I keep getting away from blogging as I seem to be having a very busy summer. We just returned from Chicago where we met up with my brother and his family for the weekend. Tomorrow my sister arrives and we go on a road trip to celebrate her birthday for a couple days and I show her a little of Colorado. Then the following week I head to a quilt retreat on the Washington coast.

I did in between traveling, get the quilt top done on the quilt I discussed in the post The Challenge… , of my friend’s late mother’s favorite clothes that she asked if I could turn into a quilt. As I shared in that post, here is what I started with:

The sweatshirt, T-shirt, jean jacket, jeans and shirts did not scare me. The sweaters, scarf and the velour robe did!

I bought woven interfacing (like 12 yards of it) and fused it to all the deconstructed clothing (my first step was to deconstruct the clothing).

I was able to pull out the logos on the t-shirt and sweatshirts; and embroidery on the jean jacket. After fusing all the non denim fabrics to the woven interfacing, I was able to cut them into 5.5 inch x 5.5 inch blocks and create 10.5 inch by 10.5 inch 4-patch blocks.

What to do with these sweaters?

I did consult with my friend Wendy who suggested Solvy, a water soluble stabilizer. Wendy has a lot of experience with Solvy. Wendy did a little workshop for me at her house years ago and I made a little thread bowl with thread scraps like in her book Fast, Fun & Easy Incredible Thread-A-Bowls: 2 Techniques-5 Projects-Unlimited Possibilities. I still had a sample of it that she gave me.

Solvy is a little on the messy side and I decided to just try using the woven interfacing on a section of one of the sweaters as a test. It worked, not perfectly, but good enough. I was able to cut some hearts out of one of the sweaters, and then fuse the heart to a 10.5 inch by 10.5 inch block and satin stitch it down:

Ta da – was able to use one of the sweaters

I did not use the other two sweaters, I am returning them to my friend.

So here is the completed quilt top which I will machine quilt myself to batting and backing fabric; and then figure out what to use for binding.

It’s not my greatest work as the fabrics were very challenging to work with and I cannot believe I added a thin polyester scarf to a quilt, but I did it! Don’t even get me started on the velour robe – the deconstructed fabric shed everywhere and was a disaster when I tried to press the blocks with it in it. But I made it work also…

It does look better in person, you’ll just have to trust me (smile).

When I get it quilted and the binding sewn down, I will give you all the final photo as well as what ended up being the measurements on the quilt.

Studio, What's on the Design Wall

The Challenge…

July 1, 2022July 1, 2022 tierneycreates: a fusion of textiles and smiles

My friend lost her Mom, who she was very close to, and she is having a difficult time with grief.

She’s kept some of her Mom’s favorite clothes and she asked if I would make a quilt out of them.

I agreed to making the quilt, without knowing what the clothes looked like as she planned to snuggle under the quilt and feel comforted by her Mom’s beloved clothing.

When she dropped off the clothing, I realized I had a challenge ahead:

I’ve made art quilts from recycled clothing; and when my Father passed, I made my brother and sister each a quilt from the T-shirts he used to wear, so I was comfortable with the idea of deconstructing clothing and turning them into fabric for a quilt.

However, I’ve never worked with knitted fabrics such as these in a quilt:

I think I can work the first two sweaters on the left into the design, but I might have to return the black and white sweater to my friend to just keep. I bought some special interfacing (and softer one, not the Pellon SF 101 I usually use that I think would be too stiff). I am sitting outside (lovely day) writing this blog post and sorry I do not feel like running upstairs and seeing exactly what interfacing it is – ha!

I also have this challenge – a scarf, but I think I can just use interfacing for it also and work it into the design:

I have found a pattern that I want to use (I think) that I will share in a future post. Right now I have deconstructed the clothing and sorted them.

I am looking forward to working her Mom’s favorite T-shirt and sweatshirts into the design, as well as her beloved velour robe:

And the embroidery from her Mom’s favorite jean jacket should be fun to incorporate also:

I’ve deconstructed the jean jacket, saving the embroidered flower separately and saving any salvageable denim as fabric for the quilt.

I’ll update you as I make progress on this challenge!

I welcome ANY THOUGHTS on how to best interface the sweaters to incorporate them into a quilt.

Studio

Quilter Distractions: Good Mail filled with “Taupe”

June 8, 2022June 8, 2022 tierneycreates: a fusion of textiles and smiles

My friend the quilt artist, quilt book author, and quilting teacher, Wendy Hill (@wendyquilter) was generous enough to send me a package of good mail the other week.

Inside the package were fabric scraps (small and large to very large) and completed blocks from when she was fascinated with making “Taupe” quilts.

She had an article in the July/August 2007 publication Quilters Newsletter Magazine which discussed Taupe quilts and featured her amazing Taupe quilt – Isotaupe.

Here is an image of it from her website (she now uses Instagram as her primary social media) Wendy Hill Quilt Artist:

This image does not do it justice, it is amazing in person; and I first saw either this quilt or another Taupe quilt of Wendy’s at an art quilting show when I lived in Central Oregon. It was before I knew Wendy as a friend, she was an amazing local artist and quilt book author.

I got to know Wendy through running in to her at the Stitchin’ Post in Sisters, Oregon. I believe it was at the annual Pajama Sale (see this old post of mine for information about the annual Stitchin’ Post Pajama Sale where you would get huge discounts on fabric if you showed up in the PJs before 8:00 am – Pajama Sale and Finished Pieces, a lot of great memories of attending that each year…), when I was working on my first Taupe quilt and Wendy consulted on fabrics and admired my blocks in progress (I cannot find a picture of that quilt which I gave as a gift to someone long time ago…)

So Wendy knew of my love for Taupe quilts and how much I was blown away with her Taupe quilts; and recently she was Spring Cleaning and sent me the lovely package of Taupe fabrics and blocks from quilts in progress that she decided not to complete.

Example of some of the blocks she sent:

Included in the package was also this pile of blocks:

I wasn’t sure of what pattern these blocks were supposed to be until I laid them out on my design wall:

Wow! The picture I took does not do these blocks justice as they are in a collection of amazing Taupe fabrics.

I knew I wanted to finish this quilt and I thought I could disassemble one of the blocks to create a pattern. Then I discovered from Wendy that this was a quilt she designed called SuperSymmetry and it was published in the October 2010 edition of The Quilt Life.

Here is a picture of the quilt SuperSymmetry from Wendy’s gallery page on her website wendyhill.net:

Isn’t it breathtaking?

I think I have enough Taupe scraps to finish the quilt as well as some Taupe in my collection such as these Japanese Taupe fabrics in my stash:

HOWEVER I am supposed to be focusing on working on my Tula Pink’s City Sampler 100 Modern Quilt Blocks quilt (see post And then there were 88), but I’ve become very distracted by the contents of the package Wendy sent me!

