Now you will truly be able to sleep through the night and have an actual restful slumber, as this post will complete my series of posts following up on the three Tula Pink All Stars fabric line inspired quilts my two quilting sisters (Judy and Dana) and I began in 2018.

If you are just starting with this post, the two recent previous posts are:

The Tale of Three Tulas, Part I (Dana’s quilt)

The Tale of Three Tulas, Part II (Judy’s quilt)

In this third post, I will share my Tula Pink All Stars fabric inspired quilt, Tula in the Box, and why it took me so long to finish it.

Tierney’s Quilt: Tula in the Box

The last time I blogged about the creation of this quilt was back in December 6, 2018, in this post: Tula in a Box.

This was 7 days before my husband Terry, who was known as “Terry the Quilting Husband” or “TTQH” on this blog, suddenly and unexpectedly died.

Here is TTQH from that post helping me lay out the quilt on the large design wall in the hallway of my former home in Central Oregon:

And here he is helping me layout the stripped fabric used as the sashing between the 36 blocks I created:

The night that Terry died, this quilt in progress was still up on the design wall.

A couple days after he passed I took the quilt blocks and sashing down and put it away as with this shocking, actually devastating, change to my previoulsy wonderful life, I had no desire to finish this quilt (or any quilt ever again at that point).

In the depth of my grief during January 2019, I convinced myself to finish the quilt top in his honor (Tula in a Box Quilt Top Finished):

I also got myself to send it off to the long-arm quilter, Krista Moser (who quilted all three of our Tula Pink All Stars fabric quilts).

In late Winter 2019 I made a brief visit to the Seattle, Washington area to visit with my quilting sisters Judy and Dana and to attend the 2019 Sewing & Stitchery Expo (Sew Expo). While at the Expo we ran into Krista Moser who had a booth promoting her new line of quilting rulers and patterns:

Unfortunately she was backlogged with long-arm quilting orders and so it would be another month or so before mine was finished but she would mail it to my new home in Colorado (if you are new to this blog you can check out the story of my move from Oregon to Colorado in this series of posts – Colorado Bound)

Krista is such a brilliant young entrepreneur who began long-arm quilting around 14. You can check out her blog at The Quilted Life.

By the way, I did blog a little bit about the 2019 Sew Expo on this post – .Fabric Fangirl Frenzy

Now where were we in my story, I got distracted remembering the fun I had during Sew Expo 2019.

Oh yes, so I finished the Tula in the Box quilt in honor of TTQH and shipped the quilt top and backing (which I purchased in Washington State while visiting Judy and Dana during Sew Expo 2019) to the long-arm quilter.

In May 2019 I got the quilt back from the long-arm quilter but it took me until the end of June 2019 to put the binding on it and finish it.

Here is the quilt on the wall of my Colorado studio with the euro lounger I used to have in the studio:

And here is Mike the Miniature Schnauzer lounging in the studio:

The euro lounger is now out of my studio (it took up too much space) and was moved to the upstairs guest room/home office, but the finished quilt is still up on the wall:

I’ve made a couple changes/updates to my quilt studio since my post New Studio, and I will share updated photos in a future post.

So that is my story of the quilt. Thanks for reading these three posts to close out the story!

Postscript

Speaking of Mike the Miniature Schnauzer on a euro lounger – here is a recent photo of Mike napping with a pile of purple fabrics in my home office/upstairs guest room:

Why is he napping on a pile of fabrics? Well those fabrics are about to be put into my new fabric organization system! That will be a future blog post once I get my project complete. I am excited to share as I feel like I now have the best system of fabric yardage organization since I began quilting in 1999!

Tula Time!

The Tale of Three Tulas, Part II

September 17, 2019September 17, 2019 tierneycreates: a fusion of textiles and smiles

Hello – I am continuing my posts on the completed Tula Pink All Stars fabric line inspired three quilts my two quilting sisters and I completed.

Sunday’s post began this series of three posts – The Tale of Three Tulas, Part I.

Let me back up – I forgot to share out original plan for these three quilts. We formulated the idea during our May 2018 quilt retreat with the plan to submit our quilts to be shown together at the 2019 Sisters Outdoor Quilt Show (we imagined them hanging side by side flapping in the wind at this amazing outdoor show held annual in Sisters, Oregon).

