lucas in Black and White, my partner John and I took a (nearly) week’s vacation in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico.

You might look at these photos and think: “Wow, what a vacation/holiday in paradise”. This is what normal people would think. However for John and I it was a “Relaxation Vacation Experiment”.

And we may have failed at this experiment…

John is a widower and as many of you know I am a widow. Our former spouses were both the type who liked to do “Always Busy/Scheduled Activities/See As Much As You Can” vacations.

I was with Terry the Quilting Husband since I was 20 years old (nearly my entire adult life) and every vacation we went on was filled with endless sightseeing and other busy activities. I am not complaining we had some wonderful vacations and I got to visit some major historical sights and battlegrounds in the U.S. and Europe (Terry was a Military History buff) on our trips as well as fun and playful vacations like Disneyland, etc.

John’s previous life was the same – his vacations were filled with trying to do as much sightseeing as possible during the vacation time allotted.

So he and I came up with the idea that for the first time in our lives, we should go on a vacation in which we do something crazy…RELAX!

In our minds, we would enjoy our first completely relaxing, have nothing scheduled, lie around on the beach and read books, vacation.

John’s sister has a lovely condo in Cabo San Lucas and so we thought that would be a perfect (and not too expensive) way to have a mid-Winter relaxing vacation in a warm and tropical place!

Things started out promising – we managed to goof off a couple hours wandering and sitting around the beach and reading books on our first afternoon in town.

We even invented the “Shoe Coaster” (patent pending) for our special beverages on the beach!

Unfortunately we grew a little bored of just hanging out on the beach after a while.

There were lots of wonderful restaurants on the beach so we tried just hanging out for long stretches “relaxing” at restaurants on the beach. Here I am on the way to the beach or a restaurant on the beach, preparing for some more “relaxation”:

The truth is, after just a couple days of this “relaxation” stuff, we were bored out of our minds.

Yes we did do some sightseeing in the main area of Cabo San Lucas but everywhere you walked someone was trying to sell you something and after a while I just felt like a “dollar” walking around for vendors trying to get.

We did one afternoon however have a lovely lunch at the marina area of Cabo and we did have brief sweet moments of “total relaxation”.

But like the creature in the image above, after a couple of days we decided all this relaxation vacation stuff was “for the birds” and not for us!

After an awkward discussion where we finally both admitted (previous we were each secretly thinking it without telling the other) we were absolutely bored out of our minds with all this relaxation (we had even tried just staying the condo and binge watching a Netflix show when we’d had enough of the beach, etc.) – we decided to change our flight and come home early from vacation.

Are you shaking your heads in disbelief at this point?

(To be honest, now, with what is going on in the world, I too am shaking my head – I wish I had stayed longer in Cabo and embraced relaxation…)

We both accepted we had “failed” at the “Relaxation Vacation Experiment”.

Actually we did not fail, we learned.

We learned that we like to more active vacations in places where there are lots of museums and historic sights to see. We are not the “lie on the beach and relax” kind of vacation people.

And that is okay (smile).

Postscript

The day before we were scheduled to return home early our enthusiasm returned and we decided to fill our last full day in Cabo having a less traditional experience: we decided to go “Farm-to-Table” restaurant hopping. I guess there is a big farm-to-table movement in Cabo and we thought it would be fun to explore.

Luckily we had a car during our trip so we drove to a remote area for our first Mexican farm-to-table experience. The road to this farm, Los Tamarindos, was a quite bumpy (unpaved) and a little scary (in the middle of nowhere) but it was so worth the drive. We had an amazing meal and experience and here are a couple photos:

The food was not just fresh and amazing, it was sort of a spiritual experience!

After our first farm-to-table experience in Mexico, we were hooked and headed to the next farm, Flora Farms, where we did not sit for a formal meal but wandered around and amazing cocktails and the most delicious ice cream cone in my life!

This trip and these photos seems like another lifetime, like another world.

Hoping you all stay safe in the reality of our current world. Hang in there.

Love,

Tierney and John

A Crafter's Life, Life in B&W, Outside Adventures!, tierneytravels

California Quilting Sisters Adventures, Part II

February 21, 2020August 18, 2021 tierneycreates: a fusion of textiles and smiles

This post is a continuation of my previous post California Quilting Sisters Adventures, Part I.

Northern California is a beautiful part of the U.S. While visiting my Quilting Sisters Kathy and Lisa in the Sacramento area in April 2019 I got to appreciate some of the beauty of Northern CA.

I stayed with my friend Kathy, her husband Matt and her awesome new Chocolate Labrador puppy, Riley. They have incredible wooded areas on their property and just hanging out at their home I got a taste of the beauty of Northern CA.

