Hello Everybody, this is the tierneycreates Beastie returning for my 3rd and final installment about the quilt retreat I recently attended with Tierney and her quilting friends in Shelton, Washington at the Riptide Retreat.

If you are just joining us you can check out my other two posts: Guest Blogger: Quilt Retreat Report from the tierneycreates Beastie, Part I and Guest Blogger: Quilt Retreat Report from the tierneycreates Beastie, Part II; as well as a post I let Tierney slip in yesterday day – Riptide Retreat 2022 in Black and White (I let her slip this post in so she could pretend like she had actually returned to blogging…).

In this final post in the series of my posts (of filling in for Tierney who fell off the blogging bandwagon for awhile) I wanted to share what the quilters attending the quilt retreat worked on. But alas, as my paws are not really good with the camera phone, I had to rely on Tierney to take photos and she did not take a lot of photos of much beyond the LITTLE WALLETS they worked on. But I will get to those in a moment.

She did take photos of one quilter’s quilt they were working on – the Legendary quilt – pattern by Elizabeth Hartman – also known as the “Sasquatch Quilt”. Tierney has made one herself in the past after seeing a couple of her quilting friends make on (see post A “Legendary” Christmas Gift and “Quilt Photo-bombing”).

Here is her friend Dana’s Sasquatch in progress on the design wall at the retreat center:

Dana has made the quilt several times in flannel and is now making the quilt in quilting cotton for a charity raffle. This is the same quilt in progress you saw pieces of in my photo from a previous post in this series, where I am trying to gain access to Dana’s rotary cutter (unsuccessfully):

Dana is using a rain drop printed fabric as the background for the quilt.

The other quilters were working on very cool projects such as a Japanese fabric tote bag and a very colorful quilt, but Tierney did not bother taking photos. Actually she was goofing off most of the retreat and just visiting with her friends or hanging out on the back deck overlooking the water. She was very unproductive.

I thought I was going to have to whip out my Beastnina and get working on the projects she brought. Below is a picture from earlier in 2022 (when it was winter as I have on the lovely Aran sweater that Helen of Helen of Crawcrafts Beasties (crawcraftsbeasties.com) knitted for me):

(And who needs a $25,000 sewing machine like the one in my previous post, when they have a awesome wool Beastnina?)

LITTLE WALLET MADNESS

Speaking of Dana, she brought several packages of pearl snaps, some cool fabric such as Essex Linen (Dana had put together awesome fabric combinations from her fabric stash for the quilters to make into little wallerts), and a SnapSetter set to the retreat so the quilters could make Little Wallets.

Tierney has a long history with Little Wallets (see posts such as Little Wallet Madness and The “Madness” Returns) but she stopped using pearl snaps and switched to velcro from her little wallet closure after the “Great Pearl Snap Disaster” in which no matter what she did, she could not get the pearl snaps to set right with the SnapSetter.

Well Dana did a “SnapSetter Intervention” with Tierney and had her practice putting on pearl snaps with the SnapSetter and a rubber mallet until she got it right and got over her fear of snap-setting!

Dana, Kathy, Judy and Tierney all made little wallets with pearl snaps and here is a photo of most of their little wallets they made during the retreat:

Here are some close up of some of the little wallet sets they made:

They stayed up until late into the night one night of the retreat (or early into the morning), making little wallets. This was the same evening the also had a silly dance party (sorry no photos) as this is what happens when you mix quilters, wine, and 70s Disco Music – ha! (Tierney had brought a bluetooth speaker to the retreat and acted as DJ for the entire retreat).

So, and I am not sure Tierney wants me to reveal this, but it was a 4 1/4 day, 4 night retreat and all Tierney has to show for it is 10 little wallets!