We came up with this plan while I still lived in Central Oregon and before my beloved husband Terry (Terry the Quilting Husband) unexpectedly passed away in December 2018. With my major life changes and the fact I did not complete the quilt until a couple months ago, that did not happen (but it still could someday!)

Although we were using the same sets of Tula Pink All Stars fat quarters, and agreed to each create 36 blocks, we decided to each have a different theme for our quilts:

Tula All Stars – Dana
Tula In the Box – Tierney
Tula Outside the Box – Judy

Sunday’s post was about Dana’s Tula All Stars quilt featuring only star blocks. Today’s post features Judy’s quilt Tula Outside the Box in which she not only used the Tula Pink All Stars fabric line but she also used fabric from other Tula Pink fabric lines.

Additionally, to really keep it “out of the box”, Judy used random block patterns with no block similar (even if she used the same pattern, she completed changed the color and the layout).

Judy’s Quilt: Tula Outside the Box

Here are photos which include the standard “quilt with feet” photo where you have someone hold up the quilt so you can photograph it!

If you look closely at the photo above, you can see the top of Judy’s awesome husband Bob’s head peeking out. This quilt has no feet but it does have a top of the head!

Judy is my original “quilting sister” as she is the one who got me into quilting in the late 1990s! I have a lovely core group of quilting friends, even if they live in other states.

On my to-do list someday is to begin making quilting friends in Colorado.

Judy’s quilt was also beautifully quilted by Krista Moser (who quilted all three of our Tula Pink All Stars fabric quilts).

Next post I will share my Tula In the Box quilt and share little bit on why it was so difficult to complete my quilt – but I finally did it!

Tula Time!

The Tale of Three Tulas, Part I

September 15, 2019September 16, 2019 tierneycreates: a fusion of textiles and smiles

It’s the middle of the night. Suddenly you bolt up in bed, your sheets drenched with your cold sweat…unable to return to sleep.

Why?

Because, you are still anxiously waiting for the conclusion to my series of posts Tula Time!

So for the three of you reading this blog who remember this series of posts (smile), I thought I would close out this series with three posts about the three quilts that my quilting friends Dana, Judy and I made from our collection of Tula Pink All Stars Fat Quarters.

A year ago at my friend Laurie’s vacation property in Sunriver, Oregon, I had a weekend quilt retreat with two of my Washington based quilting sisters. At this retreat Judy, Dana and I worked on our quilt blocks created from the Tula Pink All Stars fabric line.

I wrote several blog posts about this retreat in case you would like read them

Tula Pink “All Stars” Retreat (Part I)

Tula Pink “All Stars” Retreat (Part II)

Well we’ve all finished the quilts and they have been professionally long-arm quilted and in this series of posts I will share some images.

Dana’s Quilt: Tula All Stars

Dana named her quilt Tula All Stars and created 36 star pattern blocks for her quilt.

Dana was the first to finish her quilt top – as a matter of fact, she began making her star block at our Quilting Sister Retreat in Vancouver Washington in May 2018 as I shared in these posts:

Pl ease Vote On The Color!

The Votes Are In!

Here is photo of her initial blocks she made during the May 2018 retreat:

Dana was the first to finish her quilt top but the last to sew down her binding after she got it back from the long-arm quilter. I kept harassing her for photos so I could feature her quilt in a series of posts to close out the story.

She texted me a photo a couple weeks ago of her working hard to get the binding sewn down to complete the quilt and take photos for me:

Recently Dana sent me the photos of the photoshoot she did for me of her completed quilt, which was beautifully quilted by Krista Moser (who quilted all three of our Tula Pink All Stars fabric quilts).

Beautiful, huh?

Next post I will share images of Judy’s quilt, Tula Outside the Box.

Aren’t you glad you are finally going to get a decent night sleep now that you know what became of the three quilts from our Tula Pink themed retreat last September? (I am addressing the three people who remember my series of posts from last year, ha!)

Postscript

Just in case you’ve never heard of Tula Pink, she is a popular quilting fabric designer and teacher. I was fortunate enough to meet her a couple of years ago at the Sisters Outdoor Quilt Show 40th Anniversary event when I lived in Central Oregon.

My friend Dana is a huge Tula Pink fan and has worked with her fabrics for years. She even has a collection of early/”vintage”/rare Tula Pink fabrics and belongs to a Tula Pink aficionado online group.