One morning, I watched three wild male turkeys trying to court a female turkey right off their back patio:

I put an arrow where the female turkey was and she did not seem very interested in any of them (she kept wandering away) while they took turns (or simultaneously) displaying their plumages!

Kathy took me on a day trip to South Yuma River State Park and it was amazing! I will let the rest of this post serve as a photo essay as I show you some of the images from our visit to this stunning state park.

Next post (which is the final one in this series of posts) I will share photos and stories from our Quilt Shop Hopping in Northern California!

Postscript

I am also sneaking into this post a continuation on my series of posts Life in B&W, in which I pretend I am a photographer showing you the stark beauty of Black and White photography.

Here are a couple of the images I took during the day trip in B&W for your enjoyment (or you can roll your eyes, ha!).

Oh yes there we a lot more, but I figure four images is enough to expose you to 🙂

A Crafter's Life, Special Events, tierneytravels

California Quilting Sisters Adventures, Part I

February 17, 2020November 15, 2023 tierneycreates: a fusion of textiles and smiles

Currently I am on “holiday”, as my friends on the other side of the pond would call it. I am taking a lovely break from the snowstorms and biting cold of the Denver Metro area and relaxing in paradise. I’ll share a future post about my current adventures, however, as promised in a previous post, I want to catch up on some of my 2019 adventures I did not blog about.

For those of you just joining us, in December 2018 I suddenly and unexpectedly loss my best friend and husband of many years, Terry the Quilting Husband, and became a widow. So the 2018 holiday season and winter 2019 were a very dark and sad time in my life.

Thank goodness for my wonderful family and friends, who were an amazing support system during very dark days.

Also thank goodness for my (surprising to many) plans to leave Central Oregon and move to the Denver, Colorado metropolitan area (see series of posts Colorado Bound) as it gave me something else to focus on besides my all encompassing grief over the loss of my life parter.

One of the wonderful things my friends did to distract me from my loneliness and grief was to invite me to visit them and I shared the first fun trip I went on in 2019 in the post Fabric Fangirl Frenzy with my Quilting Sisters Judy and Dana (for the backstory on my Quilting Sisters see the posts Quilting Sisters I, and II).

The next trip I took was in March 2019 to tour apartment in the Denver metro area.

In April I visited with my my Quilting Sisters Kathy and Lisa who live in the Sacramento, California area and this next several posts are about that wonderful visit!

2019-04-03_20-55-24_350 — Snuggling with the Quilting Sisters Kathy and Lisa

It’s All About the Puppy

I stayed with my Quilting Sister Kathy and her husband Matt. They had just adopted a Chocolate Labrador puppy named Riley.

I love dogs, and I absolutely LOVE PUPPIES, and I fell in love quickly with Riley (so much so that by the end of trip the officially made me Riley’s “dog godmother”).

I spent a lot of the weekend cuddling with Riley (good therapy). She was a puppy of course and very active and crazy by nature but I set up a system of “Swaddling” her in a towel the evening to relax her and give us a break from her crazy puppy energy.

Kathy, Matt, Riley and I went to a local brewery and had a wonderful time with the pup! Here are some photos from our brewery time (and the brewery staff was very patient and accommodating when the pup had an “accident”).

More Pups and even a Cat

My Quilting Sister Lisa is a brilliant Veterinarian as well as the owner of Supreme Point Kennels – she shows and breeds Wirehaired Pointing Griffons.

Kathy took me over to Lisa’s home for a visit (and before we headed out on a Quilt Shop Hop Adventure which I will share in another post in this series) and I got to visit with the herd at her house which includes several gorgeous Wirehaired Pointing Griffons, a Giant Schnauzer, several rescued dogs and a cat.

I was in furry creature heaven at Lisa’s home! There was a lot of petting and snuggling going on! I really got a kick out of the cat who just thought he was another one of the dogs and was very comfortable with the large dogs and being part of “the herd”.

Lisa was working on an awesome Griffon themed quilt from a class she took on portrait quilts:

Human Snuggling

As I mentioned earlier in this post, during the most difficult time in my life, I was so supported (and still supported) by a wonderful network for family and friends.

During my visit to the Sacramento, CA area I got some time to be “loved on” and snuggled by my California Quilting Sisters which was very nurturing and healing.

Here we are snuggling on the sofa at Kathy’s house (I took a break from snuggling with Riley the pup to do human snuggling instead – ha!):

And here I am feeling all warm and cozy, sipping a Jameson Irish Whiskey that Kathy’s husband Matt poured for me, while knitting (working on the hat I discussed in this post The Ball of Yarn (which eventually became a hat)), sitting under one of Kathy’s handmade quilts, and watching baseball with my Quilting Sisters.