I also came across this pattern recently, which would look wonderful with Taupe fabrics, in the January/February 2003 issue of Quilters Newsletter Magazine I picked up at a thrift store for 50 cents:

But I made myself put the contents of the package Wendy sent me away, so I can get back to finishing the quilt I am working on.

You know us creative types, we can be subject to easily distractible “squirrel’ moments like the dog Dug in the movie Up:

“I have just met you, and I love you” – one of my all-time favorite movies lines, as well as one of my all-time favorite animated movie!

I must focus on my current project.

SQUIRREL!

Postscript

If you would like to learn more about “Taupe” as a color/concept, here overview of Taupe, from Colorpsychology.org:

Taupe is considered to be intermediate shade between dark brown and gray, which shares similar attributes of both colors. However, taupe does not describe a single color, rather, it is used to describe a vast range of colors from dark tan to brownish gray. Taupe is a neutral hue — neutrals are created by combining complementary colors (colors that are opposite each other on the color wheel) which results in desaturated brownish colors or mutes — likewise, taupe hues are achieved by mixing together umber and white pigment.

The word, taupe, originates from the French word, taupe, and the Latin word, Talpa, which translates to “mole,” as it was primarily used to describe moleskin. Notably, variations of taupe have appeared on the Pantone Color Trend Reports over the years. Recently, ‘Warm Taupe’ was featured on the Fall 2016 color palette. Taupe provides the perfect backdrop to complement and offset brighter colors.

Studio

A “New” Studio

May 8, 2022May 8, 2022 tierneycreates: a fusion of textiles and smiles

A week or so ago my partner John and I came up with a crazy idea: We have a large master bedroom and only use about 1/2 of it (the other 1/2 I used for occasional yoga and daily stretches) – why don’t we switch my sewing/quilting studio to the master bedroom and we move our bedroom to a smaller guest bedroom down the hall?

Yes, we’d have to access the master bathroom through my studio but we could keep the closets the same as our clothes are inside the master bathroom in a walk in closet at one end. So all we’d have to do (well it is a BIG “ALL”) is move a couple rooms of furniture around…

THE OLD STUDIO (IN A SMALL BEDROOM)

First, here is what my OLD studio looked like in one of the smaller bedrooms upstairs in my house:

Here is a little video tour of my old studio I posted to Instagram last year. I uploaded it to YouTube:

As you can see I had it jammed packed with stuff, but I made it work!

So over the past 3 – 4 days, doing a little here and there and then doing some big moves, we got rooms switched around. It took another day to get art, etc. hung and finishing touches.

THE NEW STUDIO (IN THE FORMER MASTER BEDROOM)

Here is the reveal of my NEW master bedroom tierneycreates studio:

I really like the table placed in the alcove (where I used to do yoga) with the windows on three sides. During the day it gets a lot of natural light to craft by and I have a nice view of a wooded area.

As far as our “new” small master bedroom, everything is going well so far. All our furniture fit and it feels rather cozy.

I cannot wait to get back to working on projects in my new big studio space!

Studio

Stuffing it the Eco-conscious Way!

February 13, 2022 tierneycreates: a fusion of textiles and smiles

In my sort of recent post, Preparing for Quilt Retreat, I shared that I was preparing for an upcoming quilt retreat with my long time quilting friends by pre-cutting blocks from the book Tula Pink’s City Sampler 100 Modern Quilt Blocks for a quilt, and saving them in individual packets so I’d be ready to work on each block at the retreat:

I ended up getting 20 of these cut for the retreat, so that is 1/5th the blocks needed for the quilt

Well, cutting the fabric for 20 – 6.5 inch by 6.5 inch blocks made a lot of tiny scraps, especially since many pieces/parts of the blocks were 1.5 inch x 1.5 inch or a little larger.

Here is my little bucket of scraps:

Most of the pieces were too small to use in anything, and I already have a collection of “leaders and enders” for sewing on my machine and did not need more.

So I decided to use the scraps as stuffing for some pincushions I needed to finish up, sitting in my WIP pile. The tops for the pincushions were paper pieced (see posts Paper Pieced Pincushion and Another Paper Pieced Pincushion & Amazing Thrift Shop Find), the bottoms cut and I needed to sew the strips around the middle, stuff them and put on the buttons.

Here is one of the pincushions getting stuffed with scraps:

And here are a couple images of a finished pincushion, all stuffed with tiny scraps (and thread clippings) that could have ended up in the trash (then landfill!):

I was feeling quite eco-conscious after using those tiny scraps (and thread clippings) to stuff the pincushion!

Studio, tierneycreates, What's on the Design Wall

Another Bag Making Class and Another Project

December 3, 2021December 5, 2021 tierneycreates: a fusion of textiles and smiles

Last evening I took another bag making class like I did a month ago (see posts Did something awesome – took an in person crafting class! and Adventures in Bag Making: Range Backpack DONE!) at a Denver quilt shop.

This time we worked on the Firefly Tote by Noodlehead. A month ago I shared photos of the quilt shop’s class sample of the tote:

The pattern has instructions for two sizes – a smaller “project” size; and a larger “tote” size. I figured I would make the tote size.

I decided to make it in the same fabrics as the Range backpack also by Noodlehead that I made in the previous class and here are photos in progress during the class last night:

That was as far as I got (photo above) during class and I still need to make the lining and the drawstring topper. I found the “blingy” gold handles at the quilt shop and they go with the shiny gold zipper I used also in my coordinating backpack, also found at the quilt shop.

One class attendee got way farther than I did, and she was making the “project” size tote bag. Here is her nearly finished adorable project size bag being held up by our wonderful instructor:

Another student’s nearly finished project size Firefly Tote

Another student in the class brought her finished Range backpack to class and it was so cool I had to photograph it – she has it lined with a custom Yellowstone map fabric she found on Spoonflower:

If you are just joining us, here is the Range backpack I finished a couple weeks ago from the class I took a month ago. As you can see my Firefly Tote will coordinate with it:

And speaking of backpacks, I am currently working on a commission project of a scrappy Tula Pink Range backpack for a gift for someone who is a Tula Pink aficionado. The family member who commissioned it as a surprise gift asked me to include lots of Tula Pink fabrics. I am trying my best but I have a limited range of her fabric lines (but lots of scraps!)

Lots of Tula Pink All Stars line fabric scraps in my stash

Here is my design wall in progress as I work on piecing together/creating my own “fabric” to start cutting the sections for the backpack:

This is just a little bit of the fabrics I am using, it will be super scrappy. I am going to first make “fabric” from the scraps and do some simple quilting on it to reinforce it before I start cutting sections for the backpack pieces. I will share a photo when it is done!

I have to set finishing my Firefly Tote from last night’s class aside for now as I need to get the backpack done and shipped so they can surprise their sister for Christmas!

Are you working on any last minute December projects?