Through friends she met in this group, several weeks ago, she was able to attend a Tula Pink quilt retreat in Alaska – with Tula Pink herself! She took her daughter Kaite with her and Dana was kind enough to provide me with this collage of photos from that event to share in this post:

For a long time Tula Pink fan this was an incredible experience for Dana!

Tula Time!, What's on the Design Wall

Tula in a Box

December 6, 2018December 2, 2019 tierneycreates: a fusion of textiles and smiles

Follow up on my post earlier this week on the quilt, I am working on Tula in a Box – What’s On the Design Wall: Tula in a Box. This quilt is my own design and it is inspired by the colorful fabrics in Tula Pink’s All Stars fabric collection.

After completing thirty-six (36) 12.5″ x 12.5″ blocks, and having Terry the Quilting Husband (TTQH) lay them out on my large design wall in my hallway, it was time to cut the fat quarter collection of stripes from the Tula Pink All Stars fabric collection for the 2 inch lattice between the blocks:

It was a lot of cutting (like endless cutting), but finally I got a “pile-o-stripes” cut:

Then it was time to abuse…um, I mean enlist the help of TTQH again and ask him to lay out the lattice on the design wall:

He is a very nice and patient husband!

As I mentioned in the post earlier this week, my hallway is narrow and I can only take photos at an angle, but here is what the design wall looked like after TTQH laid out the stripes for the lattice:

After TTQH laid out the lattice, I cut 2″ x 2″ squares from the feature fabrics for the cornerstones between the lattice. For now I have them set on the edge of the design wall (TTQH’s idea) to pull them as I sew the lattice and blocks together:

It is certainly going to be a colorful quilt!

As I get it sewn together, I will probably move it from the “design wall” to the “design bed” so I can share better photos of it.

I have a lot of scraps leftover from the Tula Pink All Stars fabric fat quarters collection I made the quilt from. I organized the scraps in smaller bags into dots, stripes, solid and feature fabrics (the Tula Pink animal prints) and then into a large bag.

Some I of the scraps might use for the binding but I have enough to make at least a small lap quilt!

Postscript

It has been very cold in Central Oregon. TTQH took Mike the miniature schnauzer coat shopping the other day and TTQH thought I should share with you all Mike in his new coat to close out this post:

After TTQH and Mike returned home from coat shopping, I realized I could have made Mike a coat myself as it was a simple design. But then Mike would have likely had to wait until Winter was fully here by the time I got the coat made…

Tula Time!, What's on the Design Wall

What’s On the Design Wall: Tula in a Box

December 2, 2018June 22, 2022 tierneycreates: a fusion of textiles and smiles

First I’d like to apologize for any less than stellar photography. My design wall is in a narrow hallway in my home and I can only photograph it from an angle.

Now that you have that disclaimer and you have lowered your expectations on the quality of the photography on this post, I can continue my series of posts “What’s on the Design Wall”, featuring my latest project up on either one of the small design walls in my studio or the large design wall my hallway.

Up on my large design wall are thirty-six (36) 12.5 inch x 12.5 inch blocks for my quilt I am calling Tula in a Box.

I have Terry the Quilting Husband (TTQH) to thank for arranging the blocks on the design wall. I had looked at them so many times I did not know where to start in laying out the quilt blocks on the design wall!

There is a bit of story behind this quilt if you are new to my blog. You can check out my series of posts Tula Time! if you want to check out the back story.

The quilt did begin as an impulse purchase of Tula Pink Allstar fabric fat quarter packs (feature fabrics, stripes, solids, and dots) after seeing my friend Dana’s collection at a quilt retreat:

I’ve now made quite a dent in that stack above while piecing the 36 blocks.

My next step is to create the lattice and cornerstones from this pile (fat quarter collection of the stripes, and scraps from the feature fabric);

I am going to “fussy cut” the scraps of the feature fabric (the 6 different animal prints in 3 different color ways) for the cornerstone between the lattice.

More to come as it progresses, for now I am just so happy to have finished the 36 blocks!

Postscript

My friend Dana who started my Tula Pink fabric obsession, has made great progress on her quilt which is made of pieced stars with the same collection of fat quarters from the Tula Pink All Stars line.

Here quilt got too big for the design wall so she has it laid out on a bed in her studio (every maker/crafter needs a bed in their studio in case they suddenly need a nap while creating, right?).

She is working on figuring out what to do for a border around the blocks.