And for a beautiful moment in the midst of my grief, I felt at peace and quite loved.

A Crafter's Life

Musings on Self-Improvement

February 11, 2020November 15, 2023 tierneycreates: a fusion of textiles and smiles

I have a whole category on my blog called Audiobooks and Podcasts. Many of these posts have to do with the latest “self-improvement” genre audiobook I’ve read. Most of these audiobooks I’ve borrowed from local libraries via their Overdrive or Hoopla apps.

If you’ve followed my blog for a while you’ve likely endured many reviews on various non-fiction “self-improvement” books I’ve listened to and occasionally read hardcover.

Recently another reserved “self-improvement” audiobook became available for download, The 5 AM Club: Own Your Morning, Elevate Your Life by Robin Sharma, and in the midst of listening to the book, I turned it off and exclaimed: “Enough of this #$%&, I am tired of ‘self-improving’!”

As I was sharing in a recent conversation with my friends, I am completed burned out on listening/reading anything that has to do with “self-improvement”.

I’ve read a jillion (this number is way bigger than the imaginary number a zillion, ha!) self-improvement books, gained plenty of insight and attempted to live the best life possible but that did not stop awful things happening like my spouse suddenly passing away in December 2018 (yes, yes I know that you cannot read self-improvement books to protect yourself from bad things happening, but I guess in the back of my delusional mind I thought I was safe from major disaster as I was always trying to be the best person possible..).

I admit that some of the “self-improvement” type genre books such as Sheryl Sandberg’s Option B: Facing Adversity, Building Resilience, and Finding Joy (see post New Library Stack and Option B) helped me tremendously on my grief journey. And I am sure there are some other books out there that could help me, but I am just too burned out on the genre to read anymore right now (or anytime in the near future).

I am so done with “self improving” for now.

Now it’s time to find some good yummy fiction to listen to or read!

Postscript

The irony of this recent decision is the moment I said “enough with the self-improvement” genre, every audiobook I had on reserve at my local library became available. So I actually have in my current online library account the following “self-improvement” books I can now borrow/download for 21 days:

The Self-Love Experiment by Shannon Kaiser
Everything is F*cked: A Book About Hope by Mark Manson (okay he did write a really awesome self help book I listened to a while ago: The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck: A Counterintuitive Approach to Living a Good Life, and it helped me “chill” on a lot of things)
Meta Human by Deepak Chopra
Good Habits, Bad Habits by Wendy Wood
The Third Door by Alex Banayan

It is sort of the like the “self-improvement” genre was having a major go at me as I was trying to give it up by sending me everything I had reserved at once.

Nope, returned them all!

(I wonder if now I will become a terrible and grouchy person since I’ve stopped “self-improving”…)

A Crafter's Life

“Human Storage” and Airport Lore

December 31, 2019January 3, 2020 tierneycreates: a fusion of textiles and smiles

A little humor and lore to close out 2019…

Human Storage

For four years (2013 – 2017) until her passing in December 2017, I helped manage the blog for my miniature schnauzer Sassy, the Highly Opinionated Miniature Schnauzer – SCHNAUZER SNIPS: MUSINGS FROM A HIGHLY OPINIONATED MINIATURE SCHNAUZER.

In February 2017 Sassy posted about Human Storage– how humans are always getting dropped off at this place called “the airport” where they appear to be stored for a period of time and then get picked up.

t-h-chia-PEGEebZZPtQ-unsplash — Photo by T.H. Chia on Unsplash

Keep in mind she viewed life from a dog’s perspective!

I’ve traveled a lot in 2019, likely the most I’ve ever traveled in my life.

For my trips to the airport in 2019 while I lived in Central Oregon (January to April) and then after I moved to the greater Denver metro area (April), I’ve tried to have Mike my miniature schnauzer be in the car taking me to the airport and picking me up.

Mike wonders why humans do not just stay at home and relax instead of going into storage

Mike seems to understand when I am going into “human storage” and when I am being retrieved! It appears to lessen his anxiety when I am missing from his home for a couple days to a week – he knows I am just in storage!

Airport Lore

Speaking of airports, I did not know about this until I moved to Denver, but the Denver International Airport (DIA) has quite a bit of lore about it.

westinHeader1 — Photo credit: flydenver.com

This lore includes conspiracy theories such as that it contains secret underground bunkers.

You can read a summary of some of the common theories on this page – “5 Conspiracy Theories Surrounding the Denver Airport” on mental floss.com.

