This post is actually a continuation of my ongoing series “What’s on theDesign Wall”, featuring my latest project up on either the small design wall in my studio or the large design wall my hallway. It is also a follow up to my post Can We Talk About Table Runners? on the table runners I am working on.
I had the five (5), yes five (5) table runner tops that I finished on the large design wall in my hallways but I yesterday evening I started a new art quilt and took them down. Now they are all sitting on the ironing board waiting to be completed:
They all began as yardage of my collection of Ombre fabrics and my stash of pieced strips from brightly colored fabric scraps:
I have decided to quilt each one of them.
In the previous post on these table runners I discussed my challenge of how long to make them and several of you weighed in with ideas on both length and width.
The unfinished group of five table runner tops measure anyway from 17 – 19″ wide and 44″ – 53″ long. The dimensions will decrease after I quilt them and trimmed them down a bit to straighten their lines. So I think I will end up with table runners from 16″ x 42″ to 18″ x 52″ or something like that.
I just flowed with whatever length the design took me as I progressed!
I will reveal the runners in all their glory in a future post once I get some quilted!
Postscript
The Natural Selection Convention
Whether you believe in Evolution, Intelligent Design, Creationism, or something else, you have likely heard the term coined by Charles Darwin – “Natural Selection”.
Dictionary.com defines it as “The process whereby organisms better adapted to their environment tend to survive and produce more offspring”.
Well last week I came across on my walk what I might call a Bird Natural Selection Convention!
First I noticed at the corner of an alley I turned into on my walk, an adorable cat sitting on a fence. Well that cat wasn’t just sitting on the fence, he was curled around a set of bird feeders!
“Here birdy, birdy, some nice yummy food is waiting for you…”
I stopped a greeted the cat who let me take his photo (I actually took like 10 different photos to get the right shot and the kitty just stared at me while I did it). Then I completed turning the corner and here is what I found two feet from the “bird-feeder-cat” – another kitty just hanging out on the same fence:
And then, one more foot down the fence, another kitty:
This is why I am calling this a Bird Natural Selection Convention – any bird that attempts to use the bird feeder will most likely not be having any more offspring!!!
I laughed so hard at the trio of kitties waiting for very hungry and not too bright birds!
What the Heck is This?!?!?!
Have you ever been to Costco? It is a magical place I try to stay away from (see my post BreakUp Letter to My Warehouse Club). However there was something we really needed at Costco (what Tierney, an 180 count jar of olives, triple pack?) and so we went.
While strolling the aisles (okay even if you go there for just one thing, it is mandatory that while you are in Costco you stroll the aisles), Terry and I came across this:
It looked like someone had skinned a schnauzer! We do not know if it was synthetic or some poor animal but it was a very unusual pillow. It was quite soft to the touch (you could pet it for hours) but then that added to sort of a creepy feeling I got from it.
Also – how the heck would you wash it if you got a stain on it? We had quite the laugh over it (like we did in September when they had the Christmas decorations already out in Costco) but we somehow controlled ourselves and did not buy it.
(Sassy the Highly Opinionated Miniature Schnauzer would have been quite distressed if she thought we were bringing home a skinned schnauzer pillow!)
Monday I went on a field trip to the Wintercreek Nursery with my friend Jenny. The Nursery was filled with glorious examples of the beauty of Autumn in Central Oregon.
I thought I would post a couple of those photos as part of my ongoing series of posts on sources of Creative Inspiration. I think these photo compositions could be inspiration for an interesting art quilt. Feel free to use them for inspiration and if you repost the photos, please credit me as the photographer, thanks.
Here is my absolute favorite of the photos I took:
And here is a tiny little house that I think was covering some plumbing that looked like a real house tucked away in forest growth:
Finally here are a couple photos of Autumn at my house in Central Oregon:
We have a lot of reds, yellows, yellow-greens and greens. We do not have the purples of the Autumn in Vermont (when I lived in New York we used to drive to Vermont in the Fall to see the exquisitely beautiful palette of colors) but I think Autumn is an exceptionally lovely time of year with the Fall colors and the backdrop of an impossibly blue Central Oregon Autumn sky!
Thanks for reading my photo essay of Autumn in Central Oregon!
One of the “non-Wordpress” blogs I love to follow is that of a fellow Central Oregon SAQA member, Kristin Shields. On her blog Kristin Shields: Artist & Quiltmaker, she has a visually beautiful post on Fall Color – OctoberColor.
Postscript
I’ve made quite a bit of progress on the table runners I am working on (see recent posts) and will sharing a peek in a future post.
Now that the weather has changed (it has dipped into the 60s and 50s during the day and 20s – 30s at night!) it is time to start making knitted hats again in the evenings while watching TV.
I love to wear my knitted hats (yes I only know one pattern) on brisk Fall and Winter walks!
As I mentioned in the post Not WorkingOn What I am Supposed to be Working On, I love to wear my nearly finished hat around the house with the double pointed needles sticking out of the top, as a tradition right before I finished off the hat.
So here is another silly picture of me with my nearly finished hat!
Terry the Quilting Husband puts up with me weirdness!
Oh and here is the full image of the featured photo – I would like to find fabric in this color:
October heralds the 4th anniversary of the tierneycreates blog. Although a 4th anniversary it not traditionally a milestone anniversary, I did not want to wait until the 5th anniversary to start my first annual Blog Anniversary Giveaway!
Whether you are a new reader/follower or have been with me since the beginning (like perhaps the friends and family that were browbeaten into signing up to follow my blog in the early days?!?!) I so appreciate you taking time from your day to read my tierneycreates musings.
So let’s first talk about the “celebration” and then I will give you the details on the “giveaway”. (and of course I will ramble on more afterwards…)
The Celebration
Throughout the month of October, along with new posts, I am going to feature “the best of tierneycreates” from the past 4 years – those posts which got the most views and/or the most comments.
We’ll kick it off tomorrow with a sort of October/Halloween-esque post from October 2015 Dark Cabinet of Mystery.
The Giveaway
As I hinted in the Postscript section of the September post Limitless Library LoveI am going to giveaway FOUR (4) of the Little Wallets I was obsessed with making in September 2017. You can view the whole lot of them in this post – Little Wallet Madness.
So here is what you need to do to ENTER THE GIVEAWAY:
Write a comment in the Comments/Leave a Reply section of this post with a minimum of the following three pieces of information:
Question #1 – What is your favorite color? (or “favourite colour” if you live outside the US!)
Questions #2 – What is your second favorite color (in case you’re selected & your 1st choice is gone)
Question #3 – If you are a blogger, what is your favorite thing about blogging; or if you are not a blogger – what is your favorite thing about reading/following blogs?
Oh my goodness Tierney you are asking me to write a freaking essay to try and get one of your Little Wallets (yup I know what you are thinking).
Hope this photo gets you excited about essay writing – ha!
But I think it will be fun to read people’s comments about why they blog or enjoy reading blogs. The last question is meant to celebrate blogging and our blogging community!
You have until Sunday, October 22nd to add your comment to enter the giveaway. I will have Terry the Quilting Husband (TTQH) randomly select 4 winners on Monday October 23, 2017. No, no, no don’t try and write cute comments to TTQH in your entry, I am going to just give him a blinded list of who responded on the post with assigned numbers! He won’t even see the names to be influenced by any cute blogger names (smile).
Do not worry if you live in other countries such as Canada, UK, Australia, South Africa, India, Texas, etc., I am going to mail the Little Wallet to you wherever you live (unless of course you are an extraterrestrial – unfortunately interspace postal services are not an option at this point).