Fabric Scraps Obsession, Studio

Little Scrappy People

November 29, 2021November 30, 2021 tierneycreates: a fusion of textiles and smiles

Back around the beginning of November my blogging buddy in Pennsylvania, Claudia@claudiamcgillart posted this post about how she was making little people out of recycled eye medicine vials:

Tiny People Made from Eye Drops Vials

I loved how she was doing some very creative recycling with individual eye medicine vials that most people would have discarded into the trash.

Around the same time I was in the process of cleaning up my fabric scrap collection and pulling out the tiny pieces I was likely never to use. I started to discard the scraps into the trash bin (gasp) but then I realized they were the right size for Claudia’s eye medicine vial people (or other art projects she does with small fabric scraps).

So I sent her a package of small to tiny fabric scraps.

Then last week (or so…time is getting foggy at the end of the year) I received a wonderful surprise in the mail from Claudia – my own collection of little eye medicine vial people.

Here’s a close up of the little people in groupings of three:

For now I have them all hanging out on my white board ledge in the studio:

They definitely make the boring whiteboard more interesting!

Studio

Are You a Peeker?

August 5, 2021August 6, 2021 tierneycreates: a fusion of textiles and smiles

I know that sounds like a really personal question doesn’t it? (I am a proud “peeker” but we’ll get into that in a moment…)

I’m about to ask those of you who quilt/put bindings on projects some really deeply personal questions, are you ready?

Working on sewing on the quilt binding that won the votes (see posts Help Me Pick the Binding for Seattle Scrappy! and And the Winner of the Binding Fabric Poll is…) yesterday got me wondering what other crafters’ practices are related to sewing on a binding.

First a couple questions related to the initial sewing on of the binding to the quilt:

Are You a Peeker?

When you first sew the binding onto to the quilt (before you hand stitch or machine stitch it down), do you peek after your first couple inches or so to see how the binding is going to look finished?

I do! I am a proud peeker! As soon as I have enough binding sewn on to the quilt I flip the edge it over to the backside so I can see how it is going to look:

It is just so pleasing to me and like instant gratification to see a preview of how the finishing quilt binding will look!

Do You Measure or Eyeball?

When it comes to turning a corner on a quilt when initially sewing on the binding, do you eyeball the quarter inch (or whatever measurement you use), or do you whip out the ruler and measure?

I am an “eyeballer” and so far it has served me well (but I have screwed up a couple times). Occasionally, as you can see in the image above, I do also pin it in place before sewing down the next section after turning the corner.

Now a couple questions related to hand stitching the binding to the back of the quilt after you’ve initially sewn it on:

How Do You Do Your Corners?

After you finish initially sewing on the binding, do you sew all the corners of the binding first and then sew down the rest along the quilt; or do you just start at one section and work your way around the quilt?

What I do is preview the corners, that they are sitting correctly and sometimes leave some pins or some clips in the corner, and then I randomly select a place to start to sew down the binding and work my way around the quilt.

And the most private and personal question of all (smile):

How Do You Select Thread Color to Sew Down to Back?

I’ve always struggled with this – do you go with trying to match the color of the binding or the color of the backing/back of the quilt?

I went with what was in my sewing machine – a medium-ish gray and I hope it works between the medium-dark binding color and the light gray backing!

I think that is enough probing questions.

Okay, so in the comments below feel free to share your most personal binding related secrets – it’s OK you’re among friends (smile)!

Postscript

I was also going to ask how do you initially measure how much binding you need to bind a quilt? I eyeball it by holding up my fabrics strips, that will be made into the binding, up to the quilt. But many times I end up with this situation: too much leftover binding…

Studio

And the Winner of the Binding Fabric Poll is…

August 3, 2021August 3, 2021 tierneycreates: a fusion of textiles and smiles

Okay we are doing this in sort of “real time” as I have not looked at the final poll results yet, and I am going to do it while I type this post!

Wait to back up in case you are just joining us – in my July 30, 2021 post Help Me Pick the Binding for Seattle Scrappy! I asked for my blogging buddies to vote on which binding fabric I should use for the quilt Seattle Scrappy which I recently finished hand quilting.

Thanks so much to those of you who voted, and the winner is (drumroll as I am about to peek at the results myself)…

A TIE BETWEEN FABRIC B AND FABRIC D!

Okay it is up to me to break the tie.

As much as I love fabric D, I have thought about several of the comments that were left on the post about framing the quilt in a darker fabric and I am going to go with Fabric B for the binding.

So I will start assembling the Fabric B binding and share photos when I get the quilt binded…bound…when I finish attaching the binding (smile).

Feature image Photo by Case Hubbart on Unsplash

Beastie Adventures, From the Woodshop, Studio

Guest Blogger: Updated Tour of Beastie’s Home

April 13, 2021June 6, 2021 tierneycreates: a fusion of textiles and smiles

Tierney is on vacation and she’ll tell you about her trip when she gets back. So I am going to step in and be the guest blogger so she does not go too long without having a new post on her blog (I know, I know, I am so awesome for helping her!).

Oh in case you are new to this blog: my name is tierneycreates Beastie and I am a Monster, but the good kind of Monster. I was made by Helen of CrawCrafts Beasties in Dublin, Ireland. You can read my story at I’m A Monster!!!. You can also check out the other posts I’ve had to guest blog on (i.e. when the human Tierney falls off the blogging-wagon and I have to help) in the series of posts: Beastie Adventures.

A photo from last year of me writing a guest blog post

When I am not guest blogger posting, then Mike the Miniature Schnauzer has to guest blog post:

Someone else Tierney uses to do her work: Mike reviewing the draft of his guest post before posting…

Oh and now the subject of this post (which is not to just show how Tierney falls of the blogging wagon and we have to rescue her…) – I wanted to show you the recent updates to my home, which is also Tierney’s crafting studio.

Tierney’s partner John (human John, not to be confused with my Beastie fiancé “John Beastie”, see post Guest Blog Post: Mail Order Groom) has been busy in his Woodshop making things for her studio.

MY NEW “HIGH RISE“

Human John built Tierney a storage unit for her fat quarter collection and fabric scraps which she keeps in wine crates:

My dog Mikelet and I live on the “second floor”:

IRONING (AND CUTTING) TABLE

Human John also built Tierney a table with shelves for her new large iron board he made her (see post “From the Cutting Table”: Update to tierneycreates Studio (Guest Blogger)) a couple months ago. She stores her rulers in there as well as miscellaneous sewing supplies:

She’s also been known to store a Miniature Schnauzer in there:

THE TABLE

Last year from her local community board for free stuff, Tierney picked up a large black table to use for crafting. It was scuffed up but it worked:

Tierney was “making-do” with the table and covered up the scuffs with an old table cloth but John wanted her to have a decent looking table in her studio so he created a new tabletop for it! John created a pattern with wood like a “nine-patch” quilting block.

A month ago Tierney bought herself a used Juki sewing machine which is in the image above.

Alas, she did not buy ME another sewing machine, I have to just be happy with my Beastnina:

So those are the changes to my home, the tierneycreates studio!