Some of the biggest DIA lore surrounds the airport “mascot” and the strange murals around the airport. Here is an excerpt from mental floss.com:

Conspiracy theories aside, it’s hard to deny the weirdness of DIA’s unofficial mascot—a massive horse statue called “Blue Mustang” that has already killed at least one man. At 32 feet tall and 9000 pounds (it’s made out of fiberglass), “Blue Mustang” is huge and imposing, and its glowing red eyes don’t help matters. This thing is giant and really scary—and it killed the man who made it. Really. Artist Luis Jimenez died in 2006 when a piece of the sculpture’s head broke off and severed an artery in his leg.

Leo Tanguma’s two murals, which take up wide swathes of wallspace in DIA’s baggage claim, might have some nice names—they are called “Children of the World Dream of Peace” and “In Peace and Harmony with Nature,” respectively—but their actual content is terrifying. Death-masked soldiers stalk children with guns, animals are dead and kept under glass, and the entire world looks to have been destroyed. As if being at the airport isn’t bad enough.

I’ve spent a lot of time at DIA since moving to the Denver area in April 2019 and so far it just seems like a large airport, nothing creepy. I’ve seen a couple of the controversial murals in person and they just seem odd and like they were created by someone on a LSD trip!

DIA has been under going a remodel and the airport leadership appears to have a sense of humor about the conspiracy theories familiar to locals.

You can’t say people in Denver do not have a sense of humor!

Postscript

For some of my readers it is already 2020! For me in Colorado, 2020 is about to shortly begin.

I’ve already begun formulating my 2020 resolutions and look forward to reading some of yours. I have a lot of sewing (and more traveling/human storage at the airport) planned and looking forward to sharing my adventures with you.

Happy New Year!

jamie-street--d6kTMGXV6E-unsplash — Photo by Jamie Street on Unsplash

Feature image: Photo by Ruchindra Gunasekara on Unsplash

A Crafter's Life, Special Events

Bucket List Delight!

December 28, 2019December 28, 2019 tierneycreates: a fusion of textiles and smiles

2019 was a year filled with some major lows but also some MAJOR HIGHS (the Universe tried to keep itself in balance?).

These highs included being invited by the City of Seattle’s Office of Arts and Culture for my first solo art show (see posts Solo Show Seattle Municipal Tower, Part I, Solo Show Seattle Municipal Tower, Part II, and Solo Show Seattle Municipal Tower, Part III); moving to Colorado (see series of posts Colorado Bound); and meeting my partner John (see post Morning Walk in Black and White).

However one of the “awesome-nest” highs of 2019 involved achieving one of my “bucket list” items – seeing President Barack Obama speak in person.

I’ll share the story of how it happened in a moment, but this was the second opportunity I was lucky enough to experience seeing a U.S. President in person. The first U.S. President I saw speak in person was in May 2018 – 43rd President George Bush, Jr (see post A Presidential Artistic Journey (Re-post)) and that was very awesome.

However seeing President Obama (44th U.S. President) speak in person was something very high on my “bucket list”.

Greenbuild Conference 2019

I have two very awesome siblings, they are two of my best friends on this planet – a brother Raoul and a sister Rianna (by the way, I am writing this post from the Denver International Airport as I get ready to fly to Las Vegas for the weekend to meet up with my brother and his family).

My sister Rianna, earlier in 2019, finished her Masters in Business Administration (MBA) with a focus on Project Management (the same MBA I have from the same university) and got her dream job as a Construction Project Manager for a University she was already working, but this time with their contractor Project Management company. (I was so impressed she finished her MBA in record time while working full time and being a busy Mom!).

She is working on her LEED green building certification and her new employer approved for her to attend the Greenbuild International Conference in Atlanta, Georgia November 19 – 22, 2019. She was very excited to be approved for this opportunity but she was in shock when she discovered that the keynote speaker was President Barack Obama!!!

For an extra fee, you could bring a guest with you to the keynote as well as some limited events at the conference. So for my early Christmas present, my sister got me a ticket to the keynote which was actually titled “A Conversation with President Barack Obama“.

There was a crazy extremely long line to get seated for the keynote, luckily we showed up early. Here we are waiting on line in major anticipation of seeing/hearing in person one of the people we most admire:

The keynote was actually an interview of President Obama by U.S. Green Building Council’s president and CEO, Mahesh Ramanujam. The focus on the discussion/interview was on sustainability and affordability.

Here is a link to an online article with a wonderful summary of the highlights of the event – Highlights from former President Obama’s Greenbuild keynote.

I also found several excerpts from the keynote on YouTube:

It was very exciting to (sort of) be breathing the same air that President Obama was breathing and my sister and I tried to restrain our inner fan girls and just focus on his talk/interview/conversation.

We sat in the middle of the very large auditorium and luckily they had large monitors so we could get a close up view of the interview. Here are several of my photos of him speaking on the large monitors:

He was as we expected, an incredibly eloquent and engaging speaker!