I will close this series of posts with sharing a couple photos from the small quirky country convenience store we walked to during the retreat. Here I am checking out the snacks:

(in case you are wondering, there was some naughty food at the quilt retreat – one evening the attendees brought back to the retreat a sampling of 5 different delicious desserts from a diner they went to for dinner…oh wait – Tierney just told me to be quiet because “What happens at the quilt retreat, stays at the quilt retreat”…)

And here I am in front of a very strange poster on the door of the convenience store. We could not figure out exactly what activities would be occurring at this festival…

Either there is a lot of hugging going on, people will be taking mushrooms, there will be alien abductions, or a combination of all the above…

Postscript

Thanks to Catherine @Cedar51 for her suggestion in the comments sections of my post Guest Blogger: Quilt Retreat Report from the tierneycreates Beastie, Part I, that Tierney’s partner John the Woodworker, make me my own Beastie wooden desk so I no longer need to use the (sad) makeshift desk Tierney made me to write:

Tierney and I spoke to John (she does have a little more influence than I do) and he has agreed to make me my own wooden desk! I cannot wait to show it off someday to you!

Beastie Adventures, Guest Blogger

Beastie Guest Blogger: Checking in on her progress

October 23, 2019August 13, 2020 tierneycreates: a fusion of textiles and smiles

Well Tierney on the road (well in the air) again, this time for a quick business trip to Portland, Oregon for a meeting. So I am going to be the guest blogger on this post.

Do you all miss me? It’s been a long since you heard from me. I was packed away along with Mikelet (I know, I know, you are thinking of reporting Tierney for Beastie-neglect but we should give her a break since she been through a lot this past year…).

Now we have a nice home in Tierney’s new studio:

2019-10-22_08-11-05_364 — It now Autumn in the Denver, Colorado area and getting kind of cold so it is sweater time!

Oh, but if you are new to this blog, I guess I should first introduce myself:

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.

I think the last time I guest blogged, I was complaining about the physical spot (in a box in the closet!) where she had me living in her first studio after moving to the Denver greater metropolitan area.

Here is that post if you want to be shocked and appalled like I was: Another Beastie Blogging Intervention: New Studio Tour, Part III.

I must warn you, Beasties are notorious for making things all about themselves (just check out the blogs Crawcrafts Beasties and Tammie Painter and you will see what I mean!) but I am going to try to focus on the primary subject on this post – an update on Tierney’s post from 10/13/19 – The “Madness” Returns (though a post just about me would be much more interesting!)

So Tierney has finished about 14 little wallets so far. It is not a very impressive number but at least she’s gotten off to some sort of start in replacing her previous stash:

2019-10-22_08-12-01_966 — Only 13 in the photo because she already gave one recently as a gift

I inspected her work and provided feedback that she needs a lot more color and fabric combinations:

Do like the fact that I could use one of the little wallets as a suitcase?

Of course I only have one other article of clothing – my warm weather shirt. Eventually I need Tierney to place an order at crawcraftsbeasties.com to expand my wardrobe!

Tierney does have other additional color/fabric combinations in progress:

I guess if she wasn’t flying around everywhere all the time she could buckle down and get a larger variety of little wallets done!

She won’t allow me to use the rotary cutter or scissors so I cannot help her. We won’t talk about the time one of her quilting friends loaned me a rotary cutter at a quilt retreat…(Guest Blogger: October Quilt Retreat Part I).

2018-10-25_15-03-23_912 — Perhaps not the best idea…

Postscript

As long as I am guest blogging, I might as well also give you a follow up to Tierney’s 08/30/19 post New Studio.

Tierney’s been moving things around and playing with a slightly different layout.

Most importantly, she put me and Mikelet on top of this “pre-cut bookcase” so that we are prominently displayed in her studio (where we can closely watch over her crafting):

She also moved some stuff around after sewing in the room a couple weeks, to make it work better for her.

2019-10-22_08-22-09_986 — So many precuts…maybe they are breeding when Tierney not looking…

Tierney loves this colorful display of books and recently found one of the books she was missing from the “Pretty Little” series, Pretty Little Pillows, at a charity yard sale.

Perhaps she’ll do something crazy one day and actually MAKE crafts and quilts from these books on display!

Oh one more thing – remember how Tierney mentioned in her 09/27/19 post A New Way to Organize My Fabric, that she had more fabric to organize?

Well she finally did: she organized her flannels, canvas, novelty prints and panels in the shelves in her studio.

So with the fabric above, plus the pre-cuts, plus the fabric below in this photo, Tierney should give up sleeping and starting crafting/quilting 24/7 (and we will not even mention her collection of fabric scraps at this point).

And I will supervise her!