Tierney will be back on the next post telling you about her trip and she might even catch up with reading her blogging buddies posts and responding to comments.

Until then, here is a sign she saw a couple months ago to give you some inspiration:

From the Woodshop, Studio

Peg, Peg, Pegboard

February 25, 2021October 26, 2021 tierneycreates: a fusion of textiles and smiles

Yup. So much for my plans to do daily postings to my blog. I even asked Mike the Miniature Schnauzer, who guest blog posted on Sunday 2/21/21, to fill in like he did in the post Guest Blogger: Obsession with Making Crocheted Dishcloths, but he was busy napping and still seems irritated over some dishcloth-crocheting-while-riding-in-the-car incident… (I have a hashtag I use on Instagram sometimes for posted pictures of Mike: #miniatureschnauzerfirstworldproblems).

Rulers Gone Awry

This is probably not unusual but as a quilter I have a lot of different rulers and templates. I have the standard cutting rulers and then I have special rulers and templates I’ve collected over the years for various projects (or being lured by a demo at a quilt shop into buying a ruler/template I thought I might need someday!).

My organization of these rulers and templates was sort of haphazard and irritating to me. I thought that adding pegboard to my crafting studio would help resolve this – so I consulted with my partner John, aka “Mr. Woodworker” and he figured out a solution.

First he installed a floating shelf he built above where the pegboard was to be placed:

Then he cut the pegboard to fit the area of wall; and painted the pegboard to match the wall:

And then he installed the pegboard. Here is my original set up with the pegboard hooks and pegboard baskets were bought:

At first I tried giving tierneycreates Beastie and her dog Mikelet (see series of post Beastie Adventures) their own little balcony on the pegboard wall but they did not like it.

So I moved her to another area on my studio (she will probably do a guest post in the future to show you her new home and other changes to my studio) and repurposed that “balcony”:

The pegboard has been wonderful to organize my commonly used and miscellaneous rulers. For now I still keep my very large rulers (like my 15″ x 15″ ruler) on my cutting table:

“Mr. Woodworker” is building me a new cutting table in the future which will have slots for my large rulers underneath the cutting surface!

Postscript

My friend Dana was inspired by my new pegboard and recently she had her husband install one in her studio!

At first she was going to have the pegboard painted a neutral color like the color of her studio walls, but then she decided she wanted a pop of color:

I think she did an amazing job organizing her pegboard! Thanks to Dana for sharing images of her new pegboard.

From the Woodshop, Studio

Handmade Spools

February 18, 2021October 26, 2021 tierneycreates: a fusion of textiles and smiles

My partner John (“Mr. Woodworker”) has been busy in his workshop. In the next several weeks I will have some new improvements to my studio to show you.

For now I thought I would show you that he has taught himself to make wooden spools, which I can use for my decorative ribbon.

He has a special drill-thingie (I guess I could ask him the official name but what would be the fun in that) which he used to create the top and bottom of each spool:

And he attaches the top and bottom discs to an oak dowel to create the spool.

The spools are around 5.5 to 6 inches in height and I think they add a decorative touch to my studio!

Beastie Adventures, From the Woodshop, Studio

“From the Cutting Table”: Update to tierneycreates Studio (Guest Blogger)

January 12, 2021October 26, 2021 tierneycreates: a fusion of textiles and smiles

It’s been a while since I guest blogged. Hi there – it’s tierneycreates Beastie and I wanted to share some changes to my home (Tierney’s studio).

I’ve titled my post “From the Cutting Table…” because my dog Mikelet and I now live on the cutting table in Tierney’s studio:

In case you are new to this blog, here is a little background on me:

My name is tierneycreates Beastie and I am a Monster, but the good kind of Monster. I was made by Helen of CrawCrafts Beasties in Dublin, Ireland. You can read my story at I’m A Monster!!!. You can also check out the other posts I’ve had to guest blog on (i.e. when the human Tierney falls off the blogging-wagon and I have to help) in the series of posts: Beastie Adventures.

I like the cutting table, I have plenty of room and it is not too scary like it was when Tierney had me next to all those creepy giant schnauzers (see January 2020 post Guest Blogger: What the heck is going on here?)

Can you see the look of sheer terror in my eyes??!?!

Whew, glad those days are over! Oh you might wonder what became of my fiancé John Beastie (see post Guest Blog Post: Mail Order Groom), well he spends most of his time in John the Human’s office downstairs. Tierney and John Human feel it is best not to let a couple of Beasties spend too much time together as mischief is certain to happen! (Just wait until we get married, they’ll never keep us apart!!!)

Here we are in July 2020 celebrating our engagement

Oh I think I am getting off track on my post…

So yes my dog Mikelet and I spend most of our time on the cutting board in Tierney’s studio and we like it, though I have to keep an eye on Mikelet because sometimes he plays in the pincushion and I think that might be dangerous.

By the way my maker Helen of CrawCrafts Beasties made me my own sewing machine so I could help Tierney sew projects and once I figure out how to use it maybe I will have a guest post about my projects instead of Tierney’s!

Now what I was I originally planning to tell you? Beasties are easy distracted. Oh yes, I wanted to tell you about a recent change to my home the tierneycreates Studio.

John, Human John not Beastie John, Tierney’s partner, recently made an ironing board table for the studio. Before the new ironing board table, Tierney was using a traditional ironing board and iron.

What started this change was for Christmas John got Tierney a cordless iron:

Perhaps you wanted to see a full image of the iron but isn’t the iron much cuter with me in front of it?!!?!?

Okay here is the iron:

Now that Tierney had cordless iron she had more flexibility on where her iron could be located, so John (again I mean Human John as Beastie John could not have handled the tools involved which are bigger than him…) built her a 2 foot by 4 foot ironing table for her studio.

First John cut a piece of plywood the same size as the table base being used (an old counter height folding table). Then John and Tierney wrapped and stapled four (4) layers onto the plywood base:

Batting
Insul-Brite heat resistant batting
Heat resistant fabric (like the type used for old ironing board covers)
Cotton fabric

Tierney is really pleased with her new ironing table and she used it while making all those tote bags she talked about in her recent post (see post Tote, Tote, Tote Bags).

So that is the big change to the studio.

Somedays I get tired of the studio and miss the days when I used to go on adventures with Tierney. The pandemic has slowed down my adventures. Tierney promises that soon we will resume our adventures, I just need to be patient.

For now Mikelet and I will wistfully stare out the studio window…

Postscript

I am going to close this guest post by sharing a secret: Tierney is sort of a slob in her studio.

Look at these mini Toblerone candy bar wrappers she left on the cutting table!

I caught Mikelet sniffing them, luckily there was no candy in them as chocolate is bad for dogs.

I hope she will be more respectful of my space and clean up her wrappers!

From the Woodshop, Studio

In the Studio, additional

December 22, 2020October 26, 2021 tierneycreates: a fusion of textiles and smiles

Just a quick(ish) post as I try to catch up on reading all my dear blogging buddies’ posts that happened while I was away from blogging for a little while.