Image credit: BSK, free images.com
I will privately contact the winners, within our solar system, for their mailing addresses.
Speaking of Community
What is my answer to Question #3? What I love about blogging and reading/following blogs is the sense of community. It makes me smile that there seems to be a little tribe of crafters who follow each other blogs. When I use the word “crafter” I mean all creative types – whether you have a cooking blog, a paper crafting blog, a needlepoint blog, sewing blog, creative writing or poetry blog, drawing/painting blog, quilting blog, etc., etc. I love being exposed to all this darn creativity floating around the ethernet!
I started blogging, heavily encouraged by my awesome sister, in October 2013 as a vehicle for my now closed tierneycreates Etsy shop. I discovered I like blogging way more than trying to sell handmade items online.
Much thanks for my longtime readers/followers and to my newer readers!
I hope to keep “fusing textiles and smiles” (my tierneycreates tagline) on this blog for many more years!
Postscript
Las Vegas
I had to take a little break from blogging as I dealt emotionally with sad stuff going on in the world. I could not bring myself to write for a couple of days.
I did come across something very awesome – the blogger Christa Quilts (christaquilts.com) lives in Las Vegas and her local guild, Las Vegas MQGis collecting quilts to pass out to those impacted by the shooting. You can check out her post link below for more information:
This is a quick follow up to my previous post CanWe Talk About TableRunners? – I have been working on table runners and have completed 5 tops so far! I am going to quilt them and will reveal the table runners and their sizes/dimensions in a future post.
Here is a little tease – stacks of strips of pieced brightly colored fabric scraps for the table runners:
Feature photo credit: “fire in the sky” by Lucretious, free images.com
Continuing my ongoing series, The Library Stack, and sharing my latest stack of borrowed books from my beloved local public library.
Before I left for my trip to NYC for Quilters Take Manhattan (see my recent posts), a HUGE stack of library books from my library holds all became available at once:
Okay, they didn’t all become available at once from my books on hold, there were a couple I happened to pick off the New Releases Non Fiction shelves while I was at the library…I can’t help it if they deliberately tempt me when I visit my local public library!
I am nearly done with this stack and several were a good “flip-the-pages-look-book” while working on a pot of tea. The interiors in The Kinfolk Home (which I borrowed a second time from the library) and Hidden Pariswere just dreamy!
There were so many cute quilts to make in the book Charm Schooland I have many sets of 5″ charm squares just begging to become a quilt, but I have so many projects on the burner I couldn’t be tempted to make any quilts from the book. But it will be waiting for me at the library when I am ready!
The Crafters Marketand How to Make It are great resource books for people trying to start or running a craft business. The Fussy Cut Samplerhad adorable ideas for fussy cut pieced blocks.
Kaffe Fassett’s Quilts in Irelandwas visual colorful candy; but I own a bunch of Kaffe Fassett books and I have yet to make a quilt from one of them. I did meet Kaffe Fassett a couple of years ago when he came to speak at the Stitchin’ Post in Sisters Oregon. So I had him autograph one of my ‘Kaffe’ books, but I did not confess that I have never made a quilt from one of his books! His fabrics are so beautiful and I actually have a huge collection of Kaffe Fassett fabric scraps that quilting friends have given me.
I still have a couple books to finish looking through (those I have not mentioned) and then back to the library for everyone!
Postscript
No work on my next art quilt yet, but I did have a colleague inquire about purchasing one of my tierneycreates table runners from when I had my tierneycreates Etsy shop. I had one more left and sold it to her.
This prompted me to play with the idea in my mind of re-opening my tierneycreates Etsy shop for the holiday season, but I have not decided yet. I did though decide to work on a couple new table runners, beginning with one I had started but never finished – now it is finished.
I have a stash of tierneycreates sew on labels from when I had my Etsy shop, so it was great to use them again:
My employer is having a holiday craft fair in Portland in November and I am also sort of toying with the idea of participating in that. It would be my first time to sell at a craft fair.
As mentioned in recent previous posts, I have been making little wallets from my fabric scraps.
Endless wallets. Cutting out fabric from templates in the evening while watching TV and then engaging in marathon assembling and sewing.
58+ wallets later, I am ready to share photos of the wallets.
First here are 55 of them (two I recently I gave away as gifts and one I kept for myself):
An attempt at closer up photos of the wallets:
I had so much fun rummaging through my boxes of fabric scraps and putting together various combinations. Here are photos of a couple of the insides of the little wallets to demonstrate some of the color and texture combinations I used for the inside pockets:
Here are some of my favorite little wallets from my little wallet assembly madness:
I plan to do a “Little Wallet” giveaway to celebrate the 4th anniversary of my blog in October so stay tuned. They are perfect for business cards, a place to keep punch cards (like frequent customer cards) or to use as a wallet.
(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 asTheLibrary Stackfeaturing 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.
As I incorporated Minimalism into my life (see series of posts under MyMinimalism 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!
Image credit: Deschutes Public Library
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 Postscriptsection 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
Photo credit: Amazon.com
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
However, I was not feeling inspired to keep building the improvisational Medallion Quilt, even after I pulled out my copy of Gwen Marston’s book Liberated Medallion Quilts. (This book is about breaking the rules and making improvisational medallion quilts instead of traditional accurately pieced medallion quilts.)
I even found among my scraps a wonderful collection of coordinating fabrics. Still, I was not feeling inspired to make it into a quilt. I did however want to make it into something and to be done with this project, so I made it into a pillow for my sunroom:
This pillow joins my collection of handmade items on secondhand love-seat in my sunroom that my neighbor gave me. The love-seat is plaid and not really my style, so I covered it with homemade and other second hand items.
I am not giving up on my plan to make a medallion quilt someday! I tucked away some ideas from working on this piece.
Postscript
So what is next? Well I have become obsessed with making little wallets using my collection of fabric scraps:
I am not sure what I am going to do with all the little wallets, but I am having fun playing in my different boxes of fabric scraps organized by color and finding pieces that working with the templates for the little wallets:
Fabric scraps organized by color
Here is a bag of turquoise and teal fabric scraps I cannot wait to play with next once I finish playing with orange and brown scraps:
I will share in a future post all the little wallets in fun color combinations I made from scraps!
One of my quilting mentors, Jean Wells Keenan, once said in a class (paraphrased): When you are really stuck on a piece and you want to give up, don’t give up. Just push through your discomfort or unhappiness with the piece; keep going and you will be surprised how it evolves.
So what does this have to do with my featured image for this post – a pile of sweet potatoes?
Well, at lunch today (I am a telecommuter), I pulled out the remains of a bag of several weeks old sweet potatoes. I forgot about them in the veggie drawer in my fridge and I hoped I could possibly use them (I hate wasting food) in a salad or veggie bowl if I boiled them.
As I washed the sweet potatoes, a first glance, they looked kind of icky and their only future was compost. However on closer inspection, I realized there were good viable parts to each sweet potato – all I had to do was cut out the bad parts.
While trimming each sweet potato to remove the “bad parts”, I thought how this relates to creating a piece of art. I have worked on several art quilting project when I wanted to just give up, crumple the piece into a ball (and burn it) and discard it.
Occasionally I did just this, throw away the piece and try to forgot the time I spent on expending my creativity on the piece. This was until I took a series of art quilting classes with Jean Wells Keenan and heard her statement about not giving up – it resonated with me.
I learned to work or rework what I have created already, cut the bad parts out, and keep going with creating the piece.