Bags Bags Bags

The “Madness” Returns

October 13, 2019April 7, 2021 tierneycreates: a fusion of textiles and smiles

The madness has returned.

Little Wallet Making Madness!

I am back to making a massive amount of little wallets inspired by Valori Wells’ pattern (which I modified), just as I discussed in this 2017 post Little Wallet Madness.

Some of you might remember the little wallets being part of my October 2017 and 2018 “Bloganniversary” giveaways. Well it is now October 2019 which means it is my blog’s 6th anniversary.

However, given the major change in my life over the last year, I may or may not do a 6th blog anniversary celebration like I did in the past…we’ll see how I feel later in the month.

It’s not like last year, where for my 5th blog anniversary I posted daily for 30 days and did a series of (what I thought was) awesome giveaways.

Honestly, thoughts of my blog anniversary makes me sad as it makes me think of how Terry the Quilting Husband (TTQH), who passed in December 2018, used to help me do the blog anniversary giveaway drawings along with Sassy the Highly Opinionated Miniature Schnauzer (who passed in December 2017 and used to have her own blog, Schnauzerships) who ensured the integrity of the drawings (see post Announcing the Winners of the tierneycreates Blog’s 4th Anniversary Giveaway).

During previous blog anniversary Octobers, I would share links from favorite previous posts, like a “Best of tierneycreates”, but so many of those posts are loaded with memories of my previous wonderful (darn near perfect) life with TTQH.

But next year is my 7th year of blogging anniversary and my hope is I do a blowout sort of celebration for that one! Time does help ease the pain of loss a little at a time. So bear with me (smile).

Oh but back to little wallets, the original subject of this blog post…

I had a HUGE stash of little wallets after making so many like in this photo from September 2017:

Recently though I got down to only two wallets left:

Oh and if you are new to this blog and are curious what the little wallets look like on the inside, here is a photo:

I have a ridiculous amount of tierneycreates business cards and each little wallet comes with a business card tucked inside.

SIDEBAR: It’s the tierneycreates business card that gave it away when I discovered one of my little wallets in a thrift shop, that obvious someone I had given one to had donated it – see post Found! At the Thrift Shop!. I ended up buying the little wallet for 50 cents from the thrift shop and then regifting it.

So it was time to make another stash of little wallets, so I pulled out a bunch of fat quarters and fabric scraps and got busy designing little wallets:

The images above are just a couple of the combinations I am working on and in a future post I will share the plethora of wallets I made to replenish my little wallet stash!

Postscript

A quick follow up to the September 27, 2019 post A New Way to Organize My Fabric, I finished refolding my ridiculous fat quarter collection and now have them organized (except for novelty fat quarters) in front of the yardage that I wrapped in the comic boards:

I have to admit sometimes I just walk in the room and smile as this colorful organization makes me happy!

By the way – this is not all the fabric (should I even admit this?) – I do have separate organization for my flannel, canvas, and novelty fabrics that I recently created. Perhaps I will share this in a future post (if I am ready for full disclosure of my ridiculous fabric stash).

Speaking of stuff that makes me happy – two weeks ago my little brother visited me in Denver along with his family. He had a “milestone” birthday and we celebrated by taking him to his first NFL game to see his favorite football team of all time – the Denver Broncos. Here I am below with my brother and my adorable 7 year old nephew who thoroughly enjoyed the game (and danced in the stands during the music breaks!)

Much to the chagrin of my Pacific NW friends, I’ve sort of defected from being a Seattle Seahawks fan to a Denver Broncos fan (though I still root for the Seahawks if they are not playing the Broncos).

Special Events

Announcing the Winners of the tierneycreates Blog’s 4th Anniversary Giveaway

October 23, 2017October 23, 2017 tierneycreates: a fusion of textiles and smiles

This morning Terry the Quilting Husband (TTQH) did the drawing of the names of the winners of the handmade Little Wallets to celebrate the tierneycreates Blog’s 4th anniversary. Names were selected from those who left comments on the post: Blog Anniversary Celebration & Giveaway.

In this post I promised we would select four (4) winners, well we decided at the last moment to up it to five (5) winners so more people could win (in my heart I wanted to just send a Little Wallet to everyone that commented!)

But before we get to the winners (be good, don’t scroll down yet, ha!) let me share the technical details of the drawing.

The Drawing

First the validity of the drawing was overseen and verified by Sassy & Mike of the prestigious firm Schnauzer Affiliates, Incorporated. Here is their corporate photo which hangs in their offices:

A highly complex method was used to select the winner while the principles of Schnauzer Associates, Inc. observed and verified the results.

First the names of those who posted comments on the blog anniversary post were written down on a piece of paper, numbers were assigned and then numbers were written on a piece of paper:

(I hope these technical details do not overwhelm anyone)

Then the numbers were placed in my recently knitted hat:

Sassy of Schnauzer Affiliates, Inc., closely officiated the drawing which was made by TTQH:

Here is Sassy providing TTQH with instructions prior to the beginning of the drawing:

Sassy closely monitored the drawing of the five (5) numbers/winners:

Sassy validated and verified the results of each number drawn:

The Random Drawing Winners

I am happy to announce the five (5) winners below, please send me your mailing address using the Contact Form in the Questions page of this blog – thanks and CONGRATULATIONS!

Crawcraftbeasties
Susan Maasch
SandraNY
Handmade Habit
Chela’s Colchas Y Mas

Feature Image Credit: Krzysztof (Kriss) Szkurlatowski, freeimages.com

Books, Music, Podcasts, My Minimalism Journey, The Library Stack

Limitless Library Love

September 6, 2017October 29, 2018 tierneycreates: a fusion of textiles and smiles

(In addition to worrying about those in Texas and Florida) Today my thoughts are focused on just how much I love my local public library. This is not just a fleeting infatuation, I am talking about a deep bibliophilic obsessed kind of love!

If you’ve followed my blog for a while, you have likely figured this out, especially with ongoing series such as The Library Stack featuring my latest stack of tomes on loan from my beloved library. However in addition to realizing how deeply in love I am with my local public library, I realize just how much money and space accessing my library has saved me.

Tierney the “Collector”

As my friend Michele has told me, “You are a Collector”. I am actually a reformed “collector”.

Years ago I became interested in Special Edition Barbie dolls. I did not just buy a couple, I bought a ridiculous amount. The same thing happened with collectible stuffed rabbits. I could not just have a couple, I appeared to need them all.

When I tapered down my need to collect Barbies or Bunnies, I transferred my need to collect to craft books and crafting magazines (and occasionally home decorating books and magazines).

As I incorporated Minimalism into my life (see series of posts under My Minimalism Journey) I began to honestly evaluate the clutter in my life, including whether I needed to own and continue to bring into my home that many crafting books and magazines.

I still love looking at new craft books (I get a little “makers-high” from leafing through a craft book for the first time) and I did not want to give up the pleasure of a new craft book and a pot of tea in my cozy reading spot.

The public library was the solution! I realized I did not need to own every craft book I am attracted to – I could just borrow it, enjoy it and return it. I can even take it out again to look at a couple months later if I like – it will be there waiting for me…AND it will not take up space in my bookshelf or cost money out of my wallet!

More Than Just Books

It began with borrowing books and then I discovered many other wonderful benefits as a library card holder:

Borrowing audiobooks that I can listen to on my smartphone
Magazines for my iPad for free (to include American Patchwork & Quilting Magazine and many popular home decorating magazines)
Free music downloads (I can download 5 songs a week…well 10 using my husband’s library card too from a huge selection of music)
Movies for my DVD player – we do not go out to movies very often – we just borrow them from the library (and I have learned secret tricks to be first in line on new releases at the library!)
Online movies – although I do have Netflix so I do not use this feature very often, our library has its own version on Netflix with older movies and TV shows.
Novel Idea – the whole town reads the same book once a year (a community wide book group) and then there are special programs in the Spring with the author coming to town to speak about their book!

In addition to all this there is so much more like the Author! Author! Literary Series where big name authors come to town and speak!

Okay, soon I will stop running on and on about my beloved library. But would you mind, I share some recent reads and listens? (or you can skip to the Postscript section if you have grown tired my library related ramblings and you are now ready for some crafting project related news…)

Recent Borrowings

Last week I posted on my current library stack but I have since moved on to a new (and smaller stack). As you can see I was enjoying feeding the flames of my small and tiny house obsession. These three books are a delightful pot-of-tea-drinking, book-flipping, daydreaming experience.

My obsession is not as bad as it used to be (I used to incessantly watch tiny house related TV shows and tiny house tour videos on YouTube) but I am still fascinated by them. I also enjoy “RV porn” and love to watch videos of RV walkthrough tours. I like the idea of small compact and cozy space. It is also a space which is more difficult to clutter with stuff, and I like that idea of space imposed curation!

I recently finished several excellent library borrowed fiction audiobooks:

Michael Chabon’s novel Moonglow. I read a great interview with him in Poets&Writers magazine last year. When I saw he is coming to Central Oregon this fall on the Author!Author! literary tour, I thought it was time to actually read one of his books and see what all the hype was about!

I now understand what all the hype is about this author – his sentences are so beautifully and richly crafted and his ability to tell a story is impressive. Here is my review of the book I posted on Goodreads and on Amazon.com:

I was fortunate to listen to the audiobook version of this novel which was flawlessly and excellently narrated.

The book is a memoir masterpiece, telling the fascinating story of his maternal grandfather’s life as told by his grandfather to the author as he was terminally ill. The author also weaves in poignant moment from his own life and his mother’s life with his grandfather’s (and grandmother’s story). The first hand accounts of his grandfather’s experiences in Europe during WWII are amazing and powerful. They are not battle scenes but focus on the lives of a small village experiencing WWII. The book covers a span of time from around the 1920s to 1980s.

Mr. Chabon’s writing is spectacular and I see what all the hype is about surrounding this author. I read/listened to the book because he is coming to our town to speak on a literary tour and before hearing him speak I wanted to read one of his book. He is a very gifted writer, his use of language and the crafting of a sentence are amazing. I think he might be one of the great writers of our current generation.

I also recently finished a spectacular science fiction trilogy by Cixin Liu – The Three-Body Problem (winner of the Hugo award), The Dark Forest, and Death’s End. I was fortunate enough to listen to them all on audiobook. And here is the really cool thing – my library did not have an audiobook copy of the second (The Dark Forest) or the third book (Death’s End) in the trilogy. So I suggested them for purchase using the special online form my library has – and THEY ORDERED THEM!

Photo credit: Amazon.com

Cixin Liu is a big name in Chinese science fiction and the cultural differences are evidence in his books but they only add to the story. The science part of the “science fiction” is amazing and detailed yet accessible. So far it is one of my favorite Science Fiction trilogies of all time, rivaling Orson Scott Card’s Ender’s Game Trilogy and Arthur C. Clarke’s Rama trilogy (previously my two favorites).

Let me close out my ramblings about my awesome public library with this quote:

Postscript

Sending My Heart Out

First before I share what I have been up to crafting-wise lately, let me just say my hearts go out to the people of Houston, Texas and the surrounding areas. We lived in Houston for 9 years from 1988 – 1997 and many of the flooded areas shown on the news (Terry the Quilting Husband has been watching The Weather Channel non-stop) are quite familiar to us.

My heart also goes out to those in the tropical islands and to states such as Florida in the path of Hurricane Irma. I cannot imagine the stress and fear going on in Florida right now knowing what Hurricane Harvey did to Texas.

Current Crafting – Little Wallet Obsession

I will have a future post with more details and perhaps a “little wallet photoshoot” on all the different combinations, but I have made 40+ little wallets since starting last week.

I am trying to make a dent in my fabric scrap collection:

Here are some in progress (I am having so much fun with color and pattern combinations):

And here is a basket of the first 37 completed (by the time of this photo):

My next post will feature all the little wallets I have completed, so you can see some of the fun color and pattern combinations. I did make a bit of a dent in my fabric scraps and I’ve made many little functional items with those scraps.

I bought way too many business cards and I have a business card tucked away in each little wallet to demonstrate how the little wallet could be used.

Recently gave one of the little wallets as part of a retirement gift (it held a gift card) and I think the little wallet was more popular with the recipient than the gift card!

I might do a future little wallet blog giveaway to celebrate my 4th year of blogging (and that fellow humans actually keep reading my blog, ha!) – stay tuned!

Feature image photo credit: Deschutes Public Library