Our friend Judy who is also making a Tula Pink quilt, is still working on piecing her 36 blocks.

As I mentioned earlier, if you are new to this blog and would like to know the story behind our quilts, check out the series of posts – Tula Time! (this link contains all the posts tagged as related to Tula Pink fabrics, you will have to scroll through the posts to see the other posts).

Quilt Retreats, Tula Time!

October Quilt Retreat Part III: Tula Time Continues

November 18, 2018December 2, 2018 tierneycreates: a fusion of textiles and smiles

She was staring at me. Over her glasses. Like in judgment.

Yes, tierneycreates Beastie was wondering why I have not done my posts on the October Quilt Retreat I attended. After all she did her posts – Guest Blogger: October Quilt Retreat Part I and Guest Blogger: October Quilt Retreat Part II , a couple weeks ago!

She said my excuses are weak: a four day quilt retreat at the end of October; followed by a four day trip to Santa Fe, New Mexico; then followed by a four day work conference in Chicago (which I just returned from on Friday evening).

Then she threatened to pull out her laptop and work on the rest of the posts about the retreat herself! (She even took out her laptop and started setting up).

I convinced her to put her laptop away and that I would get back to posting on the blog immediately. (If you are new to my blog you can read more about tierneycreates Beastie in the series of posts – Beastie Adventures)

October Quilt Retreat: Tula Time

During the October Quilt Retreat, my quilting friends Judy, Dana and I worked on our Tula Pink All Stars themed quilts that Judy and I started at our September Tula Pink Retreat (see posts Tula Pink “All Stars” Retreat (Part I), and Tula Pink “All Stars” Retreat (Part II)) and Dana started at our May 2018 retreat (see post The Votes Are In!).

Dana’s Tula Blocks

Judy and I accept that Dana is a bit of an overachiever, and by the October retreat she had all her blocks done (we agreed to each make thirty-six 12.5″ x 12.5″ blocks to create a nearly Queen-sized bed quilt).

She began laying them out and deciding the final setting. After testing out various setting options (and many opinions from the other quilters at the retreat – you know quilters are so opinionated when it comes to design ideas!) she decided on the Tula Pink All Stars stripes as a lattice/sashing with solid pinwheel setting blocks, from the same fabric line, between the lattice/sashing.

Here are photos from her work on her quilt during the retreat and close ups of some of her star blocks:

Judy’s Tula Blocks

Judy and I are working more slowly (for me that means plodding along) on our 36 blocks. Here are Judy’s blocks that she put up during the retreat:

Tierney’s Tula

Well I’ve completed 24 blocks so far (only 12 more to go)! I brought my 14 completed blocks to the retreat; and completed 10 more blocks during the retreat – yay!

I started laying them out at the retreat and playing with the striped sashing concept using Dana’s already cut strips:

Tentatively I plan to use solid squares in various colors for the setting between my striped lattice (I think pinwheels would be to busy for this already VERY BUSY quilt).

Now that I am back home, I’ve put the blocks up on the large design wall in my hallway (narrow hallways, difficult to take good photos):

And I am sorting out what solid color, dots and feature fabric combinations I have not used yet, as I am trying for no combination repeats (which can be tricky for 36 blocks):

My plan is to finish up the remaining 12 blocks and get the quilt pieced by the end of January (or earlier!).

I have one more post to go about the October Quilt Retreat. I was thinking of skipping it but then tierneycreates Beastie would start staring at me over her glasses again!

Postscript

Just wanted to share this fun photo of a GIANT ball of prepped fabric strips and batting for a Jelly Roll rug that Judy worked on during our quilt retreat:

Here is what a completed rug looks like, Judy brought and example to the retreat:

I think she is now addicted to making them.

(Oh no – I sure hope Chela @Chela’s Colchas y Mas doesn’t see this post as we know what she will be working on next – ha! I remember what happened after she saw my post on making jelly roll bowls, “Throwing Pottery” on the Sewing Machine” – she became the bowl making queen!)

Beastie Adventures, Guest Blogger, Quilt Retreats, Tula Time!

Guest Blogger: October Quilt Retreat Part II

November 2, 2018August 13, 2020 tierneycreates: a fusion of textiles and smiles

This post is a continuation of the post Guest Blogger: October Quilt Retreat .