An example of an art quilt that I wanted to throw into the trash pile (or burn as an effigy of what-not-to-do-when-creating-an-art-quilt) was my piece Abandoned Water Structure. This piece, which was eventually sold to the City of Seattle/Seattle Public Utilities for their Portable Works Collection nearly made it to the trash or fabric recycling pile several times (or as potential kindling).
It began as an art quilt project based on a photo of a beach structure for a series of classes I was taking with Jean Wells Keenan, called Journey to Inspired Art Quilting. I absolutely hated the piece and it seemed like to would never go anywhere (I felt like I was stopped in my journey anywhere, much less to inspired art quilting).
The series of classes ended, and I took the unfinished piece back home with me to sit in the abandoned project pile (where projects go to die..).
Randomly rummaging through my abandoned project pile a couple months later, I rediscovered the piece and I was suddenly struck with the feeling that I was not using the correct inspiration for the piece. The piece WANTED TO BE SOMETHING ELSE.
I had a photo on my inspiration board of an abandoned/closed water power facility in Central Oregon and I knew this is what the piece was to become (or at least be inspired by)!
After reworking the piece for a couple hours, I was tempted to return it to the abandon project pile (or just soak it in lighter fluid) but luckily I heard Jean in the back of my head to “just push through, keepgoing“. I cut out the bad parts, the parts that were not working in the piece, and eventually it became the Abandoned Water Structure art quilt.
If I were to summarize my thoughts and advice from this experience (and my ramblings above) for my fellow crafters and artists, it would be:
Creating can be like working with a partially rotted sweet potato.
You know there is yumminess still there but you don't want to eat
"the bad parts".
So cut out the "bad parts" and keep the good/viable parts!
Keep going, don't give up, be patient with yourself and the piece.
Let it become the yumminess it eventually wants to become.
Well I have stretched that analogy as far as it will stretch, thanks for reading to see where the heck I was going with my sweet potato story.
Oh and in case you were curious, my trimmed and boiled sweet potatoes were delicious (full of yumminess) in my salad at lunch!
I love seeing where people to create and in case you would like to see where I create, I have added a page to my blog tierneycreates Studio Tour where I will post photos of the latest version of my tiny little tierneycreates studio. More on this later in this post.
As part of my ongoing journey to curate my life (see post category: My MinimalismJourney ), I am working on letting go of more of my crafting related magazines.
Studios Magazine
I have a stash of Cloth Paper Scissors STUDIOS magazine from 2008 – 2014 (magazine is no longer in publication). This publication featured “artist studio porn”: essays and articles about professional and hobby artists’ studios, tips on designing and organizing your studio, and endless photos of studio layouts. The tagline for the magazine was “inspiration & ideas for your art and craft space”.
There are so many online resources (aka Pinterest) on studio organization ideas, I do not need these magazines. I can let them go, donate them to my beloved local Humane Society Thrift Shop and let them go to someone else to enjoy.
But, I wanted to read through each one, one more time, before donating them.
Working though re-reading the pile with my tea each morning
When I got to the Winter 2010 issue of Cloth Paper Scissors STUDIOS magazine I noticed it featured a collection of tips by various crafters/artists on small space tips.
Recently I re-organized by studio to try and make the best of the small space. I thought I would share some of my favorite tips from this issue from the various studio tours in case my readers find them useful.
Small Studio Tips
In Her Shoes by Catherine Thursby
Get a space of your own, even if it has to be small
Make it personal to encourage your creativity
Have a place “off-site” to keep bulky or seldom used materials
Snowman Season by Sue Pelletier
In a narrow space, set up tables end to end so you can have several projects going at once
A dartboard makes a graphic yet compact inspiration board
Remember that if you want studio space badly enough, you will find a way
The Glitter Fairy by Laurie Davis
Use shelves with cubbies to hold and display rubber stamps
Use under-the-counter space as much as possible
Use stackable containers to hold small items
In a Nutshell – A small space dedicated to creativity by Janice Avellana
Keep supplies out in the open so the work is ready when you are
Disguise a small, open studio behind a tall bookcase
For flexible organization, use painted pegboard
Room of Requirement by Liza Julien
Maximize small space by going vertical with ladder-style shelving
Store papers suspended from pant hangers on a wooden dowel
Install hooks on table legs, the sides of shelving – anywhere that’s handy and out of the way
Studio in the Sky by Victoria Grobels
Store supplies in baskets hung from the ceiling
Make your worktable an inspiration board, too, by slipping photos under a clear, plastic mat
Make a small space seem bigger by positioning it near a beautiful view
The Love Shack by Roberta Philbrick
Use “regular” furniture to hold art supplies
Color-coordinated caddies keep small items organized, portable, and attractive
A glass-topped table cleans up easily and looks polished in a small living/creating space
Strategic Design by Michelle Spaw
For an eclectic approach to organizing, try using non-conventional items such as stackable trays, bento boxes, and takeout-style containers
Removing the doors to your closet is as strong incentive to keep it tidy. Because the contents are always visible, you will be motivated to maintain order and curb the clutter
When purchasing storage boxes, think of color and pattern as a way to identify what you’re storing
Beaddazzled by Linda Dolack
Glue a sample of what’s in a drawer to the front so you can find and retrieve the object quickly
Use simple skirting to hide clutter stored below counters
Install shelving above windows to hold books and display art work out of the way
Where Whimsy Reigns by Elizabeth Holcombe Fedorko
Use collectibles as storage containers that can be displayed
Attach a folding table to the wall: pull it up to work, down to put it out of the way
No matter how small your space, make room for pets!
Several months ago I posted that a friend of mine named her baby hen chicks after her close female friends. This is an update to that post – A Chicken Named “Tierney”.
A month or so ago I took photos of teenage “Tierney the Chicken” and her brand new chicken coop; and recently I took photos of young adult “Tierney the Chicken”.
The Teen Years Weeks
Here is the deluxe coop she and her hen sisters live in. It has an inside section and a sunroom:
Chicken Cooping in style
Here is teenage “Tierney the Chicken” and her sister “Gabrielle the Chicken”:
Here is “Tierney” and the other teenage hens getting a snack:
My friend Marla, mother to all the young hens, has a photo in her house of what “Tierney the Chicken” will look like when she grows up and becomes an adult Dominique chicken:
Young Adult “Tierney the Chicken”
“Tierney” is now a young adult and getting closer to her egg laying days. No eggs yet but my friend Marla thinks in the upcoming weeks she and her sister hens will lay their first eggs.
Here is a current photo of “Tierney” and her sister “Gabrielle” (and some other chicken “photo bombing” the shot, ha!):
My friend Marla reports that “Tierney” is the friendliest of all the chickens. She runs towards you first when you come into the coop and she likes to snuggle:
Chicken Cuddles
Truthfully I’ve never cared about chickens beyond enjoying the eggs they lay or an occasionally tasty chicken dinner. This is the first time I have ever seen a chicken snuggle! (Is it my fate to eventually become vegan now that I suspect most farm animals will snuggle?)
Maybe it is slightly weird my friend named one of her hens after me (and her other close female friends) but how many people get to say they have a chicken with their namesake!??!
I will close this post with a photo of the cool wind vane inside Marla’s backyard:
So unless you live in Barrow, Alaska (1300 miles south of the North Pole/320 miles north of the Arctic Circle), you are probably not thinking about flannel, much less daydreaming of wrapping yourself in a flannel quilt right now.
We are currently sweltering in Central Oregon right but I am still going to share an update on Terry the Quilting Husband (TTQH)’s latest quilt top: A flannel fishing themed quilt:
He actually finished it a couple weeks ago but I am just now getting around to posting about it.