This is an unexpected continuation of my previous post – In the Studio.

“Mr. Woodworker” (my new nickname for my partner John) is a little obsessed with getting my sewing studio in shape for maximum-creativity-efficiency (or he is just looking for more pandemic projects and we continue to primarily be stuck at home).

He and I came up with the idea of adding some shelving on each end of my new floating shelf he just installed:

Here are the new shelves (just installed yesterday) – one on each side of the window in my sewing studio!

I cannot begin to tell you how pleased I am with my two new bookcases/shelving on each end of the new floating shelf. These bookcases are things I did not even realize I needed until we spontaneously came up with the idea and Mr. Woodworker whipped them up!

I now feel really organized!

What does Mr. Woodworker have planned next for my sewing studio? Well he wants to build me a matching cutting table, a sewing table and one additional bookshelf area. I asked him to hold off for now as I need to focus on using my studio to keep making stuff for my tierneycreates Etsy shop I hope to reopen in January 2021.

Postscript

Mr. Woodworker has been working on his own studio too, which is located in the basement. He built himself a clamp stand for his woodworking clamps:

Functional – yes. As cute as my sewing studio area – no – ha!

From the Woodshop, Studio

In the Studio

December 19, 2020October 26, 2021 tierneycreates: a fusion of textiles and smiles

It seems like it’s been a bit of a while since I posted.

To get myself through December (see Postscript section of the post Pillow for a Kitty) I’ve been spending a lot of time in my sewing studio working on various projects. I will share these projects over the next several posts.

Some of the projects have to do with preparing to re-open my tierneycreates Etsy shop after taking a hiatus for 4 (?) years (it appears I last sold something in my shop in 2016).

I’ll talk more about my decision to re-open my shop and the offerings I am working in some future post, but my studio currently shows evidence of my progress to eventually stock my shop.

My sewing studio has really been an oasis and making things has made me feel centered and peaceful. My partner John has been supporting my studio time and progressing with his new hobby woodworking by sprucing up my studio with some new handmade furniture.

New Bookcase

He made a bookcase for my studio (his first bookcase). The first image is of the bookcase being built in his studio in the basement:

New Floating Shelf

He also built a floating shelf across the wall of windows in my studio to add extra storage:

(By the way, my studio is a mess because I’ve been busy making things and not always tidying up between projects…)

In addition to making many things over the past several weeks, I’ve also added in some additional organizational touches to include re-organized my fabric scraps into baskets in my sewing studio’s closet and getting additional wine crates to organize fat quarters.

Re-organizing Fabric Scraps

Here is what I did with the fabric scraps:

It looks messy but it is a much better way for me to access my fabric scraps which are organized by color groups:

Black, white and gray
Cream and yellow
Orange and brown
Red and purple
Green, blue, and all the blue-greens

I have batik scraps in their own separate bucket and I have speciality fabric scraps in their own basket.

The plastic bags are scraps for special projects.

While organizing my scraps I purged a lot of small pieces. I decided to finally let go of the small/tiny pieces as well as any scraps that “did not bring me joy”.

Fat Quarter Wrangling

I’ve collected a lot of fat quarters over the years and it feels like I am always searching for the best way to store them. A couple months ago I came up with the idea to organize them in wine crates that I got from local liquor stores. Some stores will give you 1 or 2 for free while others charge $5 a wine crate.

Using an old bookshelf (that I’ve had for like 20 years), I organized the fat quarters by color groups into crates, which I keep next to my cutting table:

A week ago I added one more crate – the prettiest crate I’ve picked up to date and it was given to me for free by a local liquor store. It even came with a lid:

I keep my beloved collection of Asian and Japanese woven fat quarters as well as a couple other special fat quarter fabric sets (like my Marcia Derse fat quarter collection, see post Fabric Fangirl Frenzy for the story of when I met Marcia and went a little “fabric designer fan girl” on her… ) on the top of the bookshelf with the wine crates:

I love the sign I found at a thrift shop: “Happiness is homemade”. It feels like a lot of my recent happiness (or at least breaks from grief) is tied to working on handmade items!

As I mentioned earlier in the post, my next group of posts will be what I’ve been working on in my studio over the past couple of weeks.

Postscript

In case you are wandering what Mike the Miniature Schnauzer has been up to – he is back riding the aisles of home improvement stories and his continues to provide emotional support to his male human working on woodworking projects!

He actually loves going to home improvement stores and does not like John to leave the house without him!

Studio, What's on the Design Wall

The Patriotic Quilt

September 1, 2020November 15, 2023 tierneycreates: a fusion of textiles and smiles

Recently I made a patriotic themed quilt for my partner John to go next to his framed U.S. flag from a mission in Iraq his adopted son K, who serves in the U.S. Air Force, dedicated in his honor.

When I purchased the panel a month or so ago from Missouri Star Quilt Company I was feeling strangely patriotic. Now I have mixed feelings but I like the way the quilt came out and how it looks next to the mission flag, which I will show you later in this post.

Here is the panel with the piecing in progress:

I made a lot of “flying geese” using the quick method for flying geese and had a lot of little trimmings to throw out but it was better then the slower way to may flying geese!

Here is the finished quilt next to the framed mission flag:

As you can tell, I machine quilted it myself (smile).

I mentioned earlier in this post, when I purchased this panel I was feeling strangely patriotic.

I think I am still feeling patriotic but I am also feeling fairly discouraged and a little sad about the state of my country. However, I am trying to focus on all the good people here and not the “less good” (and I am not talking politics as I am fairly disillusioned by both sides of the U.S. political parties).

My parents raised us to be patriotic, my father was even born on the 4th of July (Independence Day) and served his country is the U.S. Army.

Even though as people of African decent our ancestors were brought to the country against their will, I came from a family who tried to make the best they could of a not so good situation (Stories My Father Told Me). We focused on education (I come from a long line of teachers) and did not let racial discrimination hold us down. I was taught to keep moving forward and to focus on raising others up (for example my father worked as a social worker with gangs in New York City after finishing his Masters Degree in the early 1960s and then was the head of the Urban League in several major cities; and my mother worked as a Director of a Head Start Program).

The 4th of July used to be an important holiday for me, always celebrated (plus it was my father’s birthday!). I loved wearing red, white and blue in honor of the U.S. flag. As a kid I loved standing and reciting the Pledge of Allegiance each morning at school; and I loved to sing the National Anthem at the top of my lungs.

But I’ve been struggling over the past 4 years and I’ve been embarrassed by this country’s leadership (both sides of the political spectrum) who seem to be overall very “self-serving”, intentionally polarizing this country, and spending most of their time “pointing fingers”. I feel like my heart is broken…at times actually shattered.

However, this is the only country I have, and to hate it just makes me even sadder and more heart broken. So I’ve decided despite all the strife and unhappy stuff going on in the U.S. to remain patriotic and still believe in my country.