I have returned today as the Guest Blogger after I was interrupted by Halloween and then Tierney announcing the winners of the tierneycreates 5th anniversary giveaways in yesterday’s post.

Do I need to introduce myself again? This is tierneycreates Beastie. I am a monster, but the good kind of monster. You can learn all about me and catch up on my adventures in the series of posts Beastie Adventures.

Okay so now that the introduction is over, let’s return to how I was left to wander around the Quilt Retreat because Tierney would not let me help the other quilters cut their fabric, sigh.

2018-10-25_15-04-08_947 — Not allowed to actually use the rotary cutter, only teased with it!

Wandering Around the Retreat (continued)

In the last post I shared the Penguin Party blocks that 3 of the quilters were working on. Here are some other works in progress and a completed jelly roll rug:

There was also some major Tula Pink All Stars action that is a follow up to this post – Tula Pink “All Stars” Retreat (Part II), but Tierney want to milk stories from this retreat for as many blog posts as possible so that will be covered on another post (Beastie eye roll).

Quilt Retreat Food

There was all sort of interesting foods served at the retreat, a quilter could never go hungry! There was also a birthday celebration for some of the quilters and birthday cake:

And what’s under this dome?

Well it’s Pineapple Upside Down Cake! (No worries it was not served on the same evening as the birthday cake – ha!)

Inside the Quilt Retreat Center Main House

The Sew N Go Retreat in Vancouver, Washington has a quilt retreat center where all the sewing happens; it also has the main house with the sleep accommodations, living and dining rooms and a classroom. Here are some images from inside the main house which is decorated with…you guessed it – quilts!

Tierney always brings the host, Nancy a handmade gift each time she attends the retreat and here are a couple of her gifts from previous years displayed – a miniature kimono and sets of coasters:

Road Trip!

During the quilt retreat, we had to do a little road trip to a quilt shop! We went to the quilt shop Country Manor in Battleground WA.

I got to wander around the aisle of the quilt shop.

2018-10-25_12-40-34_935 — I like yarn shops better as they can lead to more Beas

The best part though was the road trip to the quilt shop, I got to ride for a while in the front on one of the quilter’s shoulders!

2018-10-25_12-13-04_598 — Road Trippin’!

Take a Hike!

You can’t just sit around and sew and eat. You have to get some exercise! Sew N Go is located in the country with lots of farms around and the quilters went for daily walks. Here are some photos from their walks:

Abbey the Quilt Retreat Kitty

As with previous retreats, Tierney visited with Abbey the Quilt Retreat Kitty.

Abbey was chewing on one of her “hot spots” on her tummy and did have to wear a “collar of comfort” for part of the quilt retreat:

That did not slow her down from trying to get pets from Tierney (I could not pet her with my limited Beastie arm motion, plus she might have thought I was a toy!)

Inside the Classroom

The large garage of the Sew N Go Retreat main house was converted into a classroom a couple of years ago. It is an impressive garage conversion! Here are a couple project going on in the classroom.

Quilts of Honor

Nancy the owner of Sew N Go and her friends have a Quilts of Honor (like Quilts of Valor) where they make quilts for Veterans and then present them in a special ceremony. One of the quilters volunteering on this project makes incredible embroidered labels for each Veteran’s quilt that is customized with their name. Here is a section of one of those labels:

Cool Carry All

Not sure what you would officially call this, but in the classroom were examples of an awesome carrier for quilting or other supplies that were recently made. Tierney bought the pattern to make one herself:

Back Home

I was exhausted when we got back home, it was a long weekend for a Beastie! Tierney and I took the Central Oregon Breeze bus to Portland for the retreat and back home, and it is about a 4 hour bus ride (why does she live in the middle of nowhere?!?!).

But the best part of returning back home for me, was being reunited with my dog Mikelet who was so happy to see me!

2018-10-28_20-09-55_029 — I can feel the love!

Postscript

There are more posts to come about the retreat, this time by Tierney, but she and I are going to take a little break from blogging after 31+ days straight (and you can get a break from reading these crazy musings!).

Hope you all have a great weekend!

Tula Time!, What's on the Design Wall

Tula Time!

October 17, 2018December 2, 2018 tierneycreates: a fusion of textiles and smiles

This post is a follow up to my posts from the end of September – Tula Pink “All Stars” Retreat (Part I) and Tula Pink “All Stars” Retreat (Part II).