He finished the quilt top in late May when we happened to have some cool days, and I found him and our miniature schnauzers taking a nap under his new quilt top (the “cuteness factor” was very high when I walked into the room and I had to tip toe out and grab my camera!):
He has not worked on the back for the quilt as it is kind of warm right now to even think about looking at flannel in our fabric stash much less touching it. We might just put the top away for now until the weather gets out of the 90s and we can start to think about flannel quilts again.
Postscript
With the warmer weather TTQH is working on other things in his spare time besides flannel quilts – like taking Mike, one of our rescued miniature schnauzers on a bike ride. We have two doggy backpacks and Sassy rides with me (the girls together) and Mike rides with Terry. The photo below is from a week ago when we had a break from the heat as Terry and Mike head out on their bike ride:
If you would like to see more photos of Mike (and Sassy) bike riding, see these posts on Sassy’s Schnauzer Snips blog:
This post is actually a continuation of my ongoing series “What’son the Design Wall”, featuring my latest project up on either the small design wall in my studio or the large design wall my hallway.
Got Medallion?
Obviously I have been influenced by my fellow blogger buddy Melanie at Catbird Studio (see post The Six-Pointed Star and per page Medallion Lessons) but I have a burning need to make a Medallion Quilt.
I am also influenced by this page I tore from a Keepsake Quilting catalog for a medallion style Block of the Month (BOM) sampler. The only problem is that monthly participation in this BOM is $42.99 plus shipping! As lovely as this quilt is that would not be in my budget, so I just added the image to my magnet inspiration board on my studio closet door:
Rummaging Through the “Challenge Bags”
For the 4th of July, we were “bunkered” in our house with loud movies or music playing in the background, all the windows shut and the air conditioner (actually we have 2 evaporative or “swamp” coolers) to try to keep our extremely fireworks terrified dogs calm. Each year we plan to get from the vet some anti-anxiety medications for them but we forget, so instead we distract them with other sounds. This works most of 4th while neighborhood kids are playing with their fireworks. It only stops working in the evening when there is a VERY LOUD fireworks display at local attraction near our house.
Since I was “bunkering” on the 4th, I decided to spend some time in my studio looking through my collection of “Challenge Bags” (see post Basket of Challenges). Inside one of the bags I found an old felt and tweed Schoolhouse block pillow top I had purchased 14 years ago for $1 in a clearance sale at the back of a quilt shop. Tucked in with the Schoolhouse block were several strips of “Pyramid” borders that another quilter gave me.
With Medallion Quilts floating around in the back of my mind, I started playing with the pieces on the design wall:
I had just enough of the Pyramid pieced strips to border the Schoolhouse block twice on each side and ended up with the beginning of a scrappy improvisational medallion quilt!
My very first Medallion Quilt in progress. I plan to make it using only fabric scraps and recycled pieced items from my challenge bags. I am going to read through Melanie at Catbird Studio’s lessons on for making Medallion quilts as inspiration and then let myself get all improvisational once I understand any helpful concepts.
What Comes Next?
I pulled from my “Basket of Challenges” (my stash of challenge bags) a bag of scrap squares and a bag of scrap triangles. I am going to just keep this piece up on my design wall and slowly add to it as I am inspired.
Thank you to One Creative Family, the mother/daughter creative crafters team, for nominating my tierneycreates blog for the Liebster Blogging Award.
Here are the guidelines they posted:
Acknowledge the blog that nominated you and display the award.
Answer the 11 questions the blogger gives you.
Give 11 random facts about yourself.
Nominate 11 blogs.
Notify those blogs of the nomination.
Give them 11 questions to answer.
The only thing I am going to do different is not to individually notify the blogs I nominate. I am going to leave it up to the bloggers to catch their nomination on my post and to participate if they like – it is completely optional.
Favorite book– My favorite book of all time would be Speaker for the Dead (the sequel to Orson Scott Card’s book Ender’s Game)
Favorite foods– Pierogies are my complete guilty plesasure, smothered with lots of sour cream, but because I would like to fit through my door frame I do not indulge more than a couple times a year in these delicious delights!
Rather be outdoors or indoors– Outdoors on a walk
If you could travel anyplace in the world where would that be– Australia
Why did you start blogging– as a vehicle for my tierneycreates Etsy shop which is no longer active (discovered I love blogging more than trying to sell stuff!)
How do you relax – crafting, reading or organizing (except after scaling back my life I have run out of things to organize)
Rather eat sweets or salty – Salty I guess as I have been trying to stay away from many sweets
What is your favorite family activity – Bike riding with the dogs in their doggie backpacks
What type of movies do you enjoy watching– Science Fiction and Indie films
How do you relax after a stressful day – working on a hand quilting project or knitting
11 Random Facts About Me
I have this fantasy I am going to start getting enough sleep each night
I collect schnauzer figurines (though I am trying to be good and not bring anymore into my life)
Somedays I tire of making quilts and only want to make small items, but then I get lured by a new quilt pattern
Every morning my miniature schnauzer Mike and I have a major cuddle – he loves to cuddle
I met my husband on a Alcohol & Drug Detox Unit…no we were not patients – I was in nursing school (it was the only hospital unit that had openings for student nurses) and he was a nursing assistant.
I have a ridiculous amount of yarn I have never used
I prefer my cooking to the cooking at most restaurants – luckily my husband agrees
I am trying to curb my addiction to self-help genre books and read more fiction
I like to occasionally have a dance party in my living room with myself and the dogs
I miss the excellent Chinese food we had when we lived in Seattle, WA. I have yet to find a dependably decent Chinese food restaurant in Central Oregon
Ice cream cones make me gloriously happy
image credit: Becco Eliacik, free images.com
The 11 Blogs I Nominate (in no particular order) for the Liebster Award:
Peggy and Sami Quilts(even though I am wondering how her dog Sami is actually quilting, I think she is just covering for Sami and Peggy is actually doing most of the quilting – ha!)
knitNkwilt(one of the first blogs I ever followed and one of my first followers)
The 11 Questions for these bloggers, if they choose to participate:
Paper of Plastic?
What is your favorite dish soap, and why (if you would like to elaborate on your dish washing liquid of choice)?
Your favorite non-alcoholic beverage
How many hours of sleep a night do you need to feel rested?
Is there a hobby you would love to do but you are terrified to try it?
If you have a pet and suddenly your dog, cat. hamster, etc. were granted the ability to speak to you, what do you think is the first thing they would say?
If you were required by law to stop blogging, would you be okay with it or would you find a way to secretly blog?
What is your favorite seasoning to use on a variety of dishes?
Where do you think lost socks go?
If you read magazines, what is your favorite?
Favorite Doctor? (for the Doctor Who fans) or Favorite Star Trek Captain?
Saturday, a week before the Sisters Outdoor Quilt Show (SOQS), I met up with a couple friends to wander around Sisters, Oregon and have lunch.
A Little Bit About SOQS
SOQS, the world’s largest outdoor quilt show, is always the second Saturday in July. If you are a quilter or a person who loves quilts, I recommend you put it on your bucket list to see at least once in your life.
Per the website: “More than 10,000 visitors from all 50 states and 27 foreign countries” attend the show. We wanted to wander around Sisters before the madness of all those visitors descended upon the town!
While waiting on line to order lunch at The Depot Deli in Sisters, we chatted with a quilter from the UK that was in town for the SOQS and the week of classes prior to the show – the Quilters Affair.