I am just sharing my feelings and I am not making any particular political point. I respect that others may feel quite different and thanks for reading my musings.

Studio, tierneycreates

Early Experiment with Strong and Bold Colors

August 4, 2020August 4, 2020 tierneycreates: a fusion of textiles and smiles

Last week I rotated the quilts hanging in my entry hall from several of my recycled silk art quilts to a quilt I made in the early 2010s (perhaps 2010 or 2011) that was one of my first attempts of experimenting with bold colors.

Rotated from this:

to this:

This quilt, which I will call Asian Fabric Slide Show, is from the pattern Slide Show by Atkinson Designs. If you are a quilter, and I have been to a quilt shop in the past 15 years, then likely you’ve seen this pattern – either available for purchase, or as a sample quilt, or as both.

It is a very common quilt pattern and before I made the quilt I’d seen many version of it, many which looked similar to the quilt in the image above from Atkinson Design’s website.

Before making this quilt I had begun to experiment a little with color, especially with batiks, which I had recently discovered. And before that I was making quilts with traditional looking quilting fabrics and colors. My original palette (especially when I began quilting around 1999/2000) was blue, red, green, cream, purple, white, mauve.

I found this image on twobeesfabric.com and it looks like my old fabric palette:

Somewhere in the late 2000s as I began to make quilts with batik fabrics, I became attracted to strong/bold colors.

When I decided to make the Slide Show quilt, I decided to make unconventional choices including using a “featured fabric”/main fabric with a non-repeat pattern (which was more like a panel than traditional fabric yardage).

For the little blocks surrounding the larger squares, I decided to experiment with adding a fabric that WAS NOT in the featured fabric but added a pop of color that appeared to go well with the other fabrics which were coordinated.

I used a light and iridescent bluish gray fabric for this experiment with “non-matching the featured fabric” (see arrow in image below):

Then I got really crazy with the quilt and added a very strong deep orange as the border. I’d never used this much orange in a quilt before. In the past I would have used the green I used in lattice or a black as the border. I am not sure what got into me but I decided to make the border really pop!

It wasn’t until I recently rotated the quilts in the hallway that I remembered this part of my quilt journey.

After this quilt, bold color became part of my design/quilt journey as evidenced by my series of recycled silk quilts – the Color Story Series.

Here is one from that series with a crazy amount of bold color:

COLOR STORY VIII: THE LOUD COLOR SHIFT (2016)

If you like, please share in the comments, a little about your color/colour journey in your art (whether you are a quilter, knitter, painter, ceramicist, etc.)!

Postscript

In case you are curious about the kimono quilt to the right of the quilt discussed in this post:

You can read about that quilt in an old post from June 2017:

Jiko’s Robe at QuiltWorks Gallery, June 2017

Beastie Adventures, Studio

Tweaks to the Tierneycreates Studio

June 11, 2020May 2, 2023 tierneycreates: a fusion of textiles and smiles

I love Crafter’s/Artist’s Studio tours! I love to see where people create. If I happen upon a studio tour blog post then it’s time to get a cup of tea and settle back and enjoy!

I have a couple books in my collection of studio tours/ideas and I occasionally pick up the latest issue of the magazine – Where Women Create.

So I thought I’d share an update to the post Guest Blogger: tierneycreates’ “New” Studio Tour, and share some photos of the latest version of my tierneycreates studio (aka back bedroom) in case you like studio tours as much as I do!

The Studio Needed An Official Name

I decided to name it “Tierney’s Woman Cave”!

New Layout

I changed the layout of the table I have on risers that serves as my cutting table. This is the table I got for free from my community’s for sale/for free online boards.

Before:

After (gave the Eurolounger next to the window to the pre-teen next door for her room remodel):

I had a feeling when I first re-did my studio after moving back into it after we decided in the early COVID days not to sell the house and to stay put (see post Perspective), that I would make tweaks to the layout as I used the studio and got a sense of what worked and what could be better.

I shifted the iron board and re-did the area on top of the bookcases in the room. I also added in additional storage drawers in the cubby bookcases.

New Closet

One of the biggest changes is that my partner John removed the original wire shelf and built me nice shelves in the closet. Previously I had the original wire shelf where clothes would have hung with hanging wire shelves added.

Before:
After:

I love my new closet and had so much fun organizing it!

Tierneycreates Beastie’s New Home

I relocated the Tierneycreates Beastie from a basket to the top of a bookcase next to a delicious basket of fabric string scraps (well delicious to me):

Project That is Sort of In Progress

I am will share more on this project in a future post in my series What’s on the Design Wall, but one of my quilting friends gave me a project she decided to give up on after taking a class. Right now I am sorting out the pieces she has sewn together, the pieces she has cut out, the leftover fabric, the pattern and the templates.

I am also still working on machine quilting my piece All the Trimmings which I last discussed in the post Update on “All the Trimmings”. I had to take it off my sewing machine to roll the section I completed quilting to make room in the machine:

I am really enjoying my Tierney’s Woman Cave, it is my “happy place”!

Postscript

A quick follow up to the post Proud of My Maker (Guest Blogger Post) in which the guest blogger, Tierneycreates Beastie mentions that I lost her t-shirt during packing for my move that did not happen.

Well her t-shirt has been found!

Turns out I had shoved it into this antique box when I was packing up:

I originally put the box in my cubby bookcase without even checking the contents, but took a closer look the other day.

So now she has her t-shirt for the warmer weather instead of having to wear her sweater all the time!

Beastie Adventures, Guest Blogger, Studio

Guest Blogger: tierneycreates’ “New” Studio Tour

April 4, 2020May 2, 2023 tierneycreates: a fusion of textiles and smiles

As Tierney promised in her previous post Perspective, I am going to be your guest blogger for this post and give you a tour of my “new” home, which is also Tierney’s “new” studio.

2020-04-01_10-56-08_365 — Mikelet and I in our cozy basket where we hang out in the “new” studio

But first, in case you are new to this blog, my name is tierneycreates Beastie and I am a Monster, but the good kind of Monster. You can read my story at I’m A Monster!!!. You can also check out the other posts I’ve had to guest blog on (i.e. when Tierney fell off the blogging-wagon) in the series of posts: Beastie Adventures.

Here is what my dog Mikelet and I look like outside our basket (before we were homebound…):

We were created by the very, very, very talented Helen of Crawcrafts Beasties in Dublin, Ireland.

Here I am working from my makeshift desk to bring you this guest blog post:

Well enough about me (even though I am very interesting) and let’s get to the tour of Tierney’s “new” studio.

Oh – first I should address why I keep putting the word “new” in quotes. It’s because, as she shared in her previous post, she did not move into the new house she and John were going to buy. Instead they decided to stay at their current house which was pretty much completely packed up except for basic items to stage the house for sale and to live day to day. Her studio had been painted and converted into a bedroom:

So when they decided not to buy the new house/not to move, Tierney had to unpack her studio and in unpacking her studio, she decided to reimagine the layout.