I have the makings of an art quilt simmering on the large design wall in the hallway (see yesterday’s post What’s Simmering on the Design Wall), so on one of the smaller design walls I have in my studio, I’ve put up the blocks I made during the Tula Pink All Stars fabric retreat I had with my quilting friends a couple weeks ago:

Yesterday I pulled out my “box of Tula” with fat quarters and scraps from the retreat:

Now that I have the fourteen 12.5 inch x 12.5 inch blocks up on the design wall, I’ve decided I am going to create 36 blocks for a 6 blocks x 6 blocks quilt. My plan is to make 12 blocks of each of the 3 types of blocks I’ve made so far as shown below (all with “fussy cut” centers).

1) Square within a square within a square within a square with:

2) Square within a square within a square with a larger square in the middle:

3) Little boxes: 4 squares within a square block:

The Tula Pink All Stars collection has six creatures in the feature fabric collection:

Racoon
Squirrel
Owl
Bee
Frog
Fancy Bird

Coordinating with the feature fabrics are coordinating stripes, dots and solids.

Here is my original stack of fat quarters before I started making the blocks:

I plan to set the blocks using the various blocks as sashing with some type of cornerstones like the example below:

Now that I have a plan on where I am going with the blocks, I am going to start cutting out blocks in preparation for a quilt retreat I am attending the latter part of next week.

If the quilt top works out, I might try my hand at writing a pattern for the quilt and offer it to my readers as a free download of something like that. It is going to be a very colorful quilt!

Quilt Retreats, Tula Time!, What's on the Design Wall

Tula Pink “All Stars” Retreat (Part II)

October 1, 2018December 2, 2018 tierneycreates: a fusion of textiles and smiles

Are you ready for more Tula? Here is the continuation of yesterday’s post Tula Pink “All Stars” Retreat (Part I).

So where did we leave off? Ah, yes – a couple crazy quilting friends decided to create their own quilt retreat in a rented vacation townhome to focus on making Tula Pink All Star collection sampler quilts together.

One of my quilting sisters fondling her Tula Pink All Stars collection

But before we get to the endless images of quilt blocks we made (warning: it might get mind-numbing for non-quilters reading this post), let me share some of the non-sewing adventures we had during the retreat.

Non-Sewing Adventures

We did not just lock ourselves in a rented townhome for four days of non-stop quilting, we did do non-sewing activities…though some of these activities did involve fabric.

I took Judy and Dana on a mini Central Oregon Quilt Shop Hop over two days. This was exceptionally fun because Dana had never been to Central Oregon before, much less our quilt shops. I took them to the following quilt shops:

At Sew Many Quilts we discovered a very cool antique sewing machine on display:

At QuiltWorks we had a wonderful time visiting with the owner Marilyn Forestell who I’ve known for a long time. We also congratulated her on her shop being featured in the Spring – Summer 2018 issue of Quilt Sampler:

If you’d like to watch a video interview with the owner and more about one of my favorite Central Oregon quilt shops, here is the link on allpeoplequilt.com – www.allpeoplequilt.com/magazines-more/quilt-sampler/quiltworks. This behind the scenes video has a nice walk through of the shop.

We had a blast at BJ’s Quilt Basket, the third quilt shop we visited. They have a delightful and very friendly staff. While at BJ’s, OH NO – we discovered a new Tula Pink fabric line was just released: Zuma.

Judy and Dana could not leave BJ’s without the fat quarter collection (I was good as I currently have more Tula than I can handle right now!):

As if some of us did not already have enough Tula…

The next day we headed to Sisters, Oregon to go to the Stitchin’ Post.

I never tire of wandering around the Stitchin’ Post

While at the Stitchin’ Post, my quilting sister Dana and I did a “Hand-piecing Intervention“.

I overhead a woman tell her friend that she had recently retired and wanted to take up quilting but did not want to do machine quilting. Instead she was interested in hand quilting, but did not know how to get started on learning how to piece quilts by hand.

Her conversation was none of my business but I could not help myself, I had to be helpful. I introduced myself and told her all about English Paper Piecing (see my series of posts – Adventures in Paper Piecing). I grabbed Dana who was nearby wandering about and had her join me in sharing the joy of English Paper Piecing (EPP) as an option to create a quilt by hand.

We even brought over the store sample of a EPP hexagon pieced pillow to show her an example of the cool stuff she could make:

After our intervention, the woman gleefully left the shop with a package of EPP hexie templates in hand. She plans to begin by practicing with fabric scraps (and hopefully she was going to follow our suggestion to check out YouTube videos on EPP).

Dana and I felt pretty darn proud of ourselves (either we helped someone on their road to a fun retirement hobby, or we got her to totally waste her money, ha!)

In addition to our miniature Central Oregon quilt shop hop, we also dined at some wonderful restaurant in Sunriver, Oregon.

After shop hopping and dining adventures, it was time to buckle down and piece our samplers!

Blocks, Blocks, Blocks

We pieced a lot of blocks during our four day retreat from our Tula Pink All Stars fat quarter packs!

I’ve never fussy cut (selecting a specific section/motif in printed fabric) for a quilt block in my life, but inspired by Dana, I fussy cut the feature fabric for all my blocks.

BLOCKS BY DANA

Dana, who already pieced 10+ blocks so far since our annual Quilting Sister May Quilt Retreat (see posts Please Vote On The Color! and The Votes Are In!). She focused on piecing star blocks in honor of the name of the name of the fabric collection – All Stars (the title of the collection is based on the prints in the line are updated reproductions of some of Tula Pink’s most popular retired fabrics). Here are some samples of her blocks:

BLOCKS BY JUDY

My quilting sister Judy was very adventurous and did not follow any set type of block pattern. She had fun using an old quilt block sampler book and randomly selecting blocks to piece with her fabric. Below are some examples of her blocks:

BLOCKS BY ME

Now I did not want to do a quilt with a white background. Instead I wanted to only use the fabrics in the Tula Pink All Star collection. I decided to create a sampler called “Tula in a Box” and use two different block patterns that feature boxes or boxes inside of boxes.

Here are the first 12 blocks I completed using a “Box inside a box” block pattern:

Tentatively I am planning to set the blocks using the Tula Pink All Stars stripes fat quarters.

By the end of the retreat I completed 14 blocks including these two blocks in a different block pattern called Little Boxes:

The upper right and left hand corners have the “Little Boxes” blocks

I will feature more on my “Tula in a Box” quilt blocks in a future post after I complete additional blocks.

Again, here is the “design sofa” I mentioned in the first post, with all our blocks:

FUN WITH COMBINATIONS

A very fun part of making our blocks was deciding the color/fabric combinations:

Here is another one of Judy’s cool blocks that came out of fun with putting together fabrics:

We spent of a lot of time consulting with each other on combinations.

Okay, so dear readers, are you sick of looking at blocks and Tula Pink All Star collection fabric now? No worries, we are nearly at the end of this post series.

Special Guest

On the third day of the retreat we had a special guest stop by – my friend Marie Bostwick – New York Times bestselling author.

Marie’s book The Second Sister is an upcoming Hallmark Hall of Fame Christmas Movie: Christmas Everlasting that airs on the Hallmark Channel on November 24th and stars Patti LaBelle.

Here is more information on Marie’s blog Fierce Beyond 50: The Best News Ever.

If you get the Hallmark Channel be sure to watch the movie based on the awesome book!

After the quilt retreat my friend Laurie (who owns the vacation rental) stated that Marie Bostwick was the first famous person to ever visit her vacation townhome rental. I teased that I should have had Marie autograph one of the walls – ha!

Postscript

As if we were not already having an immersive Tula Pink experience, one afternoon we watched on YouTube Episode 1 of the series Tula’s House:

This episode provided some insight into the brilliant and creative mind of Tula Pink and you get a tour inside her awesome studio and sections of her home.

Quilt Retreats, Tula Time!, What's on the Design Wall

Tula Pink “All Stars” Retreat (Part I)

September 30, 2018December 2, 2018 tierneycreates: a fusion of textiles and smiles

If you are a maker, you’ve likely heard of a “Design Wall”, but have you ever heard of a “Design Sofa“?

This is what happens when a couple quilters get together for a quilt retreat weekend at a rented vacation townhome that was not designed for quilt retreats: you improvise…

But let me back up and explain what the title of this post means and how a Tula Pink All Stars Quilt Retreat happened.

It’s All Dana’s Fault

I’ve seen Tula Pink fabrics in the past and I’ve appreciated the designer’s creativity, use of color and quirky sense of humor. However, except for a couple fabric scraps given to me by other quilters, I’ve never had an interest in purchasing any of her fabric.

Until our May 2018 annual Quilting Sisters retreat and one of my quilting sisters, Dana, brought collections of Tula Pink All Stars fat quarters (coordinated collections of 18″ x 22″ cuts of fabric) to the retreat and began piecing a sampler quilt:

I had a couple posts about the fabric and her blocks during the retreat, including one in which Dana and I asked my readers to vote on which color combination to use when we were stuck:

Please Vote On The Color!

The Votes Are In!

When I returned home from retreat I could not get out of my mind the utterly delicious Tula Pink All Star fat quarter collections of main prints, dots, stripes and solids.

The next thing I knew (and I think it was a fabric-induced-out-of-my-mind-experience) I was ordering 4 sets of fat quarters from the DawnNeedhamQuilts Etsy shop that Dana recommended:

Honestly, I am not sure what happened, it was if I could not control myself. I’ve never bought 4 fat quarter sets of fabric at once, and I’ve never purchased Tula Pink fabric before!

Still cannot believe I bought all this at once!

I was not alone, Dana had infected another quilt sister with the Tula Pink All Stars bug, Judy (my original “Quilt Sister” who got me into quilting!) and before she knew it, she had also purchased all 4 sets of fat quarters in the Tula Pink All Stars collection!

So What Do We Do With All This Tula?

Dana has never visited Central Oregon and Judy came up with the idea of a road trip to Central Oregon to visit me. A group of quilters….coming together for a weekend…

Hmm…sounds like an excuse for a quilt retreat!

I have a small house which would not comfortably accommodate a quilt retreat, so I came up with the idea of renting my friend Laurie’s vacation townhouse in Sunriver, Oregon.

Dana, Judy or I (do not remember who) came up with the idea that since now we all had these Tula Pink All Star fat quarter sets why don’t we all work on piecing Tula Pink All Star sampler quilts?

Armed with my Stack-o-Tula I headed to the retreat!

Vacation Rental Townhome into Quilt Retreat

Terry the Quilting Husband (TTQH) helped bring all the stuff over to the rental townhome to transform it to a quilt retreat including a folding table, iron board, etc.

With a little temporary furniture rearrangement, we had our quilt retreat center:

We even turned part of the kitchen into an ergonomic cutting table area and ironing station:

Luckily we still had some left over kitchen counter for preparing meals!

In the next post, I will show you details of what we made (more on the blocks on the “design sofa”), non-sewing adventures we had during the retreat, and the special guest that stopped by our retreat.

Quilt Retreats, Tula Time!

The Votes Are In!

May 20, 2018December 2, 2018 tierneycreates: a fusion of textiles and smiles

Thanks so much to everyone who voted on the setting triangle color for the fussy cut Tula Pink All Stars block my Quilting Sister Dana has been working on at our annual May Quilt Retreat!

Here were the options to vote on:

We cut off the voting at 10am so Dana could get the block assembled before I leave to take a bus back to Central Oregon.

Votes were tallied from the previous blog post comments, from people at the retreat and from my personal Facebook page.

It was very close but Teal won by two (2) votes!

So Dana made up the block with the winning color:

And here is the whole group of. blocks so far:

Dana plans to make 18 blocks from the 6 different animals in 3 colorways.

The six (6) animals that she will fussy cut are: bees, squirrels, owls, frogs, raccoons, and a fancy birds. According to Dana the fabric line is called Tula Pink All Stars because Tula Pink brought back her most popular retired lines and updates the colors.

Several of you suggested yellow and Dana said that would been a great idea but she did not have that as a fabric option in the Tula Pink solid fabric line.

Thanks for playing along 😀

Oh and I am super behind in blogging – I have a backlog of stories to share, stay tuned 😀

Quilt Retreats, Tula Time!

Please Vote On The Color!

May 19, 2018December 2, 2018 tierneycreates: a fusion of textiles and smiles

OK this is a quickie post!

Right now I am at my annual quilt retreat with my Quilting Sisters and for fun we would like your opinion on which is the best coordinating color for a block one of my Quilting Sisters is working on (during our late night quilting marathon).

We have been debating it for 30 minutes and I thought – why don’t I throw it out there for the tierneycreates readers 😀?

Okay this is a 12″ x 12″ finished block that is part of a fussy cut center star block quilt using Tula Pink All Stars fabric line.