My sister and I were in sort of daze after the keynote was done and we were giggling/laughing with other conference attendees as we walked out of the auditorium, squealing “that really happened, we really saw President Obama speak!!!”

I got the feeling that this moment was part of many attendees’ “bucket lists”!

After the Keynote/Conference

I telecommuted for work from our Atlanta, Georgia hotel while my sister attended the rest of the Greenbuild Conference and then we wandered around downtown Atlanta, Georgia.

We stopped at Centennial Olympic Park from when 1996 Summer Olympics were held in Atlanta, Georgia.

It was very cool to see the iconic Olympic Rings in person:

In the park area they had a sweet little German-style Holiday Market going on and we wandered about that market and enjoyed some Bavarian hot chocolate and gingerbread cookies.

My sister used to live in Heidelberg, Germany for several years while she was in the military and she had fun chatting with a market vendor who was from Heidelberg.

Autumn colors were in full force in Atlanta and we also enjoyed wandering around enjoying the beautiful foliage!

On the final day of the conference, in the evening, they had a major end of conference party/event – a party on the field of Mercedes Benz Stadium, home of the Atlanta Falcons (U.S. Football team for my blogging friends abroad)!

It was amazing to actually be on the playing field of a U.S. Football team. I cannot share photos, as it might be embarrassing (smile), but they actually let party/conference attendees try kicking a field goal from the goal line! My sister was very brave and tried it herself, without much success, and she accepts she does not have a future as a professional football player (smile).

Here we are at the party on the stadium field:

They also had a concert on the field for conference attendees by the band Collective Soul!

Postscript

I’ve traveled a lot in 2019, the most I’ve ever traveled in one year. I am quite behind in sharing my adventures and hopefully I can catch up on the backlog of stories I would like to share. Not to mention the backlog of reading my favorite blogs I follow!

The New Year is nearly upon us! Hope you and your loved ones are having a wonderful holiday season! Hopefully I will post more before the end of 2019 (smile).

A Crafter's Life

Remembering Terry the Quilting Husband (TTQH)

December 2, 2019December 3, 2019 tierneycreates: a fusion of textiles and smiles

Nearly a year has passed since my beautiful life radically changed when I suddenly loss my husband Terry who’d I been with since I was 20 years old.

On my blog he was known as “Terry the Quilting Husband” or “TTQH” as one of my blog readers named him.

He began quilting in 2014 and if you’d like to check out posts related to his adventures as quilter, they are in the series of posts Terry the Quilting Husband (TTQH)

Today is his birthday (December 2) and I wanted to honor and remember him with this post. I do not want to celebrate him on the day he passed (December 13, 2018), I want to celebrate him on the day that this world was lucky enough to have him join it!

As we discussed in the 8-week Spousal Loss Grief Support group I attended in early 2019, when your life partner dies your immediate focus is on that person’s death and the tremendous loss in your life.

However that person had a whole entire life before their death, and in the support group we spent time focused on their life and what our lives with them meant to us.

TTQH was an incredible person and my best friend life partner. We had so much fun together and so many wonderful adventures. In the immediate wake of the loss, all I could see was the loss. Now, nearly a year later, I can step back and look at what an absolutely blessed and amazing life I was lucky enough to have for more than 1/2 my life with him.

And in 2014 he joined me in my quilting hobby and created 10+ quilts (and helped with many more) that brought a lot of joy to people. He gave the first quilt he made to his mother (who passed a year before him, December 2017). He even exhibited several quilts at the Sisters Outdoor Quilt Show in the Man Made Exhibit and sold two quilts!

Speaking of adventures – how lucky I was to have a life partner who loved going to quilt shops with me (and selecting his own huge collection of dog themed or fishing themed fabrics) and shared what was important to me – quilting. He looked forward every year to the April Central Oregon Quilt Shop Hop (he won a sewing machine one year at shop hop!) and to see if he could outdo me in fabric purchasing!

Here he is wandering around a quilt shop on his own, with our dog Mike in tow:

So today I celebrate him!

Happy Birthday TTQH and thank you for the amazing life I shared with you.

To close out this post, let me share a poem by Henry Scott-Holland that I stumbled upon that made me cry and smile simultaneously.

Death Is Nothing At All

Death is nothing at all.
It does not count.
I have only slipped away into the next room.
Nothing has happened.

Everything remains exactly as it was.
I am I, and you are you,
and the old life that we lived so fondly together is untouched, unchanged.
Whatever we were to each other, that we are still.

Call me by the old familiar name.
Speak of me in the easy way which you always used.
Put no difference into your tone.
Wear no forced air of solemnity or sorrow.

Laugh as we always laughed at the little jokes that we enjoyed together.
Play, smile, think of me, pray for me.
Let my name be ever the household word that it always was.
Let it be spoken without an effort, without the ghost of a shadow upon it.

Life means all that it ever meant.
It is the same as it ever was.
There is absolute and unbroken continuity.
What is this death but a negligible accident?

Why should I be out of mind because I am out of sight?
I am but waiting for you, for an interval,
somewhere very near,
just round the corner.

All is well.
Nothing is hurt; nothing is lost.
One brief moment and all will be as it was before.
How we shall laugh at the trouble of parting when we meet again!

A Crafter's Life

A Lovely Surprise in the Mail

November 10, 2019November 10, 2019 tierneycreates: a fusion of textiles and smiles

One of my blogging buddies, Sandra McCall of sandramccall.com sent me a lovely and thoughtful surprise in the mail earlier this week!

Sandra (Sandy) is a published craft book author (check out examples of some of her books on this link – amazon.com) and has a wonderful website/blog filled with home decorating, crafting and cooking ideas – sandramccall.com.

I forgot how I originally discovered her blog but I’ve especially enjoyed her posts on dollhouse miniatures such as this one: Dollhouse Closet,Fabric and RUGS!

I’ve always been fascinated by dollhouses and miniatures and it is amazing what she makes on a small scale!

The lovely and thoughtful surprise I received from Sandy earlier this week was a stack of some of her books (and a couple bonus books by other authors) and a handmade wrap bracelet!

I’m really enjoying the bracelet, I’ve been wearing it everywhere!

Postscript

I continue to explore Denver, my home of now of nearly 8 months. This weekend I had lunch at the JUST BE KITCHEN in the South Platte River front area.

Sprinkled about the restaurant was awesome inspirational signs and I wanted to share two of my favorites (the latter one was in the restroom):

A Crafter's Life

Salt of the Earth

August 4, 2019August 4, 2019 tierneycreates: a fusion of textiles and smiles

I began drafting this post prior to the recent series of deadly mass shootings across the United States. I am eager to return to blogging, however I thought this was too an upbeat a post to make in light of the recent somber events.

Then I thought – perhaps during these dark times it is good to post a reminder about the good people in the world we meet in our daily lives…

Dictionary.com defines the term “salt of the earth” as follows:

“An individual or group considered as representative of the best or noblest elements of society.”

This term wonderfully describes the kind of people I’ve met and keep meeting since moving to Colorado.

iStock-1063332628-1 — Colorado State Flag, zumper.com

If you are new to my blog, I moved to the greater Denver metropolitan area in April 2019 to start a new life after the sudden death of my husband (Terry the Quilting Husband) and over the past several months I’ve been settling into my new life and exploring the region (see post Greetings from Colorado and the series of posts Colorado Bound).

I knew Colorado was an awesome state with lots to do, little did I know just how warm, friendly and helpful many of its residents are!

Let me share an example (actually multiple examples).

Schnauzerfest!

Moving to Colorado meant leaving my beloved veterinary office and finding a new vet for my Miniature Schnauzer, Mike. I selected a vet based on Google reviews and comments and I was not disappointed.

During Mike’s first visit to his new vet. she connected me with a group of local Miniature Schnauzer aficionados which included one of her best friends. Mike and I got invited to the annual Miniature Schnauzer Club picnic which was like attending “Miniature Schnauzer Fest”!

The photos below will illustrate this better than I could describe and Mike enjoyed hanging out with his new friends, after he recovered from the shock of so many furry people that looked like him in one place!

We met so many wonderful, warm and friendly people at the Miniature Schnauzer Club picnic including a new dog groomer for Mike.

A Proper Grooming

I’ve struggled with finding a good dog groomer for my dog Mike. If you want a Miniature Schnauzer to look like a traditional Miniature Schnauzer, you need groom your dog regularly.

A couple months ago, I tried out a mobile groomer and unfortunately Mike was groomed more like a Bichon Frise instead of a Miniature Schnauzer:

Bichon Frise:

viktor-talashuk--gxRa1vV0KA-unsplash — Photo by Viktor Talashuk on Unsplash

Miniature Schnauzer:

I tried to fix the disappointing grooming myself but Mike ended up looking like a blindfolded, highly sedated dog groomer did the grooming!

Luckily at the Miniature Schnauzer Picnic, I met Carol, a highly seasoned dog groomer with extensive experience in grooming Miniature Schnauzers including competitive show dogs. She even showed a couple dogs herself at the Westminster Dog Show years ago.

We tried to schedule an appointment but had one challenge – she only had spots open in the middle of the week and she lives 32 miles away from me. I telecommute for my work in the health care industry and my middle of the week is peppered with conference calls.

She has a dog grooming station inside her home and she suggested that I come telecommute at her house for the morning/day while she groomed Mike!

And so I did! Not only did she let me telecommute from her house while she lovingly and meticulously groomed Mike, but she even gave me beverages and snacks – homemade lemon poppyseed cake!

I had so much fun telecommuting from her kitchen table while we discussed life and miniature schnauzers! Here are some photos of Mike transforming into a properly groomed Miniature Schnauzer!

In addition to great conversation, exceptional dog grooming, and wonderful snacks – she also gave me a tour of her lovely garden and gave me a bag of fresh garlic from her garden to take home!

She hand washed Mike’s collar before she began grooming him and had me hang it on the clothesline in the garden to dry!

Finally, as an added bonus, she has 4 or so of her own Miniature Schnauzers, so there was lots of Miniature Schnauzer cuteness going on at her home!

I got three of them to stand still for a photo:

Of course every proper Miniature Schnauzer Aficionado has lots of Schnauzer related decorations in their home and she was no exception:

I know this post was likely “Schnauzer Overload” and hopefully you will quickly recover (smile).

My telecommuting visit with my new dog groomer and the opportunity to hang out with other Miniature Schnauzer Aficionados (or perhaps “Obsessives” in a more accurate term) has only increased my feeling of being so “welcomed” to Colorado.

Every day I continue to meet warm, friendly, kind, generous, and welcoming, “salt of the earth” people in this state.

But these few are the salt of the earth; without them, human life would become a stagnant pool. Not only is it they who introduce good things which did not before exist, it is they who keep the life in those which already existed. – John Stuart Mill

Postscript

I promise my next post will be crafting/quilting related!

The tagline of my blog for tierneycreates is “a fusion of textiles and smiles“. I hope this post induced a little smile across your face. The “textiles” part will return next post!

Feature Photo by Jason Tuinstra on Unsplash

A Crafter's Life, Outside Adventures!

Greetings from Colorado

June 26, 2019November 15, 2023 tierneycreates: a fusion of textiles and smiles

Hello Blogging Buddies! Long time no hear, right?

Well I’ve been busy settling into my home in the Greater Denver Metropolitan Area (if you are new to this blog see my series of post “Colorado Bound“). Now I am ready to return to blogging about my Colorado, crafting and other adventures.

First Visitors

So far I’ve had four visitors since I’ve moved to Colorado.

My first visitor was my brother Raoul, who was in Denver for a business meeting the same day I moved into my apartment! So along with my friend Jason and a couple others, he helped unpack me! I forgot to take photos during his brief one day visit, so none to share.

My second visitor was my sister and we had fun taking my miniature Mike in his backpack into downtown Denver via the light rail and wander around sightseeing. Here is my sister Rianna with Mike her back:

My sister (by the way I have one sister and one brother and we are all very close) is exceptionally fun and we had a blast during her visit.

She enjoys shopping adventures and we even took Mike with us to a store called Nordstroms Rack and made him go shoe shopping with us!

We also both enjoy going to thrift shops (see my series of posts Thrift Shop Adventures) and had a laugh at these shoes we found at a thrift shop chain store called Buffalo Exchange:

These shoes would be perfect for running, don’t you agree??!?!?!

My sister is exceptionally more glamorous than me, and here we are attending Trivia Night at a local pub (we came in last place in trivia but had a blast):

2019-05-01_21-02-43_814 — My sister on left, me on right (note we’ve been drinking adult beverages all evening, ha!)

My third visitor was my “Quilting Sister” Dana who was visiting her daughter who also lives in the Greater Denver Metro area. I will have a separate post about that visit as we had a wonderful outing to a very cool crafting shop!

But here is a preview (Dana craft shop shopping):

My fourth visitor was my friend Jenny who came for a long weekend. She is very outdoor adventurous so we went for a short hike in the Flatiron mountain area of Boulder, Colorado as well as explored downtown Boulder.

Here are photos from our hike/wander about Chautauqua Park:

I love this series of photos I took as Jenny took in the amazing views:

Here we are wandering around the Pearl Street Mall area in Boulder, Colorado:

My next visitor will be my original “Quilting Sister” Judy – the woman who taught me how to quilt. She visits in August.

I will be busy traveling a bit in July but I am going to plan to attempt (that sounds so committed doesn’t it?) to keep up with my blog and also catch up on the blogs I follow.

Postscript

Are you surprised that my tierneycreates Beastie (see Beastie Adventures) has not stepped in and written a post? She has been busy herself and she will have a future post of her adventures in the future.

Oh and yes, this is primarily a quilting/crafting blog and perhaps someday I will share a post about such topics (smile).

A Crafter's Life

Apartment Quilt Tour

May 12, 2019May 13, 2019 tierneycreates: a fusion of textiles and smiles

As many of you know who have followed my blog for a while, in December 2018 my husband, my life-partner, and best friend who was also known on this blog as “Terry the Quilting Husband” (he was a quilter also) suddenly and unexpectedly passed.

Shortly after his passing I made the big life decision to relocate and a couple of weeks ago I moved (along with Mike my Miniature Schnauzer) from Central Oregon to the greater Denver metro area to start my new life.

Another major life change that occurred at the time of this move was to move from a house into an apartment. I’ve not lived in an apartment since I was in nursing school. Wait, I take that back, Terry and I did live in an apartment for a year when we first moved to Houston, Texas while he was in the military but as soon as we could we bought a house.

But that was still back in my 20s. And I am a wee bit older now than 20 – ha! Let’s just say I’ve lived in houses significantly longer than I lived in apartments.

I’m considering “apartment living” a year experiment. I did sign a year’s lease and during my year in the apartment I can decide what will be next in my living situation. I might buy a house on my own, I might stay in my apartment, I might rent a house instead of an apartment. We’ll see! (Your guess is as good as mine at this point).

I am rambling and you are probably waiting for the quilt tour that I promised. Let me just continue with a tiny bit more introduction to the tour.

To make my new apartment feel homey, I decorated it with many of the quilts I had on my walls at my house. As my apartment is smaller than my house, it might appear to some that I have an “intense concentration of quilts” on my walls and strewn about the house. I say “get over it, it makes me happy!”

So finally, here is the Apartment Quilt Tour:

MY ENTRYWAY/HALLWAY

The wood piece to the left of the quilt pictured above, was made by my friend Cody G. out of recycled pallet wood. What is extra cool about this piece, besides it is a lovely gift from a friend, is that he had no idea of the colors in the quilt next to it. He just took a guess on a palette that would work with the pallet piece (yes, you likely guessed I had to Google the spelling of palette as in a color palette vs. the spelling of wooden pallet – English is so complicated!)

In addition to quilts, I have some handmade small items in my entryway – one of my miniature kimonos and a collection of my miniature pillows. I used to sell these on my now closed tierneycreates Etsy shop.

HALLWAY TO THE KITCHEN AND HOME OFFICE AREA

On the way into the kitchen and in my home office area (I am a telecommuter), I have a couple quilts hung:

THE KITCHEN

In the small dining area attached to the kitchen I have a quilted wallhanging:

THE LIVING ROOM

There are layers of quilts in the living room as well as a couple on the wall.

The quilt pictured above was the first quilt that I had in book. Several of the blocks were featured in the book 1000 Quilting Inspirations by Sandra Sider, along with several of my first recycled silk art quilts.

THE MASTER BEDROOM

I discovered something very exciting: the Sunflower quilt wallhanging I thought I had accidentally donated to a Central Oregon charity thrift shop was actually just packed away in a strange place. When I finally full unpacked I found it! So I put it up using Command Strips on the door to my bedroom!

I have what some might consider a ridiculous amount of quilts up on the wall of my bedroom, but them make me happy!

Oh I should mention – you might gasp that some of the quilts are not hung properly. Some have wooden hangers (which use a marble inside to hold the quilt in place), while some are hung up with…gasp…thumb tacks!

Do not worry, the thumb tack hangings are only temporary, I just wanted to make sure I liked where they were hung before I mounted the wooden hangers.

And finally the space I’ve shared already in a previous post – the guest room/studio.

GUEST ROOM/STUDIO

In addition to quilts I’ve made, I also have some special quilts that friends have made up on the walls. I completely forgot to photographed those for this post, but I figured I have shown you enough quilts up on my wall for now (smile).

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Valentines

For My Valentines

For the men in my grief support group:

For the women in my grief support group:

For the group facilitator:

Feeling at Peace

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Indie Bookstore and Antique Shop Browsing!

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Home Office Tips

Tierney’s Home Office Tour

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Cabo San Lucas, February 2020

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It’s All About the Puppy

More Pups and even a Cat

Human Snuggling

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Human Storage

Airport Lore

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Happy New Year!

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Greenbuild Conference 2019

After the Keynote/Conference

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Death Is Nothing At All

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Schnauzerfest!

A Proper Grooming

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First Visitors

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MY ENTRYWAY/HALLWAY

HALLWAY TO THE KITCHEN AND HOME OFFICE AREA

THE KITCHEN

THE LIVING ROOM

THE MASTER BEDROOM

GUEST ROOM/STUDIO

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