So she has sort of created a “new” studio!

tierneycreates Studio Tour

Tierney decided to first bring in the IKEA bookcases she had previously in her home office (she has been a full-time telecommuter for the past 14 years, before I was even a ball of yarn…). From there she figured out with her partner John on the best way to layout the room.

Over the next several days she unpacked her boxes (which seemed like they would never end), hung up some art and quilts on the studio wall and found a place for the large design wall her partner John built her.

Here are photos of the completed studio from various angles:

So Tierney is ready to create (she can be tierneycreates again) in her new studio! She is so happy to have her sewing machine unpacked!

She did start making some masks with a filter pocket opening out of recycled oxford shirts yesterday (easy pattern is at www.madeeveryday.com/fabric-face-mask-free-pattern/) .

But she is hoping to start sewing a bit more fun things in the near future than masks…

Oh and I forgot to mention, Tierney did make sure that Mikelet and I have a very prominent and cozy spot in her “new” studio:

Which of course should have been her first priority from the beginning of setting up her studio!

Studio, tierneycreates

Inside the Basket

January 12, 2020January 14, 2020 tierneycreates: a fusion of textiles and smiles

Here is a follow up to the Guest Blogger’s post 01/08/2020 from Guest Blogger: What the heck is going on here? .

The tierneycreates Beastie stated: “…she has set up this basket of hand craft projects in the living room and allegedly she will show you what is inside of this basket in her next post”. So I am now obligated to do just that, otherwise my Beastie will give me grief about it!

A Peek Inside the Basket of Hand Crafting

So we are staging the house for sale and had to pack up my studio and my sewing machine.

I am not sure how long it will take to sell the house, and find another house, and then to move into that new house. It could be several months and I cannot go that long without crafting, so I set up a basket in the living room of crafts I can do by hand.

I am also in the process of setting up a sewing basket, found at a thrift shop, with my commonly used tools for hand crafting.

Here’s what is inside the basket – a lot of old hand work projects, and some new ones, that I would like to finish.

English Paper Piecing (EPP)

Ssee my series of post Adventures in Paper Piecing for some background on this project. I made the zipped bag I am storing the project in.

In addition to the EPP project above, I also have this EPP project which I have not started (and do not know what I am doing with these hexies which I made from a friend’s scraps during a quilt retreat several years ago:

The Yo-Yo Project

Someday I might blog about this old mysterious project…

Sashiko

Another project(s) I should blog about someday…if I get any further on my dabble with Sashiko stitching.

It was an impulse buy (twice) at at a quilt shop…

Knitting

A hat in progress and a ribbed (or seed stitch scarf) to go with the hat I made a friend that I discussed in this post – The Ball of Yarn (which eventually became a hat).

The hat in progress has a story behind it that I will share in a future post.

Miscellaneous Projects

If I ever get working on them, I will explain what they are in a future post (smile).

So that’s what is in the basket! I think I have enough projects to keep my busy a couple months.

Postscript

I am writing this post from the airport as I am returning from a small informal quilt retreat with 3 quilting friends. At this retreat I brought my EPP and made some progress! And I did some freeform log cabin block piecing with a borrowed sewing machine and a bag of a friend’s scraps. More of my next post.

Studio

A New Way to Organize My Fabric

September 27, 2019September 27, 2019 tierneycreates: a fusion of textiles and smiles

As I mentioned in the Postscript section of my previous post, The Tale of Three Tulas, Part III, I’ve been working on a new fabric organization system.

For years in my the studio in my previous residence as well as my current residence, I’ve stored my fabric flat like this:

However for years I’ve been inspired by people who store their fabric like this:

Screen Shot 2019-09-27 at 2.50.47 PM.png — My quilting sister Dana’s studio

Or like this (from the post Feb 2019 post Quilter’s Studio and House Tour):

In the first of the above images, my friend Dana used empty fabric bolts she got from quilt shops that had extras, which she cut in half.

In the second and third images, another quilter used recycled cardboard that she cut to size.

I loved the idea of vertical fabric yardage storage but did not want to go through the effort to collect empty bolts from fabric stores and cut them in half; nor did I want to cut recycled cardboard to uniform size.

I knew there must be another option (one I could buy) so I did a bit a googling and first I found what I would consider overpriced options such as “mini bolt board” on online fabric stores. etc. That was not going to work, at those prices, I would just keep my fabric yardage stored flat.

A bit more googling revealed less expensive options such as using comic backing boards for fabric storage!

Then I found this YouTube video on how to do it:

Brilliant!

I ordered a couple hundred of these boards and got to folding! (I got them from Amazon.com and you can find them by searching “Comic Book Boards”. I ordered the Size 6 3/4 X 10 1/2 size because it fit well in my cubbies)

I decided to repurpose my IKEA cubby bookshelves in my home office to be a combination of books and fabric, and arranged my fabric yardage by color:

I am quite pleased, it is like having my own fabric shop – ha!

In case you are wondering, I was able to organize onto the comic backing boards fabric cuts from a quarter yard to five (5) yards!

Here are more photos with close ups of many of the cubbies filled with fabrics:

You will notice that many of the cubbies have stacks of fat quarters in front of the vertically arranged fabrics. Inspired by the YouTube video I shared earlier in the post, I’ve begun uniformly refolding some of my favorite fat quarters to place with yardage of the same color.

(Fat Quarter – a quarter yard of fabric cut into a rectangle that measures 18″ x 21″, commonly packaged with other fat quarters into a themed fat quarter pack.)

Mike the Miniature Schnauzer was very patient during my fabric reorganization project. He napped with various piles of fabric waiting to be folded as in the photo I shared in my previous post:

So here’s a question for the crafters reading this post: Do any of you store your fabric vertically like this; or do you store you fabric in flat folds?

Postscript

So what became of the hanging shelves in the closet in my studio where I was storing my fabric?

Well I repurposed them to hold batting and interfacing:

Studio, tierneycreates

New Studio

August 30, 2019June 22, 2022 tierneycreates: a fusion of textiles and smiles

As a follow up to my previous post Morning Walk in Black and White, where I mentioned that I am now living in a house and have a new quilting studio, in this post I am sharing photos of my new studio.

When I moved into my new housing situation earlier this summer, the first thing my new roommate did was build a design wall in the back bedroom he offered to me as my studio:

One of his hobbies is wood working and he also offered to build me a center cutting table. I said “let me use what I brought with me for now (fold up tables) and see how the rooms develops”.

The rest of this post is a photo tour of my new studio. You may notice the strong turquoise like color on the wall. The room came with that color and since someday my roommate is thinking of selling his home and us possibly moving to a new home together, I declined his offer to paint the room a neutral color at this time.

To embrace the turquoise color for now, I hung my Tula Pink All Stars fabric quilt (which has a LOT of turquoise and aqua in it) on the wall as you will see in the images below. If you are new to this blog, the saga of its quilt is in this series of posts – Tula Time!. By the way – my friends Judy and Dana have also finished their Tula Pink quilts and I will share images in a future post.