At the Quilters Affair, renown quilters (Tula Pink, Joe Cunningham, Jean Wells, Rosalie Dace, Sue Spargo, Karla Alexander, Hilde Morin, Elizabeth Hartman, Rob Appell, etc.) teach classes.
My friend Susan created this year’s SOQS raffle quilt which will help raise funds to help cover the administrative costs of this free to the public event (the Saturday SOQS main event is free, all other events are not). The proceeds from the raffle also benefit various community programs such as the Sisters Food Bank.
While wandering around Sisters Saturday, Susan and my other friends stopped at the Stitchin’ Postquilt shop where her quilt was hanging out front (and of course we went into the quilt shop and wandered around):
“A Story of Stars” designed and pieced by Susan Cobb and quilted by Laura Simmons.
Many of the quilts at SOQS are for sale. Last year I had 6 quilts in the SOQS (5 for sale and 1 in a special art quilt exhibit); and Terry the Quilting Husband had 5 quilts in the “Made by Men” Exhibit and he sold 2 quilts!
This year for the 2017 SOQS I will only have 1 quilt in a special show by the art quilting group I belong to, Central Oregon SAQA. I will post photos after next Saturday’s show.
If you would like to get a feel for what it is like to attend this amazing show checking out my Central Oregon blogging buddy, Anna and her blog Woolie Mammoth or her YouTube Channel – QuiltRoadies, where you will find videos from past SOQS and she will post videos about this year.
Additionally, I have added a category for my posts – Sisters Outdoor Quilt Show, if you want to check my posts from previous years on the show.
The Drug Store Quilt Show
During the 2nd Saturday of July for the SOQS, the entire downtown of Sisters Oregon is shut down from traffic and quilts are hung from every building in the town. They are also hung inside all the downtown buildings!
A couple weeks prior to the SOQS, Sponsor Quilts are hung in many downtown shops as a prelude to the SOQS. Patrons of these shops have the opportunity to purchase the quilts on display prior to the SOQS.
When you go into a drugstore you never expect to also be walking into a quilt show (not something generally associated with drugstores!). While wandering around Sisters, we stopped in the Sisters Drug & Gift Shop to see another one of Susan’s quilts displayed. Here are photos from inside the this downtown drugstore (and awesome gift shop!) – note the first photo is an incredible paper pieced quilt by teacher Janet Storten who I have mentioned in previous posts (see AdventuresinAppliqué):
I bet you have never attended a Drugstore Quilt Show!
This drugstore is famous for its handmade chocolate counter, which will tempt visitors during the SOQS:
I am looking forward to the 2017 SOQS next Saturday!
Postscript
While wandering around Sisters, we stopped at the Habitat for Humanity thrift shop and I picked up this Crosley radio for $12:
These radios retail for $54 – $79 and look like antique radios. The sound is excellent and the only thing wrong with it was a couple cosmetic scratches.
I added this radio to my paper crafting and jewelry making station I created in my sunroom:
I am determined to start card making and jewelry making again. So many crafts, so little time…
I have been remiss. Three bloggers have been kind enough to recently nominate me for blogging awards and I have not followed through on them! Recently, outside of working my pay-the-bills healthcare job, I have not been interested in writing or other “productive” activities.
True confessions: I have gotten involved with this: MyPorch Swing.
All I want to do is sitting or lie on my porch swing with a book, or no book, and just stare up at the sky, or just swing and swing and close my eyes. I have mastered pushing myself with one hand to make the swing, swing, while drifting off to sleep into a Swing-Nap.
If you remember (if you are not new to my blog) in my series of posts on the annual May retreat I attend with my Quilting Sisters, the post Quilt Retreat Inspiration andProjects in which I share my distraction with the porch swing at the retreat center.
I appear to be suffering from Porch-Swing-itis. I just want to be in my swing!
The Mystery Blogger Award
Well back to the purpose of this post (luckily it is 10 pm at night while I write this so I can fight my urge to run outside to the porch swing now that I am thinking about it) to thank Dewey Hop: Feisty Froggy Reads Through the Library for nominating me for the Mystery Blogger Award.
Dewey Hop|Feisty Froggy Reads Through The Library is one of my favorite blogs. She does not post frequently but when she posts they are well researched intriguing posts about a large variety of topics. As the blog’s title implies, the blogger is reading through the library, one section at a time and sharing the interesting finds!
Okoto Enigma created this award as a means of helping bloggers connect and discover amazing blogs. This is what she says the The Mystery Blogger Award is for:
“Mystery Blogger Award” is an award for amazing bloggers with ingenious posts. Their blog not only captivates; it inspires and motivates. They are one of the best out there, and they deserve any of the recognition they get. This award is also for bloggers who find fun and inspiration in blogging; and they do it with so much love and passion.
Here are the rules for accepting/nominating for this award:
Post the award/ image on your blog .
Thank whoever nominated you and give a link back to their blog.
Mention the creator of the award and give a link back to her blog.
Nominate some deserving bloggers and notify your nominees by commenting on their blogs.
Ask your nominees 5 questions of your choice; including one weird or funny question.
Here are the questions from Dewey Hop’s nomination post and my answers:
If you could change one thing about our country, what would it be and why? I would make it mandatory that in general we treat each other with respect and kindness. There is no actual “us” and “them”, there are just fellow earthlings on one planet. We waste time and distract ourselves from the wonders and beauty in life when we are busy drawing lines in the sand.
Which super hero powers would you like to have, if given a chance? Why ? I would like the ability to know what dogs are actually thinking. Why – because it is about time I figure out the devious plans of Sassythe Highly Opinionated Miniature Schnauzer!
What motivates you to blog (write) ? I like to use my blog to encourage myself…actually pressure myself to complete projects. I like to tell myself I owe it to my readers to complete a project I share the progress on in a blog post. It is likely highly imaginary and no one is really that concerned whether I complete a project or not, but blogging keeps me motivated. I also like to share interesting things I encounter in my life journey with others, in case they find it useful in their journey.
What is something you like to collect, if anything?Fabric unfortunately though lately I am well behaved. I also seem to collect crafting related magazines and books – I love looking over ideas with a pot of tea. As part of My MinimalismJourney I am trying to bring less things into my life/better curate my life, and so far I have been able to reign in my desire for new magazines and crafting related books but using my public library to fulfilled that need (see my series of posts on The Library Stack). In a future post on Sassy the Highly Opinionated Miniature Schnauzer’s blog schnauzersnips, she might share some photos of our secret collection of schnauzer kitsch!
If given the chance to rename any fast food restaurant, which would it be? “Kentucky-Fried Death”? “McPoison”? In general do not eat fast food. I read the book Fast Food Nation many years ago and it forever impacted me on how I view fast food restaurants, especially the major chains. I am about 13 – 15 years free of having eaten at “the golden arches” or other such places. On a rare occasion we will stop at a Sonic to get soft serve ice cream cones.
Here are my five (5) nominees of some “amazing bloggers with ingenious posts” (Please do not feel obligated to participate and follow the rules, but thank you for your wonderful posts I am enjoying):
Melanie @ Catbird Quilt Studio – another one of my favorite blogs. Melanie’s posts are well written, informative and focus on a variety of topics to include quilting, but not just quilting.
I’ve Read This– a blog I recently started following, this blog is loaded with well written book reviews and lots of photos of kitties! If you like cats and reading, this is a blog you should check out.
Zheng Fan Minimalist– this is blog I recently started following with a wide variety of engaging topics and posts!
Crave Food-Health-Life – a lovely blog with a variety of topics and wonderful healthy recipes.
In the mornings before work and before it gets too warm outside I try to go on a bike ride and listen to a podcast (no worries, I ride my bike in a safe low traffic section of my neighborhood and always watch for cars).
Recently I have discovered The RobCast by Rob Bell (robbell.com), a former pastor turned author, coach, speaker. His podcasts focuses on minimalism, spirituality and quality of life. I discovered him through The Minimalists.
There are to date 157 episodes of his podcast, and I started with episode #1 after hearing him speak on an episode of The Minimalists Podcast. Although his message is based on his spiritual beliefs and he does share biblical quotes, the topics discussed in his podcast are not limited to/designed to appeal only to those with Judeo-Christian beliefs.
In my opinion they would appeal any spiritual belief whether what you consider “The Divine” is based on a higher being(s), a prophet, nature, science, or what lies within you. He discusses what I feel are universal truths that he makes accessible sharing the kind of real life situations and challenges we all face. There is no “bible-thumping” in this podcast (which personally would turn me off immediately).
The RobCast is now part of my morning bike ride routine and I today listened to Episode #3 in which Rob Bell explores being grateful for having employment to feed yourself/your family; and discusses the idea of an inedible seed turning into something that nurtures you:
“(A) seed contains within it the potentiality to keep you alive. It contains latent life-force, present but unrealized possibilities…you place a seed in the earth and you bury it and it somehow become something else…as it arises from the earth in a new form it is from that particular new form…provides you with what you need to live.
A seed only becomes the thing it could become…its potentials are only realized when it is buried…it is in the dark..it is under the earth, it appears lost to your sight…it is in the moment in which the seed is most gone that is actually when it is undergoing the most radical necessary transformation for it to be something that could give you life…” – Rob Bell, The RobCast, Episode 3|Receipts
Listening to the passage above got me thinking about something I created but have not shared on blog that has to do with SEEDS.
But let’s back up for a moment…
As a general rule I stay away from politics and religion as topics of discussion on my blog. I want to always respect my readers that may have different views on these very sensitive subjects. These are very personal types of beliefs.
I do however make a point to have people in my life who have different spiritual and political beliefs than I do. I like to be exposed to ideas and viewpoints that differ from mine. It is a basic requirement though to be my friend that you do have same general values about treating others with respect (sorry raging misanthropes we cannot be friends, ha!).
It is for this reason (staying away from politics) that I have not shared something I created for a certain march on issues that are meaningful to me as a Woman and as a Person of Color. I am feeling inspired to now share and here a banner I created, all about seeds:
I think what Rob Bell says about seeds in his RobCast #3 and the general theme of my banner, could translate to any situation in which you feel buried, without hope and things are the darkest. If you have planted seeds, although it is dark, there might be a period of incredible transformation happening underground that and will eventually bloom into something beautiful.
Postscript
Speaking of seeds and thus nature, I am definitely taking a cue from nature as I slowly work on hand stitching the letters on my Lao Tzu quotes themed wallhanging. As I shared in yesterday’s post, The Backstitch and the End of TangledFloss, I am finishing up a wallhanging from an appliqué class I took in 2016.
I am in the process of stitching:
“Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished” – Lao Tzu
And it is obvious I am not hurrying (ha) but I have completed THREE WORDS (a significant improvement from TWO LETTERS I shared yesterday!
It is a peaceful meditative process to carefully stitch on words, I like it! I plan to knock out another word or two this evening.
(Which will happen first: the acorn will turn into the oak tree or I will finish stitching the saying onto the quilt?)
“Once in a while, you just have to let loose and HOWL” is one of the dog themed sayings on the wallhanging sized quilt I just finished on Saturday and hung in Terry the Quilting Husband’s (TTQH) studio (aka the Guest Room).
No More Just Gathering Dust
My friend Lisa gave me dog themed wallhanging sized quilt top (unfinished quilt) a couple years ago. Since then it has in my closet (after sitting in hers) as an un-finished object (UFO), just gathering dust (yes quilters like to transfer their UFOs from one quilter to another to keep in storage at someone else’s house!).
Saturday I was rummaging through my UFOs and came across this quilt top; and spur of the moment decided to JUST FINISH IT.
Lisa was very generous to give me this completed wallhanging quilt top. All I had to do in order to finish the quilt was to prepare the backing; machine quilt it; and bind it.
Recycled Batting
A quilting colleague who is a professional long-arm quilter has quilting batting leftovers from her customers’ quilts that the customers do not want. She saves some of the pieces for me to use for table runners or small projects. (I rarely buy package batting as for smaller pieces I have her discards and for larger quilts I get them professionally quilted which include the batting in the cost)
She also taught me how to piece smaller batting together to make a larger batting for a project – either by zig zagging the batting together or using a special tape to join them.
I did not have pieces of scrap batting to finish the dog themed wallhanging quilt. So I zig zagged two smaller pieces together:
Favorite Saying?
Not only did I make the batting, quilt it and bind it all in one day, I also got it hung in TTQH’s sewing area (the entire Guest Room is dog…primarily schnauzer…themed)!
Summoning TTQH to the Guest Room…I mean his “studio”, to reveal the latest addition, I asked him which saying on the wallhanging was his favorite. He selected this one:
During our recent trip to Fort Worth, Texas, Terry the Quilting Husband (TTQH) and I stopped at a Fort Worth area quilt shop – Cabbage Rose Quilting & Fabrics.
It is a lovely quilt shop with a great selection of fabrics, excellent prices (and a very nice sale section) and friendly/helpful staff. I got to chat with the owner a very nice lady.
All around the shop were sweet little vignettes, here is one with a miniature antique sewing machine in the window, that I thought was darling:
Quilt Shop Family Reunion
What made the visit to this quilt shop very special was it was also the location of a mini Hogan family reunion!
We picked up TTQH’s quilter sisters Susan and Diane from the airport and headed directly to this quilt shop from the DFW airport. Terry’s eldest brother Andy and his wife (also a quilter) who live in the Dallas-Ft. Worth area, met up with us at the quilt shop!
TTQH had not seen Andy in many years and they spent a long time chatting and catching up in the quilt shop while TTQH’s sisters, sister-in-law and myself shopped! I have some adorable photos of Terry and his big brother in the quilt shop (sorry many of my photos from the Cabbage Rose Quilting & Fabrics shop contain TTQH’s family members and to respect their privacy I have not posted those photos).
If you are ever in the Fort Worth area I highly recommend their shop. They also have a great website:
Of course I bought something! I have to support local quilt shops when I am traveling! I was rather well-behaved and bought a couple of modern fabrics from the 1/2 yard precut sale bin:
Postscript
Really Hungry, Willing to Take Chances
We took a red-eye (overnight) flight from Central Oregon to DFW (via a stop in Portland, Oregon) and arrived at 5:00 am in the morning. After waiting around a couple hours in the DFW airport rental car center (yes the airport is so huge the rental cars have their own HUGE complex off site from the airport) and picking up our rental car, we were tired and hungry.
We do not know the Dallas-Ft. Worth area and we could not check into our hotel in Ft. Worth until the afternoon, so we had to figure out stuff to do till then AND find some breakfast. (The rest of Terry’s family was not coming into town until Friday, which we did not realize until after we bought our plane tickets).
We stumbled upon a little “hole-in-the-wall” diner in strip mall and were so hungry we thought we would take our chance and try it – Mom’s Cafe:
We had our finger crossed that “Mom” would not give us any gastrointestinal distress. Instead we were pleasantly surprised with EXCEPTIONAL Tex-Mex breakfasts!
I had an incredible plate of migas with tortillas for breakfast and TTQH had some type of breakfast burrito.
We were very quiet while we ate as we were each having our own private moments of total-food-yumminess! “Mom” did good!
TTQH loves even more than quilting, historical war-gaming. After breakfast we found a Ft. Worth area miniature historical war-gaming shop before finally getting to our hotel and passing out.
Later that evening, we went to the Movie Tavern for dinner and a movie (we saw Guardians of the Galaxy 2, a very fun movie!). The next day, while visiting with Terry’s brother Andy, had worked on the building of this theater!
Blogging Awards
Recently I have been honored with a couple more blogging awards (thank you so muchOne Creative Family and DeweyHop) and I will do future blog posts about those but I am backlogged with other blog post topic ideas. I guess I have to try and do daily posts when I can to catch up with all the random stuff floating around in my head (smile).
Yesterday’s post featured a completed quilt to convince you that this is still a Quilter’s Blog, so now I am free today to post about some other non-quilting random topic!
This is post is a sort of follow up or continuation of my post from August 2016, Shameless Thrifting. In my “Shameless Thrifting” post I share how I overcame my aversion to thrift stores as part of my Minimalism Journey. I also share a secret obsession from my childhood discovered during an afternoon of thrifting.
Got Outfit?
In yesterday’s post (in which I try to convince you I am a quilter again), The Wedding Gift Quilt, I mention that I recent returned from a trip to Fort Worth, Texas for a family wedding.
Preparing for the trip I realized I did not have many nice warm weather outfits for Texas (90+ degrees F and high humidity).
I live in the Pacific NW and in general we dress fairly casual; and I am a telecommuter and I can work in sweat pants and a T-shirt all day. I used to have a lot of dressy clothes from when I worked in an office, but I donated most of them to thrift shops as I discussed in my series of posts on My Minimalism Journey (My Minimalism Journey).
I could not stand the idea of going out and buying NEW clothes. Anytime I think about buying new clothes, I think about an article I read last year on how “Fast Fashion” is creating environmental issues. This is not the exact article but it has the same message: Newsweek’s FAST FASHION IS CREATING AN ENVIRONMENTAL CRISIS
Several times I started to get into the car and go to the local Macy*s or J. Jill, or even Old Navy to see if I could find any cute outfits for the trip. I also thought of our local boutique shops and although I would like to patronize small businesses I was not sure if I wanted to pay their prices and I noticed many of their clothes are made in overseas.
Let’s Try Local Thrift Shops!
Thank goodness due to the influence of my sister, a very creative “thrifter”, I can proudly and shamelessly, go thrift shop shopping for clothes! There are many wonderful “gently used” fashionable clothes at thrift shops.
After visiting several thrift shops, I was able to put together a couple outfits for the trip I was very pleased with. Here is an example of one of those outfits (note I already had the shoes – they are are Dankso dress clogs with ankle straps I’ve had for many years and they surprisingly matched perfectly):
How much for the entire outfit including the jewelry (not including the shoes) – $9.
Yes $9 for the whole outfit: the $5 dress is a J. Crew dress, the $3 jacket is a boutique brand type item, and the coordinating necklace was $1. I received compliments on the outfit while on my trip!
And when I get tired of my “new” thrift shop summer travel wardrobe, I will just donate it back to the thrift shops!
Postscript
The Capsule Wardrobe
Speaking of clothing, a vlogger (video blogger), Casually Matthew, has a beautifully produced short video on how to create a Capsule Wardrobe:
I love the idea of a “Capsule Wardrobe” and first heard about this concept when I started following The Minimalists a couple years ago. I was going to add a link to provide more background on Capsule Wardrobes, but you can google this phrase and find many wonderful guides.
Essentially a Capsule Wardrobe is a way to declutter and minimize your closet while curating your clothing into a coordinated collection of clothing you really love; and is flexible in its ability to “mix and match”.
I have a fairly casual Capsule Wardrobe for my telecommuter/Pacific NW lifestyle but I would like to evolve it to be a tad more stylish and plan to use thrift shop finds to achieve my goal!
Feature photo credit: Roger Kirby, free images.com
So occasionally I should probably feature a quilt in one of my posts (smile).
We recently returned from a visit to Fort Worth, Texas for a wedding. Terry the Quilting Husband’s nephew got married to a lovely woman. I gave them a quilt as a wedding present.
I do not know what I was thinking, but I did not take the best photos of the actual quilt before shipping it off. So before you get to my photos, I want to show you the official image of the quilt by the quilt designer.
The pattern is called JOY and the pattern designer is Whirligig Designs. The finished quilt measures approximately 89″ x 106″.
The pattern photo:
Photo credit: Stitch ‘N Time Fabrics
And now my photos…
I used batik fabrics similar to those used in the sample for the pattern photo. The quilt was quilted by Guadalupe Designs. Unfortunately I did not take any photos with the details of the quilting (or any photos with decent image quality, ha).
The newlywed recipients are currently on their honeymoon and perhaps at a later date I will ask them to take a better photo of the quilt and send to me. I am a pretty sure they did not take the quilt on the honeymoon with them!
I made a nice quilt label for the back of the quilt and emphasized that the name of the pattern is “JOY” and wished them much joy in their life together. I sort of miss the quilt but they seemed pretty happy about it (I shipped it to them before the wedding) so I hope the quilt has a happy life the lovely couple who received it!
My wonderful Sisters-in-laws and Mother-in-law, who are also quilters, helped finance the creation of and professional long-arm quilting of this quilt. I included their names in the label. I was “assigned” to be the one to make the wedding quilt for the newly wedded!
Postscript
Normally I travel with a medium or large backpack. I am not a formal suitcase kind of person and I like to travel as light as possible. However since I was going to a wedding and needed to bring dressier clothes and shoes, I had to pull out the traditional rolling suitcase.
My rolling suitcase is a black suitcase and looks like the zillion other suitcases traveling through airports. One of my Quilting Sisters (see posts Quilting Sisters, Part I and Quilting Sisters, Part II) Lisa, gave me an awesome luggage tag that made my standard plain black rolling suitcase stand out:
My suitcase was easily to locate in the crowd…and I felt like a “Bad *ss” when I picked it off the luggage cart!
The Dewey Hop/Feisty Froggy has accused the tierneycreates blog of being “versatile, informative, fun, and original“!
In order accept this award, I must list the rules (slightly altered by Dewey Hop/Feisty Froggy per her confession, ha) :
THE RULES:
You have to thank the person who nominated you and provide a link to their blog!
Nominate bloggers of your choice.
Link the nominees and inform them about their nomination.
Share some facts about yourself.
NOMINEES:
I (like Dewey Hop/Feisty Froggy) will do my best to nominate people who really are versatile, informative, fun, and original. Bloggers, please don’t feel that you have to participate if you don’t want to, but you do deserve this honor whether you participate or not.
(NOTE: I would definitely have nominated Dewey Hop but then this would be a circular nomination, ha!)
I follow many wonderful blogs and for this nomination I tried to focus on those with a very wide ranges of topics and/or uniqueness.
SHARING SOME FACTS (QUITE RANDOM FACTS):
I constantly listen to audiobooks. I am never without an audiobook queued on my iPhone and usually I have two audiobooks going at once. Currently I am listening to Make Your Bed: Little Things That Can Change Your Life…And Maybe the World by Admiral William McRaven (U.S Navy Retired), which I will discuss in a future post.
I love dogs’ noses. When not kissing the noses of my two rescue miniature schnauzers, I am admiring other dogs’ noses. Cats noses are pretty cool too.
For most of my life (age 11 forward) I have loved horror films. Classic horror films (Frankenstein, Dracula, Wolf-man…anything with Christopher Lee or Bella Lugosi); haunted house horror films; slasher-films, Japanese-style horror (The Grudge, The Ring), and silly horror films (like Nightmare on Elm Street, etc.). Then, suddenly about 6 months ago, I stopped enjoying most horror films and stopped watching the genre (except for the occasional classic horror film). It just seemed like there was too much horror already in the real world, I did not want to watch fictional horror on film anymore.
A couple years ago I had decided to become a runner without listening to my sister who said I needed to get orthotics and good sneakers. I ended up with Plantar Fasciitis and a Morton’s Neuromaon my feet and had to wear a walking boot for several months. After my rehabilitation, I now stick with walking. I never really appreciated my feet until they were not working very well. Now I treat them very well – custom orthotics, high quality sneakers and shoes, and daily foot exercises to avoid a return of Plantar Fasciitis (or have to get another one of those icky foot injections to treat the Morton’s Neuroma).
Terry the Quilting Husband (TTQH) and I are craft brews/microbrews aficionados. I never liked beer until we lived in Seattle and we met people who introduced us to craft brewing. In 2004 we traveled to Amsterdam, Antwerp, Brussels and Denmark on a beer tasting and friend visiting vacation. During this trip, TTQH, who is also a Military History buff specializing in the Napoleonic Era, got to see Waterloo. This was definitely one of those “Bucket List” items for TTQH. To get to Waterloo battleground and museums, we traveled from Brussels via train and then bus; and I had to pull out my very rusty high school French to get the last leg of the journey to Waterloo (no one spoke English on the local bus)!
Lion’s Mound, Waterloo (Photo Credit: European Traveler)
I just returned from the 4-day annual May quilt retreat with my Washington, Oregon and California Quilt Sisters. The next series of blog posts will be about that retreat. When I walked in the house yesterday, suitcase laden with partially completed projects and some new fabric picked up during the retreat (oops), I had a package waiting.
Inside the package was my birthday gift from my Danish brother Torben (see 04/15/17 post The Library Stack and Hygge) from a quilt shop in his current country of residence, Austria!
The goodies inside included a “layer cake” (collection of 10″ precut coordinated fabric squares), information about the fabric line, information about the quilt shop, and other treats!
The fabric line is Véro´s World by Gütermann and my wonderful Danish brother, picked up the fabric (and other goodies) at a quilt shop, Quilted, in Vienna.
Check out the link for the Quilted Quilt Shop website for a peek inside a Viennese quilt shop! Note – everything is in German on the website, but you can get a general feel for the website’s navigation if you do not speak/read German.
I have visited Torben a couple times in Denmark, but not in Austria. I guess since they have quilt shop, I will have to visit – ha!
In addition to the treats from the Austrian quilt shop, there was a birthday card in Danish (just to mess with my mind). Most of the words I recognize from absorbing Danish from 20 years of friendship.
Just wanted to share my wonderful surprise, it was a nice way to return home from a wonderful relaxing 4-day quilt retreat (my next series of posts).
Postscript
Here is a card someone sent me years ago that I framed and keep on my studio wall. It is a good reminder when I get discouraged about the slow progress of my art quilting journey:
Every morning I look out my kitchen window at a set of Tibetan-Prayer-like flags as I put on the kettle for my pot of tea.
These six (6) flags have Kanji (Japanese Chinese-inspired characters) symbols and an English language inspirational quote.
This morning I thought I would share with you the text the “flags outside my windows” that I read to start my day. (Kanji character images from kanji-symbol.net).
HAPPINESS
When one’s spiritual needs are met by an untroubled inner life. Happiness comes when your work and words are of benefit to yourself and others.
LOVE
An inspired form of giving, love breathes life into the heart and brings grace to the soul.
COURAGE
Not the absence of fear or despair, but the strength to conquer them.
WISDOM
Knowledge, intuition and experience combine to guide us in thought and deed.
PEACE
To bring peace to the Earth, strive to make your own life peaceful.
TRANQUILITY
The peace that comes when energies are in harmony, relationships are in balance.
Looking at these flags is a grounding way for me to start each day.
This blog is about a Quilter’s Life and there is more in my life than just quilting. I have so many non-quilting blog post ideas floating in my head, but today is another quilting related post. I so appreciate my non-quilter readers in addition to my quilter/crafter readers!
Making Rosettes
So is an activity equally or perhaps more addicting than making little English Paper Pieced (EPP) hexagons (hexies) – making rosettes with the hexies!
Here is what I started with (a collection of free 1/8th quarters from the 2016 Central Oregon Quilt Shop Hop):
Here is the book I used to teach myself EPP (All Points Patchwork by Diane Gilleland):
I turned the fabric into 250+ hexies:
In order to make something like this:
Photo credit: Quiltfolk.com
And, so far I have made 18 of these – rosettes:
But, now the (sort of) bad news
I counted and I only have enough hexies to make 36 rosettes and the quilt I want to make has 99 rosettes (9 x 11 row quilt). I used all the free fabric from the 2016 Central Oregon Quilt Shop Hop and I wanted the hexies to only be made from that coordinated fabric (I will have to use other fabric from my stash for the background/setting fabrics).
So either I change my rules, or I accept that I am making a 36 block (6 x 6 row) quilt with my rosettes. I think that is what I am going to do, as it would be a huge commitment to make a zillion more hexies to turn into 63 more blocks!
Sometimes you got to be flexible and change your original plan…
Closing this post with my favorite rosette so far (I have 18 more rosettes to make so we’ll see if this one wins the Rosette Beauty Contest (soon to be an annual event held in Atlantic City, ha!):
Mondays am I off from work so last night I decided to do a “Late Night Sewing Session”. I sent Terry the Quilting Husband, Sassy the Highly Opinionated Miniature Schnauzer, and her adopted brother Mike off to bed; put on a Nova documentary on YouTube; and settled in for a late night sewing marathon.
I decided to just finish out the “challenge bag” of shot cotton scraps from my friend Dana (see post Experimenting with Foundation Paper Piecing) and continue making little pillow tops that I plan to hand quilt.
Here is what I started with from the “challenge bag” of shot cotton scraps:
So here was the first piece I had made the other day with the scraps, experimenting with foundation piecing:
And here are the improvisational pieces I made with the rest of the scraps last night during my Late Night Sew:
Here is all I have left from the “challenge bag”:
These are fairly small scraps, so those that were larger than 2″ x 2″ I put into general circulation, by color, in my fabric scrap collection. The rest (not very many) had to unfortunately head for the landfill…sigh…can’t save them all!
So what am I going to do with the little pillows I make? Well I am thinking about participating in my first Craft Fair in late Fall 2017. My employer has an annual Holiday Craft Fair in the Portland, Oregon office. I am thinking about taking my leftover items from my former tierneycreates Etsy shop and new items I have made and selling them at the craft fair. More to come on that in the future, still mulling it over.
Postscript
I think Smart Cars/mini electric cars are adorable! I enjoyed looking at them when I was in Europe years ago and I have sighted several when visiting Portland, Oregon. Yesterday on our dog walk, we came across an adorable Smart Car in one of the neighborhoods next to ours. I was so cute I wanted to put it in my pocket – ha! (They are like toy cars!)
So I will close out this post with the photo of this darling eco-vehicle:
I first posted about this project in the post 
Here is 
tierneycreates 