Here is an update on the English Paper Piecing (EPP) quilt I’ve been working on and off on since 2016.
My late husband, who was also a quilter, helped me make many of the the EPP hexagons for the “rosette” blocks in this quilt and there was a bit of an “emotional curve” to overcome to finish up this quilt.
In my previous update 21 Ready to Applique!, like the title reads, I had 21 more blocks ready to be machine appliquéd (I just couldn’t bring myself to hand applique the blocks as it would have been finished in 2036) to the recycled denim I am using as the background for the 99 blocks (9 by 11 layout) quilt.
I ended up preparing 25 blocks for applique and getting them machine appliqued:
I was quite pleased with myself after quite the bout of procrastination on this quilt (um…started in 2016…)
I trimmed the blocks once appliqued to 6.5 inches x 6.5 inches square and then added them to the other blocks up on the design wall to now have – 90 blocks completed!!!!
Yes I finished up to the 10th row – one more row (the 11th) of 9 blocks to go and then I can start putting the quilt together.
9 more blocks, 9 more blocks, 9 more blocks to go – yay!
A quick follow up to the post from June 28 Getting Down to Business. I’ve been working on finishing up my pesky English Paper Piecing hexagon flowers quilt that I began in 2016 (because I am weary of it!!!)
Made more progress – I have 21 blocks ready for the sewing machine to applique the flowers to the background denim fabric, then trim to 6.5 inches by 6.5 inches.
(So happy about my progress I took two photos!)
Once the 21 blocks are done I will add them to the rest of the blocks (currently 65) on the design wall:
AND that will bring me to a total of 86 block completed! Only 13 more blocks to go after that! (I can see the finish line, I can see it!) for 99 blocks for my 9 by 11 blocks setting.
Okay I will continue plodding along to get this quilt tope D-O-N-E!
Postscript
I also wanted to follow up on the Postscript section from the post Getting Down to Business, where I discuss my challenge with running out of media image space on my blog after 13 years of blogging and paying for an upgraded plan.
I recently discovered something very cool (and sort of unbelievable): the Denver Public Library lets patrons print out up to 100 photocopies a day for free. Yes, you read that correctly – 100 copies a day!!!
Here is what it says on their website:
So it sounded too good to be true and I suspected it was 100 pages per library card or something like that, total, for your lifetime! So I called the library and verified it is 100 pages per day!
I am still in disbelief as I used to pay 25 cents per copy at my other library system.
So I have the option of printing out in black & white OR color, old pages from my blog if I want to make some type of book of my old posts! Also they have mobile printing and I can upload documents from my computer and then retrieve them at the library!!! (Is this all a dream?!?!)
I love having this option available as I still work on figuring out what I want to do to decrease my media files stored on my blog (I got to clean house in some capacity!)
Honestly – I am tired of the English Paper Piecing (EPP) quilt I’ve been working on since 2016 and posting about during the monthly ScrapHappy 15th of the month posting group.
In my June ScrapHappy post (ScrapHappy June 2026), I mentioned I’ve only gotten 6 more EPP Rosettes (a flower like combination of 7 paper pieced hexagons) since May’s ScrapHappy post.
Well last week I decided I needed to GET DOWN TO BUSINESS and just get the quilt FINISHED as I am tired of working on it, thinking about it, and writing about it!
So I went from 6 completed rosettes to now 20 by just making myself sit in my studio and finishing sewing sides together of rosettes for MANY hours!
Do you see the mess of papers to the left – well that all the EPP hexagon papers I had to pull out of each rosette so I can applique them to their background squares.
This is the really tedious part of EPP – removing the papers:
I think the problem is that I had my late husband help me with wrapping the fabric around the paper hexagons and he was very heavy on the glue. He did most of his work helping me create the EPP hexagons back in 2016 and 2017 so the glue on the fabric has been sitting since that time.
After removing the papers, ripping them away from the glue at times, they hexagons/”hexies” can get deformed and I have to iron them back into shape before adhering them with a little bit of fusible to their background block to be appliqued.
(20 done and waiting to be pressed back into shape with an iron)
The true problem could be that I am the “World’s Worse EPPer” – ha!
Originally I used the traditional technique of stitching/basting them in place on the paper hexies. Then another quilter showed me the faster glueing method (which has special glue pens you can buy to use) and I thought “this isn’t too bad”.
I was guilty of not demonstrating to Terry the “light application of the glue pen” and he got focused on helping me to get a lot done (production mode).
But if I keep up what I am doing – focusing on finishing – eventually it will be done. I’ve already arranged for someone to longarm machine quilt it. As soon as I have the top done I want the thing out of my house to be finished, ha! I am not domestic machine quilting it!
Okay that was my whine ;-). I will torture you to future updates on my progress…
By the way I have 2 other EPP projects I started in 2016 when I became obsessed with EPP but they are aging in the closet for now (perhaps forever?!?!?)
Postscript
You’ll probably see more blog posts from me the rest of the summer (fingers crossed) as we’ve sort of slowed down on traveling (one trip per month and sometimes just a road trip instead of the craziness we had in 2025).
I really enjoy blogging, connecting with my blogging buddies around the world, and of course reading your posts.
I am starting to run out of photo storage space on my blog though at 13 years of blogging even though I pay like $96 a year for a WordPress plan with expanded storage space. I know in the beginning I didn’t think about resizing my photos; and even though I’ve been resizing my photos for years I think I’ve just posted too many photos. I also pay like $18 a year to have my blog web address be “tierneycreates.com” instead of the free “tierneycreates.wordpress.com”.
I’ve been mulling over an overhaul and audit of my blog for a long time. It might be time to archive offline or delete my early posts. I doubt any one is going back in my blog history and reading my posts from 2014, etc.
Honestly I am challenged with revisiting the older posts myself as many of the contain stories about my fun life with my late husband who was also a quilter. I’ve been mulling over doing a summary of all the “Terry the Quilting Husband” posts in some type of memorial essay and just having that as a page on my blog and removing all the posts.
Same sort of challenge (though not comparing the passing of my spouse to my dogs) with old blog posts that feature my late dogs Sassy, Snickers and Mike. Sassy had her own blog “Sassy the Highly Opinionated Miniature Schnauzer” which I archived.
I am thinking about doing a page for the dogs also with some fun memories and stories and deleted all the old dog related posts.
I tell you memories, even if fun and wonderful, can be rough. However for my own benefit I’d like to figure out some way to keep their memory alive on my blog. Just stuff I am mulling over, no decisions made.
(This is sort of a long Postscript, it could have been it’s own blog post!)
This month I have little to report as I’ve been hosting out of town visitors; and traveling (3 trips in the past month) including a big emotional return to Bend, Oregon for my birthday in May. It was my for first time in 7 years since I moved to Denver after my husband suddenly died in 2019. I’ll blog about that return sometime in the future.
Yes, that’s it for the past month since the May 15th post!
But I do have a couple random curious things to share to conclude this post.
Granny Square Shoes?
If you’ve followed my blog for a while you might note my obsession for crocheting granny square blankets like this one I completed in 2025:
During my recent travels I came across a pair of granny square shoes!!!! They weren’t in my shoe size and they actually did not look that well made but they were fun to look at!
Everybody Needs a Pair of Quilted Shorts…
I am a quilter and during my recent travels I came across a pair of quilted shorts that gave me a giggle too!
I think an old quilt was turned into clothing. I would suggest this a curious fashion choice, but no judgement if you need a pair of vintage quilt shorts to wear!
I bet the original quilt is “scrap happy” and was made from someone’s fabric scrap basket so these shorts might also count for ScrapHappy June 🙂
An Amazing Thought/Concept
I came across this sign in my travels and I think it is an amazing thought/concept to close this post.
Update on the Scrappy English Paper Piecing (EPP) Project
So here is my update on the scrappy English Paper Piecing (EPP) hexie rosette project I’ve been working on since 2016 that I previously posted about in this post – ScrapHappy April 2026: Update on the EPP Quilt
I made a bit of progress from April’s update and completed 16 more blocks.
Here is what the quilt in progress looked like in April 2026 with 49 blocks completed:
And here is what the quilt looks like in May 2026 with 65 blocks completed (yay!):
The quilt will be 9 by 11 for a total of 99 blocks. So I have 34 more blocks to go!
As I mentioned in a previous post, I have to finish sewing all the little paper pieced hexagons to each other for each rosette (and remove the EPP foundation paper) before I can applique the rosette to the recycled denim background. That is why I only got 16 blocks completed in the past month. Very tedious work!
Oh, you might notice that on the left side of the quilt arrangement on my design wall I have all dark background blocks:
That is because I am cutting scrap denim as I need it and I cut too much dark so now I have to make a bunch of lighter background blocks to mix in. But progress is progress and I bet before I know it I will have all 99 blocks done and sewn together!
In closing this post I thought I would share that these types of blocks, like the image below, make me smile because they remind me of just how “scrappy” this project is!
I ran out of some of the scrap fabrics and couldn’t make 6 hexagons in the same fabric to surround the center hexagon so I had to mix similar colors (I am using the word “similar” very loosely, ha!):
A couple years ago on a whim I bought several skeins of Lion Brand yarn’s Re-Spun line of yarn. Re-Spun is yarn made from recycled plastic (see my post Plastic Yarn?).
I decided to make a granny square crocheted blanket with the yarn and crocheted up some of squares:
I hated them. They looked okay but they were too flimsy and didn’t feel right (not sure how to specifically describe it) and I didn’t think they would work well for a cozy blanket. I was crocheting them in the only granny square pattern I knew at the time.
So I abandoned them and put the granny squares, in various stages of completion, and the yarn away.
Then I taught myself via YouTube how to make the sunflower block granny square and made this blanket which is now sitting on the recliner in my living room:
Near the end of last year I stumbled upon a stash of the Re-Spun yarn in the thrift store for $1.99 a skein (it retails for $8.99 a skein now). I grabbed all they had (you can’t see all the colors in the image below but I’ll share more images of the yarn in a future post):
I think it was an “out of body” purchase experience, because when I got home I thought: “What were you thinking? You abandoned the project with the original three skeins of yarn!”
Then I remembered the sunflower pattern I loved (it made a very cozy blanket) and decided to do some frogging (I never heard this term before until I read it in the post of other bloggers and now I know it is unraveling your work) on the previous granny squares because it would be an atrocity to throw them away when I originally bought the yarn because it was “eco-friendly” – ha!
So after what seemed like tedious frogging, and then crocheting, I have made 58 centers for my new “flower” (they are not sunflower colors) granny square blanket:
I’m going to make a total of 100 centers and then move onto round 2.
Here is the pattern I am using in case you are interested:
I really like the instructional videos by Hooked by Robin!
So I am going to have a cozy “flower” granny square blanket for my library/dining room area. I’ll update you all on the progress.
I made myself work on TEDIOUS sewing the sides of the hexie flowers on the remaining 50 blocks. If I don’t start doing it, I won’t have anything to report for May’s ScrapHappy post on this quilt!
I got 6 done yesterday, 44 to go.
If only little magical creatures could sneak into my studio at night and finish them….
Update on the Scrappy English Paper Piecing (EPP) Project
So here is my update on the scrappy English Paper Piecing (EPP) hexie rosette project I’ve been working on since 2016 that I previously posted about in this post –ScrapHappy February 2026.
If you are just joining us, it was inspired by this quilt on the cover of the premiere issue of Quiltfolk Magazine, Issue 1: Oregon:
Image credit: quiltfolk.com
This was my progress back in February 2026 when I had 37 EPP flowers machine appliquéd to scrap denim:
I’ve machine appliquéd 12 more blocks since then:
I’ve would have done more but there was this little thing going on in my life called moving house…
Here are the 49 blocks now completed:
I have 50 more blocks to make for a 9 by 11 (99 blocks) setting.
My little challenge is the remaining 50 blocks need my completion of sewing all the hexies in the rosette together! They are just a center hexie with 6 hexies sewn to the center but not sewn to each other…
So I need to settle in for some serious hand sewing to be able to report progress in May’s ScrapHappy post 🙂
Over the next couple of months I’ll be saving updates on my long time English Paper Piecing hexie rosette project to share on the 15th of each month for ScrapHappy.
In my most recent post on this project, Revisiting the EPP Quilt, I shared that I’ve been working on this project since 2016 when I fell in love with the quilt on the cover of Issue 1: Oregon of Quiltfolk Magazine.
I paper pieced 99 rosettes from my fabric scrap collection, attempting to coordinate the colors:
And finally I’ve begun setting the rosettes into blocks using my collection of scrap denim with plans to trim each block to 6.5 inches by 6.5 inches.
But I had to find the most efficient want to attach 99 rosettes to the denim scraps without having to hand appliqué them to the blocks. I was afraid if I committed to hand appliqué all 99 blocks, it would be another 9+ years until I finished this quilt!
So I decided to find a way to use my sewing machine to do it.
I researched my Bernina sewing machine books on the Bernina sewing machine feet and sewing machine stitches, and discovered I could use the #20C foot to sew a blanket stitch around each rosette to attach it (I decided to use a little Stitch Witchery Tape to anchor the rosette onto the denim before machine stitching).
After practicing on scrap denim I was able to figure it out and attach my first rosette and from there I put together my first 9 blocks:
Here they are squished together to sort of give you an idea of how the quilt might look:
I have a long way to go but it is a start!
I did discover that in addition to removing the paper from the hexies in each rosette, I still have to stitch some of the rosettes fully together! So there is a lot of work to get this project done and we’ll see how much progress I will have to report next month 🙂
Oh and yes it will be a heavy quilt using scrap denim as the setting squares but it is going to be a wall hanging in my upstairs guest room, not a utility quilt for snuggling under.
Now that the T-shirt quilt for John (see post T-Shirt Quilt Assembled) and sent to the Longarm Machine Quilter for professional quilting, I realized I need to start working on ANOTHER QUILT in order to meet this goal – ha!
So I decided to pull out a dusty old project – my English Paper Piecing (EPP) hexie flower quilt top that I started in 2016 after seeing this quilt on the cover of the premiere issue of Quiltfolk Magazine – Issue 1: Oregon (I was living in Oregon at the time):
I finished paper piecing 99 hexie flowers (which each contained 7 paper pieced hexagons) in May 2024 from fabric scraps (that I sort of tried to coordinate).
Okay so let’s summarize:
Began project in 2016
Finished EPP flowers in 2024
Now in 2025 decide to finally make it into a quilt top…
I pull the project out of my UFO (unfinished objects for the non quilters) pile:
After auditioning a bunch of options, I decided to set them in my collection of scrap denim, using various shades of denim. Here’s one example:
But before I can machine applique (using a blanket stitch) the hexie flowers to the denim squares (I will cut the squares initially to 7×7 inches and then trim to 6.5 x 6.5 inches after they are stitched), I have some less than pleasant work to do 99 times…
REMOVE THE PAPER FROM THE BACK OF EACH HEXIE FLOWER!
I’ve set up this project as a sit-in-front-of-the-TV project for evenings and put them all in a basket in the living room:
I’ll update you on my progress and hope to soon have some appliqued square up on the design wall in my studio.
(By the way: you might be curious about my choice to set them in denim, which is heavier than a quilting cotton. Well I plan to use the quilt as a wallhanging, not a cuddle under/utility quilt. I have a bed I plan to hang it above.)
I’ve been working on an English Paper Piecing (EPP) quilt forever and my most recent post on this quilt was in May – All 99 are finally done!.
Someday the quilt I finish will look sort of like this quilt from Issue 1 (October 2016) of Quiltfolk Magazine:
Well a week or so ago (not sure exactly as most of October seems like a blur) my quilting friend and her partner; and attended the opening of two quilt shows, one of which I will share in this post and the other in the next post, at the Rocky Mountain Quilt Museum.
The first show of the opening was all ENGLISH PAPER PIECED QUILTS – English Paper Piecing. There were so many amazing quilts and I am inspired to complete my quilt someday (smile).
Thought I share photos of my favorite quilts in the show, including the details on some quilts to show the immense EPP work that was done to make these quilts.
My photos don’t do the quilts justice and some of them I had to take at off angles as the exhibit was super crowded and it was difficult to get a photo of a quilt without a group of people in front of it.
The Rocky Mountain Quilt Museum has a gift shop/quilt shop inside of it and it was open for the evening show. I wandered around the shop and then John wandered around it and found some fabric he liked – a mathematical themed print. I am going to make a laptop case for him out of it and will show share an image of the fabric when I post about the laptop case.
Here is John buying the fabric for his laptop case – his first personal fabric purchase in quilt shop:
I’ve been blogging about this quilt for 7 years, it is my oldest UFO. I won’t even bother linking previous posts as there are a lot of tierneycreates posts about this English Paper Pieced quilt, I will just give you the history and bring you up to speed.
In October 2016 the first issue of Quiltfolk Magazine (which was about Oregon quilters and I lived in Oregon at the time) was published and I fell head over heels in love with the quilt on the magazine’s cover:
I was determined to learn English Paper Piecing (EPP) so I could make this quilt and I purchased a book about how to do and enlisted the help of several quilters with EPP experience. My late husband Terry helped me punch out the hexagon templates from scrap card stock paper and in 2017 I began the journey to make 99 hexagon flowers (each one has 6 EPP hexies, so 594 hexies were needed) to make this quilt. I primarily used fabric scraps to make the hexies.
After a while I became proficient at making the hexagons or “hexies” to build the hexagon flowers for each block, and assembling the hexagon flowers. Over the next 7 years I would sporadically work on this very portable project. This project has been around the U.S. as well as to Ireland in various little project sacks I’ve stored it in.
In late April I went on a trip to New York City with my sister (separate post to follow) and finished the last of the 99 hexagon flowers at a tea house in Brooklyn that we frequented during our trip.
Tea and Hexiesin Brooklyn
Here are the 99 completed hexagon flowers:
Some of the hexagon flowers configuration are repeated because I had a lot of those scrap fabrics to work with such as the piles at the top of this image below:
And some have few to no repeats such as these solid color hexagon flowers at the bottom of the image below:
And finally I used up the left over hexies in various colors of solid color scrap fabrics to finish up the hexagon flowers (see the bottom of the image below):
So now that the 99 are done, I will use fat quarters to put together coordinating background fabrics to each hexagon flower.
If you are interested in learning EPP there are lots of free instructional website and videos online like this one:
Sharing some updates and I am continuing to use “The Horizontal Diaries” as a blog post title (like I did in the recent posts The Horizontal Diaries and The Horizontal Diaries, Continued) because it semi describes my current reality.
I am doing much better as I recover from my left broken ankle and subsequent surgery to repair it (I got “screwed” and “plated”!) and all the swelling has gone down from my foot and lower leg as I behaved and spent a lot of time horizontal! My swelling went down so much (foot/leg returned to normal) that my splint/cast has gotten sort of loose. Good thing I have an appointment with the surgeon tomorrow – looking forward to finding out what comes next…and when will I be ready to compete in the Olympic Gymnastic Trials?!??
I’ve been knitting non stop (just like you suggested @mariss/fabrications) and I am nearly done with the replacement hat for the one I lost during my trip to Ireland in October 2022. I am at the point of decreasing the stitches for the top of hat (soon it will be time for my favorite part of hat knitting – the double pointed needles). I think I will get it done today – yay!
Perhaps with the leftover yarn, that I harvested from the matching scarf I never wore, I can make a second hat…or perhaps a small (quite small) scarf – ha!
I mentioned in the previous “Horizontal Diaries” post that I was working on an irritating English Paper Piecing (EPP) Project. It’s the one I’ve been working on for years (feels like I’ve been working on it for decades). Here’s what inspired the project – the first issue of Quiltfolk magazine:
I need to make 99 hexie rosettes (each rosette is composed of 7 EPP hexies), and I am happy to report I now have 75 done (I’m going to actually “do math” now and report that I only have 24 more hexies to make)! I’ve been working on the rosettes while horizontal, they are a fabulous (if not tedious) hand sewing project:
I’ve made more in the past week than I’ve made in the past 6 months! 24 more and I can start to think about the fabrics to set the blocks in – each rosette is appliquéd to a square of fabric (but I will probably use my sewing machine to do that so it isn’t actually DECADES before I finish the quilt – ha!)
It’s interested to see how my EPP hexie assembly progressed from when I began the project is 2016 (gasp). My first EPP hexies were basted with thread to keep the piecing in place:
Then I learned from a friend that I could baste with fabric glue stick instead which saved a lot of time!
I think I’ve struggled with completing this project because the late “Terry the Quilting Husband” punched out many of the hexies for me as well did a lot of the glue basting of the hexies (he was like a master at it after a while!) for me. I would say he helped me make 60% or more of the hexies for this project. I’ve finished after he passed in December 2018 other projects he started such as The Last Baskets, The Last Quilt and The Ball of Yarn (which eventually became a hat) , but for some reason this one was dragging on.
But 2023 is a YEAR OF FINISHES (I might write a separate post about that later) and this project is on the list to be finished!
To get out of the house the other day, John took me on an errand with him and then took me (and my knee scooter) to the Tattered Cover Bookstore in Littleton, CO (near where his errand was). I love independent bookstores and I had a brief but wonderful wander is this old bookstore in knee scooter!
I wonder if they have a music night where someone plays the piano in the center of the bookstore. If I wasn’t injured and needing to return home to my “horizontalness”, I would have grabbed a stack of books and nestled in one of the chairs. This bookstore has a large collection of both new and used books.
I did pick up two cool new stickers for my older laptop (my newer laptop is fully covered with stickers now) at the Tattered Cover Bookstore:
Well that is this installment of “The Horizontal Diaries”, thanks for reading!
This is a follow up to my previous post Inside the Basket. I realized I should try and catch my blog up to what I have been posting on @tierneycreates on Instagram!
One of the projects inside my basket of hand work is an ongoing English Paper Piecing (EPP) rosette quilt project.
My plan is to make this quilt from the cover of Quiltfolk Magazine, Issue 1:
Image credit: Quiltfolk.com
As you can see from the image above, this quilt is comprised of 99 EPP hexie rosettes appliquéd onto 99 squares for a 9 x 11 quilt.
Last weekend I joined 3 quilting friends for a mini quilting retreat in Poulsbo, Washington.
Image credit: vacation ideas.com
While at the retreat, I worked on my EEP project and completed stitching together 38 rosettes of the 99 I need to make:
If you do the math, I have 61 more rosettes to make, and my sweet friend Dana, organized my remaining EPP hexies into groups of 6 for the outside hexies on the left side of my “box of hexies” and the solid color center options on the right side:
“True friends will organize your EPP hexies for you at a quilt retreat” – Tierney
I have enough matching hexies to make about 30 more rosettes, so it is going to be time soon to create more EPP hexies.
The hexies I currently on hand have a lot of sentimental meaning/value, as they were all created by my late husband Terry (aka “Terry the Quilting Husband (TTQH)“) who used to be my assistant on crafting projects. So I am also finishing this project in his honor.
My partner John and I are moving along in getting his house ready for sale and have been actively house hunting. So it might not be too long until my studio gets unpacked and I am no longer limited to only hand projects.
Over the next several posts I will share more projects and stories from the mini quilt retreat I attended in Poulsbo!
Postscript
I had to relocate my “Basket of Hand Work” that I discussed in my previous post.
Our real estate agent wanted us to move my comfy leather chair in the living room up to the master bedroom, so I also relocated my basket of hand work. Additionally I tried to tastefully arrange some craft related reading I want to do and several projects into a bookcase in the bedroom.
Saturday, before “Snowmageddon” descended upon Central Oregon, I went over my friend Marie’s house for a Sew Day.
I did not want to arrive empty handed so I whipped up the evening before a little pillow, from a dog faces panel (Dogs of Many Breeds by Elizabeth Studio) I had in my stash, of her beloved Cavalier King Charles Spaniel.
Pup Pillow Making
After cutting from the panel the Cavalier King Charles Spaniel block, I worked to find fabrics in my stash to pair with it:
I decided to go with a gold shot cotton inner border and a gold small print floral outer border.
I used the “quilt-as-you-go” technique to assemble the pillow, piecing the pillow directly to a piece of batting.
After trimming excess fabric to even up the borders, I had a completed pillow top:
I give the pillow enough weigh in the back as the front was quilted with batting, I used a double layer of coordinated backing fabric.
After pinning the two right sides together, I stitched around the edge of the pillow, leave a couple inches opening for turning right sides out and for stuffing.
I like to stuff the corners first when stuffing a pillow to make sure they get enough stuffing. I used which I like because it is made from recycled materials:
Once the pillow was stuffed to my liking, I pinned the section I left open and whip stitched it closed with coordinating thread.
I figured out a couple years ago that pinning the open section of a pillow (or other stuffed item) before you whip stitch it close gives you a better chance of an even closure.
Pup Pillow Reveal and a Very Cute Model
Here is the completed pillow:
But here is something EVEN CUTER, my friend’s Cavalier King Charles Spaniel doing a photoshoot with the pillow!
Of course she was thinking: “I am way cuter than that dog in the pillow!”; or “Lady, hurry and get this photoshoot done, I want a biscuit!”
Postscript
In case you were wondering what I worked on during the Sew Day at my friend’s house – I worked on my ongoing English Paper Piecing project and actually made a little progress:
You can check out posts about this ongoing project in my series of posts Adventures in Paper Piecing – (scroll through to see older posts after you click on the link).
This post also includes a photo of her writing desk where she writes her amazing Women’s Fiction novels! (Marie is New York Times Bestseller Author, Marie Bostwick).
Hello My Blogging Community, thanks for all your support during the most challenging time in my life.
I wanted to share that I have finally returned to “making” after quite the hiatus after the loss of my husband.
But first, let me share the two wonderful surprises I got in the mail today.
Surprise #1
My blogging buddy in Dublin Ireland, Helen @crawcraftsbeasties.com sent me a hand painted card featuring a Beastie comforting another Beastie:
To learn more about the amazing Beasties that Helen makes, check out her website – crawcraftsbeasties.com.
Surprise #2
My blogging buddy in the Netherlands, Emmely @infectiousstitches gave me an amazing stitched card:
It was like a large fabric postcard with a wonderful handwritten note on back.
I so appreciate all the support from my blogging community including so many people who have never met me in person and only know me from my blog. I wish we could all get together for some tea and pastries at a nice cafe.
No Longer Dreading the Mail
I feel I turned a corner as I am no longer dreading sympathy/condolence cards in the mail. So many thoughtful people have sent their condolences over the loss of my husband but each card was like a gut wrenching stab reminding me of my profound loss. I dreaded getting the mail and making myself open the cards and their words of sympathy blurring before my tearing eyes. Perhaps in retrospect I should have put them aside and read them later. I felt compelled and obligated to open each card.
On Tuesday I began an 8 week Spousal Loss Grief Support Group. The first meeting was incredibly difficult especially at first but by the end of the meeting as we all started to share and connect it got so much better. The Grief Counselor facilitating the meeting is amazing. This support group is through our local hospice and is a free community service.
There is an educational component to each meeting and I learned a lot about grief and why I have struggled with some severe irritability. I am so happy to have a safe place to talk about complex feelings with others who have also experienced the profound loss of a life partner.
I now get the whole “support group” concept where people going through similar experiences can support each other and relate to each other struggles, especially with the help of an amazing group facilitator.
Back to Making
I knew I needed to return to sewing and the tactile experience of working with fabric as part of my healing. I was either struggling with low energy or lack of interest, but I kept trying to dive back in.
First I tried to return to the Tula in a Box quilt I was working on before Terry died (and Terry helped me lay out the blocks) – see post .Tula in a Box. I managed to get the quilt back up on the large design wall in the hallway (I had half of it sewn together) as I had removed it from the design wall after he died as it was upsetting me:
But I have not done any work on it.
Then I tried to work on taking out the stitching of a quilt I made into a tablecloth. I decided to turn it into a quilt. I did get the stitching out but got stalled on getting it ironed out so I could sent it out for long-arm quilting:
Finally I thought I would try some hand work – something I could sit in front of the TV (I’ve been watching endless Netflix in the evening) and work on – English Paper Piecing (EPP):
That worked. I’ve been working on making EPP hexies in the evening. Occasionally making the hexies feels bittersweet at Terry punched out the paper piecing templates for me. But I like to think that we are making them together.
The next series of posts will be about the annual quilt retreat I attended May 18 – 21 at Sew N Go in Vancouver, WA.
Each May I attend an annual quilt retreat in Vancouver, WA (outside of Portland, OR) with my “Quilting Sisters” from Washington, Oregon and California. I have shared my quilt retreat adventures in my series of post in the category Retreatswhich include my annual road trip experience getting to the quilting retreat.
This year I decided to do something different – take the bus, the Central Oregon Breeze from Central Oregon to Portland – to get to the retreat. It is approximately a 4 – 4.5 hour trip and totally worth the $95 roundtrip price!
Photo credit: cobreeze.com
Yes by not driving I missed out on having “car buddies” (see 04/20/15 post “Road Trip“), but I traded that experience for a relaxing and productive trip to my retreat!
Listening to audiobooks and music, I worked on my English Paper Piecing (see series of posts Adventures in English Paper Piecing) and watched a pre-downloaded video on my iPad.
My lap – making EPP rosettes on the road!
All while enjoying the beautiful scenery (well through UV coated window) of the drive from Central Oregon to Portland:
The Central Oregon Breeze makes several stops for bathroom breaks to include one stop at a deluxe gas station convenience store. I wear a wrist pincushion when working on hand sewing projects while traveling. I forgot to take my pincushion off during one of the breaks so I looked pretty weird heading into the bathroom stop with pins/needles coming out of my wrist! Just some crazy quilter on the bus!
The bus has several stops for passengers and I got off at the Portland Airport (aka PDX). One of my quilt sisters picked me up from the airport and drove me to Vancouver, WA for the retreat at Sew N Go.
More on Abbey in a later post. If you would like to see previous photos of the Sew N GoQuilt Retreat in Vancover, WA check out this post – Sew N Go Retreat in Pictures.
Lots of photos and stories to come, hope you have a wonderful Saturday (yay it is the weekend!)
Postscript
Melancholy
My original plan was to start blogging about this year’s retreat last Monday after I returned from the retreat last Sunday. While the stories and experience were fresh.
However I had some struggle with a bout of melancholy. Initially over the sudden suicide of the musician Chris Cornell and then over the terrible tragedy in Manchester, UK.
I get so overwhelmed thinking about it but my heart completely goes out to the parents who lost their children at a concert in Manchester due to an unthinkable event.
As far as Chris Cornell, I was a huge fan of his music with the band Soundgarden and as solo act. We lived in Seattle, Washington during the tail end of the 90s Grunge music era. My husband Terry ran into several members of Pearl Jam hanging out in front of a house in the late 90s and said hi.
I ran into Chris Cornell at Cafe Minnie’s in the downtown Seattle area one day. He said hello and gave me a warm smile. He seemed down-to-earth. Luckily I remained calm an said hi back! I think it took awhile for the Seattle Grunge scene musicians to get used to their national and then international fame, and some did not do too well with it (Kurt Cobain, etc.)
Here is a link to great post by the blogger Rich Larson, thefirsttenwords, that sums up my shock and feelings about his suicide and provides an insight on why his sudden death is so rattling to those of us in Chris Cornell’s generation: It’s not what you think
Some Happier News
I discovered earlier this week that my piece, Abandoned WaterStructure, which was purchased by the City of Seattle for their Portable Works Collection, is on display in a show in downtown Seattle (Seattle Municipal Tower Gallery, 700 Fifth Ave) called Your Body of Water, Part II.
Check out this link from our collaborative website/blog, Improvisational Textilesfor more on this story: Your Body of Water Exhibit, Seattle Municipal Tower Gallery.As you will see in the post, the exhibit’s curator with the City of Seattle’s Office of Arts & Culture was kind enough to e-mail me some photos of my piece hanging in the show.
This blog is about a Quilter’s Life and there is more in my life than just quilting. I have so many non-quilting blog post ideas floating in my head, but today is another quilting related post. I so appreciate my non-quilter readers in addition to my quilter/crafter readers!
Making Rosettes
So is an activity equally or perhaps more addicting than making little English Paper Pieced (EPP) hexagons (hexies) – making rosettes with the hexies!
Here is what I started with (a collection of free 1/8th quarters from the 2016 Central Oregon Quilt Shop Hop):
Here is the book I used to teach myself EPP (All Points Patchwork by Diane Gilleland):
I turned the fabric into 250+ hexies:
In order to make something like this:
Photo credit: Quiltfolk.com
And, so far I have made 18 of these – rosettes:
But, now the (sort of) bad news
I counted and I only have enough hexies to make 36 rosettes and the quilt I want to make has 99 rosettes (9 x 11 row quilt). I used all the free fabric from the 2016 Central Oregon Quilt Shop Hop and I wanted the hexies to only be made from that coordinated fabric (I will have to use other fabric from my stash for the background/setting fabrics).
So either I change my rules, or I accept that I am making a 36 block (6 x 6 row) quilt with my rosettes. I think that is what I am going to do, as it would be a huge commitment to make a zillion more hexies to turn into 63 more blocks!
Sometimes you got to be flexible and change your original plan…
Closing this post with my favorite rosette so far (I have 18 more rosettes to make so we’ll see if this one wins the Rosette Beauty Contest (soon to be an annual event held in Atlantic City, ha!):
I started making EPP hexagons (aka “hexies”) to have something to do with my hands, other than play games on my iPad, while I watched TV in the evening with Terry the Quilting Husband (TTQH). I seem to need to do something while watching TV, my mind is unable to just “veg-out” in front of a screen.
And EPP hexies I did make…and make…and make. I have made over 225 EPP hexies so far!
So many hexies!
The fabrics are from the 2016 Central Oregon Shop Hop – a collection of fat 1/8th that TTQH and I got as gifts from each quilt shop we visited.
The original collection of free fabrics
I used up all the fat 1/8ths (all 14 pieces) to make the 225+ hexies and then TTQH suggested I might need some white hexies in my grouping as some of the prints also have white in them. At first I was annoyed, as I wanted to be done with this collection of hexies and move onto making my next collection!
After a little grumbling, I realized he was right, and found this white fabric in my general fat quarter stash that I think will work:
Making More Hexies
Now you might find this to be abusive, but I have trained TTQH to make my paper templates for my hexies. As mentioned in an earlier post on EPP, I found at a craft store, a paper punch that makes hexagons.
TTQH making hexies with the paper punch
A nice new pile of hexies!
TTQH likes a challenge and I caught him playing a game to see just how many hexies he could get out of a section of card stock. (I have a lot of card stock from my paper crafting days…I might return to make handmade cards someday…maybe…)
So what am I going to do with my first collection of hexies?
I fell in love with the EPP quilt on the cover of a new magazine, Quiltfolk:
Photo credit: quiltfolk.com
I plan to make my EPP hexies into rosettes and make a quilt similar to the one on the cover.
The premiere issue of this advertisement-free publication features the state of Oregon and stories of quilters and quilt shops in Oregon.
The premiere issue of Quiltfolkmagazine (01) goes on a road-trip around Oregon and when they get to Central Oregon, they feature a very talented art quilter, Shelia Finzer, who is in the SAQA art quilter group I belong.
Shelia and her art represented Central Oregon very well – this place (and Portland, Oregon) is a major nest of art quilters!
I know, I know, you are thinking: “Tierney, didn’t you post a while back about downsizing? Why are you buying more magazines?” I am not just downsizing my life to live as an extreme minimalist. I am CURATING my life to have only those things that truly make me happy. Quiltfolk magazine is one of those items.
The next issues (02) Quiltfolk magazine features quilter stories from the state of Iowa and I am looking forward to delving into that issue with a pot of tea!
The EPP Nest
I created a spot for my EPP activities (and any other portable crafting activities such as coloring or appliqué, etc.) in the living room in an old IKEA end table. Inside the end table are various crafting supplies for “crafting on demand” – ha!
This is a continuation of my “whole house crafting” expansion that I discussed in the Jan 2016 post, Whole House Crafting, when I realized that I did not have to confine my crafting activities to one room (3rd bedroom turned studio) in my house!
Well today is Monday, and I am going to try and get in another Pilot Butte walk, so I better stop blogging and go enjoy the sunshine and mountains.
They have been the perfect portable project and now I understand the fun of EPP. All the fabrics are from the 2016 Central Oregon Shop Hop – fat eighths given out by area quilt shops (from a set collected by both Terry the Quilting Husband and myself).
This weekend I hung out with a couple quilting buddies and we opened up Pinterest and starting playing with some layout options on the kitchen counter:
I still have many more hexies to make so I am not ready to decide on a final pattern yet but I am leaning towards the randomly placed design as opposed to a more traditional “Grandmother’s Flower Garden” design.
So more to come.
I will close this post with a lovely sign I saw recently at a shop:
Check out Sassy the Highly Opinionated Miniature Schnauzer’s latest musings in her Schnauzer Snips page.
In my 09/23/16 post The Library Stack (and a little EPP)I mentioned that I was learning English Paper Piecing (EPP) using the book All Points Patchwork by Diane Gilleland.
So here is an update:
After purchasing a hexagon paper punch, I punched our a huge stack of hexagons using old cardstock from my handmade card making days.
This past Spring, Terry the Quilting Husband and I went to the Central Oregon Quilt Shop Hop. During the Shop Hop we each received a “fat 1/8th quarter” of coordinated fabric. I stuck this fabric away for a future project and it seems perfect for my EPP experimentation!
I put together a plastic tote for my EPP supplies:
And here is my beginning stack of EPP hexagons:
So why EPP?
Well I had become addicted to playing games on my iPad in the evening as we watch evening TV shows (like NCIS on Tuesdays).
Playing these games were actually making me kind of frustrated and anxious as I moved into higher and higher levels. I had lost the sense of initial enjoyment that I experience when I first played. It became as if I had to keep playing and get to higher and higher levels (but why, for what purpose?).
Although the games were a complete meaningless waste of time and no longer fun, I did not seem to be able to stop. I even tried deleting them from my iPad but in a moment of weakness the following evening, I would reinstall the app for evening TV watching.
I do not seem to be able to just sit and watch TV, I have to be doing something else. It was clear that I needed a productive alternative to playing these games and EPP seemed like the perfect solution.
So now I can do something productive with my hands in the evening while watching TV instead of playing iPad game apps! I am starting to find EPP kind of addicting – I like to keep cranking out EPP completed hexagons and it is becoming a game of how many hexagons I can rack up in an evening! (Oh no soon I will be strung out on hexagons!)
Next time I update you on my Adventures in EPP, hopefully I will have enough hexagons to start planning a small piece. Perhaps I will have even started assembling the hexagons into a piece!
POSTSCRIPT
If you are not familiar with English Paper Piecing (EPP), the online craft class site Craftsy has a nice little overview called Exploring English Paper Piecing.
Oh (random info) I recent reorganized my Gallerypage into Art Quilts, Quilts, and Small Projects. I have a lot of old photos on this page and there are many old quilts I do not have digital photos on. Going forward I hope to only have high quality images of my work (but then I am taking the photos, so I am not promising – ha!)
The “tierney” in tierneycreates, has not done a lot of creating lately. I wonder if I am stuck. I have been reading about creating and I have been preparing to create (does that count?) but more about that later in this post.
The (Sort of) Current Library Stack
I am continuing my series of posts on the latest stack of books borrowed from my local library. At the time of writing this post, my stack has dwindled and I only have a couple books left – primarily the Vegan cookbooks and the book Why Write by Mark Edmundson.
I have enjoyed all the book except for the interior decorating book, Dreaming Small: Intimate Interiors by Douglas Woods. The book has a five-star rating on Amazon.com but I thought it was a snoozer (and yes I literally fell into a sweet little nap in my chair while reading/browsing through it).
The problem may not be the book, the problem may be that I am just completely burned out on home decorating books. They used to be a wonderful source of daydream but now many of them irritate me (except for the home decorating book The Nesting Place by Myquillyn Smith, which I discussed in my previous Library Stack post).
Terry the Quilting Husband, does not usually comment on my Library Stack sitting on the table next to my reading chair in the front window. He just accepts that his wife goes kind of wild on borrowing books from the library (there are worse habits to have in life). He did however tease me endlessly about a book called Mason Jar Nation(by JoAnn Moser).
Terry picked up the book and said: “Wow! A WHOLE BOOK about Mason Jars – WOW! Can I read it after you are done – it sounds SO exciting!” Through my laughter I heard him say something like: “No, no don’t tell me how it ends, I don’t want you to ruin it for me. I can’t wait to find out what the Mason Jars have been up to!”
I guess he does not fully appreciate all the options for craft related books and that yes, there are many people who enjoy making crafts with Mason Jars. The book was moderately interesting and did provide a nice history of Mason Jars. It did not inspire me to run out and buy some Mason jars and start crafting with them but it was fun to read while sipping my tea.
You might ask – why all the Vegan cookbooks? Are you Vegan or are you going Vegan? No to both questions. I love the idea of being Vegan, but there is one thing that keeps me from being Vegan, a little thing called B-A-C-O-N. Why live if you can never have bacon again? (Apologies to any Vegetarian or Vegan readers).
I work from home as a telecommuter for my pay-the-bills-job and so I eat lunch at home most days. Although I might be having meat and dairy with my dinner, I want to explore eating Vegan for lunch. I like the idea of “eating clean” for my mid-day meal. Terry the Quilting Husband has no interest in Vegan but you never know what I can slip into his diet (I have been very successful with slipping things years ago he said he would never eat like broccoli, spinach and kale! Oh wait, he reads my blog, now he will know what I am up to…)
Getting Ready to Create
Speaking of “library stacks”, I really enjoyed a book from my previous library stack (my August 23rd Library Stackposting) titled All Points Patchwork by Diane Gilleland. I enjoyed this book so much that I bought it.
This book covers the fundamentals of English Paper Piecing (EPP) as well as options for creating cool pieces using EPP. I have been getting ready to EPP and will have a future post on my Adventures in EPP.
There is a reason why I wanted to pick up EPP and I will discuss that later when I do my post on EPP (it has to do with trying to break an evening addiction to playing iPad games).
In addition to the book from the library, I was also influenced/inspired by one of the blogs I follow – Alice Samuel Quilt Company and a post the blogger did on recycling her old wedding invitations into EPP templates – A Box Full of Junk. I love the idea of using unwanted paper for something creative!
So here is what I have put together so far – a whole lot of hexagon templates using my new punch:
But more in a future post, first i need to make sure I do not completely embarrass myself trying to do EPP (if you never hear me mention those three words/three letters again you’ll know it did not work out…or I could post about “Misadventures in English Paper Piecing”!)
POSTSCRIPT
Someday I will follow up on all the other projects I have discussed and shared my start on. Right now I seem to just be building up my stash of “UFOs” (if you are not a quilter, refer to my post Lexicon of Quilters’ Acronyms).
tierneycreates 