So here is the photo tour of my “temporary” new studio. If we end up moving to a new home together someday, I am going to design my new studio to be my dream studio this time (if I learned anything from the tragic and sudden loss of my husband in 2018, it is that life is short and you need to live your dreams, do not wait!). Since my roommate, who I should actually start referring to as “my partner”, loves to build things, I plan to take full advantage of his skills for my dream studio design!

As you can see in several of the photos above, I repurposed an old armoire into crafting and fat quarter storage. I also repurposed an old card table found in the basement’s storage room into a center table.

That table also serves as a Mike the Miniature Schnauzer nesting space!

You might also remember in the photos above (but I am posting it below also), a short long black bookcase looking thing. This was an old CD/DVD storage bookshelf I found in my partner’s basement storage room that I repurposed to hold my favorite fat quarters (I have an obscenely large collection of fat quarters as I confessed in the post Quilt Studio Archaeology and Purge, Part III (re-post))

Postscript

In my preceding photos, you might have noticed a work in progress on the design wall. I will discuss it in a future post as I continue my series of posts What’s on the Design Wall.

Here is an additional photo I took during my photo shoot for this post of some of the recycled home decor fabrics I am considering for this piece (actually a series of pieces):

If you’ve been following my blog for a long time and have a scary supernatural level of memory, you might remember these pieces from this post – What’s Simmering on the Design Wall.

Studio

New Studio Tour, Part II

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

Quick follow up to my May 7th post – “Oh Scrap”, Part II and New “Studio” Tour.

Thanks everyone for their comments!

I took the advice of @KNITNKWILT and removed the quotes from around the word “Studio” in the title of this follow up post – I am just going to accept it is my STUDIO.

I am still giggling over the advice and comments from @CEDAR51:

I would remove “guest room” and say outright to a guest “yes, I have space in my workroom for you to stay…but tread carefully there maybe the odd pin on the floor (or similar)”

Additionally I took the awesome advice of @ANNE54 and tied a scrap of the color of the fabric scraps in the basket to the little basket handle on front to quickly identify what color is in the basket:

After my previous post, I began working on the cleaning up the edges of the quilt I got professional long-arm quilted before I moved from Central Oregon to Colorado in my new kitchen cutting station:

I really like my kitchen cutting station (and my master bedroom ironing station I shared in the previous post).

I have the binding machine stitched to the quilt now and now I am working on sewing down the binding by hand in the evenings while watching TV with Mike the Miniature Schnauzer.

One thing that is pretty clear – I have a lot of quilts, afghans and pillows in my apartment. What used to be spread about a three-bedroom home is now condensed into my smaller apartment!

For example – here is the bench at the back of my sofa in my living room. You can see the quilt that I am currently hand sewing the binding down in the middle of the back of the sofa.

Postscript

Be warned – I am going to try to post daily for a while to try and catch up on all the posts I have in my head (quite the backlog!)

Studio

“Oh Scrap”, Part II and New “Studio” Tour

May 7, 2019May 9, 2019 tierneycreates: a fusion of textiles and smiles

These two topics – Oh, Scrap, Part II and New “Studio” Tour, were going to be two different posts but I decided to combine them into one post since they are sort of tied together.

I’ve been getting settled into my new apartment in the greater Denver metro area and I guess I’ve completed my series of posts “Colorado Bound” as now I am in Colorado!

I’ve never lived alone in my entire life, so it has been a huge transition now living alone, but I am trying to embrace it and enjoy that I can set up my apartment however I desire.

Those of you who’ve followed my blog for a long time (some of you for over 5+ years) might remember what my craft/quilt studio area looked like in my former Central Oregon home (which by the way has sold and is now someone else’s home). It was in a small back bedroom in my three-bedroom home, but it worked for me.

Now living in a two-bedroom apartment my best choice for a studio area was to turn my second bedroom into a guest room/studio area. I will give a little tour of that new space in this post, but first I want to share a follow up to post from January 2018 – “Oh Scrap“.

Oh Scrap, Part II

It is always an ongoing challenge to find the best way to organize my…extensive? ridiculous? pathologically large? fabric scrap collection. I’ve experimented with various iterations of fabric scrap organization including organizing them by color into boxes like these:

Or just throwing them all together into a large bag:

As you can imagine, unless you just want to work with random scraps, the “all in one bag” idea did not work for me.

However as I was packing up for my move to Colorado, I came up with an idea: why not use this old shelf unit I had in my sun room in my former house (which easily disassembles for moving) with the baskets I used to store magazines in, to organize and easily access my fabric scraps?

And here is the unit in the guest bedroom/studio of my new apartment:

I have my fabric scraps organized by color or theme (i.e. I have a basket of light batik scraps and a basket of dark batik scraps, etc.).

Now for the rest of the room.

New “Studio” Tour

I put the word “studio” in quotes because I am using this term loosely. It’s not really a studio per se but a place to sew in my guest bedroom, where I’ve used the guest bedroom closets to store my fabric and crafting supplies.

I embraced the concept of “Whole House Crafting” (which I previously discussed in the June 2016 post Whole House Crafting) and put a larger cutting area on my large kitchen island and an ironing station in my master bedroom.

Mike the Miniature Schnauzer wanted to share that he approves of the guest room/studio space as it meets his coziness standards!

He also appreciates the schnauzer themed decor!

Postscript

Speaking of coziness (or “cosiness” for my friends on the other side of the pond), I thought I would share a little follow up to the February 2019 post From “Orphan Blocks” to Pillows.

A couple of months ago I made these two little pillows from leftover blocks from a quilt I made many years ago:

Well Mike is now enjoying one of the pillows as his napping pillow!

Not sure he wanted to be disturbed but I just had to take a photo!

Studio, tierneycreates

From “Orphan Blocks” to Pillows

February 21, 2019February 21, 2019 tierneycreates: a fusion of textiles and smiles

If you make quilts, then you’ve probably dealt with “orphan blocks” – the extra blocks you either made accidentally while making your quilt or intentionally to give you options when you laid out your quilt and made final decisions on what blocks you want to use in the quilt.

For years I’ve had these two “orphan blocks” from a Connecting Threads Minnesota Stars Kit I made at least 8 years ago.

Here is what the quilt looks like (it is currently serving as a tablecloth on my table in the sunroom):

And here are the two “orphan blocks” that did not fit into the quilt (I think I accidentally made too many):

You may notice in the images above it looks like the blocks were hand-stitched. Well they were – I attempted to do something with the blocks years ago and added batting, backing and hand-stitched them.

And then they went to the place where all unfinished projects go – to the back of the closet.

Last night I decided rather than move them as unfinished blocks to my next residence, why not just FINISH them and make them into coordinating pillows?

So I did:

And now they are on the chairs in the sunroom with the tablecloth quilt that they are connected: