a fusion of textiles & smiles
All quilted and on the dining room/library table now!
After I finished quilting it and putting on the binding, I decided to launder it (and then try and iron out wrinkles) so it was ready for any future laundering after spills. I want it to be a “working” table runner that will stay on the table during a meal.
(Before company comes for dinner I will give it a better pressing, I was just so excited to put it on the table!)
It’s the 15th of the month and time for my monthly “ScrapHappy” post as part of the ScrapHappy group I belong. At the end of this post I have a link to the other blogs participating in this monthly event in case you’d like to check out their ScrapHappy posts.
For this month’s ScrapHappy blog post, I am sharing an update on the table runner I’ve been working on that is made from my friend Wendy’s fabric scraps and orphan blocks from a quilt she made SuperSymmetry (see blog posts Update on SuperSymmetry Table Runner and the Library Book Borrowing Bonanza, A Table Runner for the New Table, and Quilter Distractions: Good Mail filled with “Taupe” ).
I completed piecing the table runner per the piecing instructions from her pattern SuperSymmetry, and discovered I needed to make more blocks in order to make it long enough for the table as well as finish each end (more on that later). Unfortunately Y seams were involved in the piecing (shudder) but I made it through.
I ended up making 14 additional blocks.
I floated the pieced SuperSymmetry blocks in taupe-brown Peppered Cotton (a heavy duty linen like shot cotton). Here is a little photoshoot I did of the completed table runner top on the new dining room/library table:
In the last two photos you can see the new rug that arrived that I mentioned in a previous post. It is one of those Ruggable rugs that can be laundered in the washing machine (in case there is “The Great Spaghetti Sauce Spill” during a meal someday).
And in case you are curious here is how I finished the ends of the table runner with all those triangle blocks in the piece:
Thank goodness for a good steamy iron as there was a lot of pressing involved to get it looking like I hadn’t been on mind altering substances while piecing…
In addition to the SuperSymmetry orphan blocks and fabric scraps, Wendy also sent me 7 traditional quilt blocks orphan blocks for a taupe quilt she was working on. I’ve decided to use these blocks as part of the back for the table runner.
I am going to float each of them in the taupe Peppered Cotton and then add in enough length in side borders as well as a bottom and top to meet the length. I am getting ready to start working on floating each block by doing some “log cabin” style piece around each block:
We’ve had a run of sub-zero Fahrenheit (colder than -17 Celsius) temperatures in the Denver metropolitan area and we’ve been spending a lot of time inside. John got addicted to watching cooking/culinary themed videos on YouTube and this weekend decided to try and make a copy of the famous Chick-fil-A (very popular fast food eatery in the US) chicken sandwich and the accompanying sauce after watching a video on how to do it.
He made enough for his father, sister, son and son’s family (who all live nearby) and then delivered them to their homes! You might have heard of the popular food delivery service DoorDash – well we named John – “DadDash”!
The sandwiches were a hit and included the famous pickle like the original. Here is a little photo spread from yesterday to close out this post.
Oh and if you’d like to try and make them yourself, here is the video John used:
As promised, here are the bloggers that participate in the ScrapHappy monthly posting event, check out their blogs linked below for their ScrapHappy posts:
Kate @Tall Tales from Chiconia , Gun @Rutigt – G Adrian, Eva @bambisyr-evaj, Sue @From the Magpie’s Nest, Lynda @Life on the Farmlet, Birthe @Birthes rom, Turid @Den syende himmel, Susan @DesertSky Quilting, Cathy @nanacathydotcom, Tracy @It’s a T-Sweets Day!, Jan @The Snail of Happiness, Moira @The Quilted Snail, Sandra @Wild Daffodil, Chris @chrisknitsews, Alys @Gardening Nirvana, Claire @Claire93’s Blog, Jean @onesmallstitch, Dawn @DawnGillDesigns, Gwen @Deep in the Heart of Textiles/Textile Ranger, Sunny @The Adventures of Team Wil-Sun, Kjerstin @Quimper Hittys, Sue @Going Batty in Wales, Vera @lifebyacompassnotaclock, Ann @Ann F Stonehouse Quiltmaker, Dawn @myquiltprojects, Carol @Quilt Schmilt, Preeti @Sew Preeti Quilts, Nóilin @Paper, Pen and Mug, Viv @Where the Journey Takes Me 2, Karrin @Karrin’s Crazy World, Amo @View From Our Hill, Alissa @ Snakes & Cranes, Lynn @Tialys, Tierney @tierneycreates, Hannah @quietwatercraft
Well after Monday’s guest post by Mike the Miniature Schnauzer’s on the update of one of the WIPs (Guest Blog Post: Progress on “My Blanket”), the gray granny square blanket, that I shared in this post 2023 Recap: A Year in “Makes” and WIPs Going Forward, I guess I should actually do a post providing an update on another WIP I mentioned in the “2023 Recap” post: the table runner for our new table made from orphan blocks from my friend Wendy’s quilt SuperSymmetry (the quilt and the pattern she wrote appeared in the October 2010 edition of The Quilt Life):
I have all the blocks that Wendy gave me sewn together; and now it seems I have quite a few to make to bring the piece the full length of the table.
I am floating the table runner in progress on the taupe-brownish fabric that I will use as the borders. It is the same fabric I used as the setting fabric in this quilt which is in the dining room/library:
Yes that is Mike napping at my feet while I read a book in the library (before it was the dining room/library).
Here’s a couple more photos of the table runner in progress laid out on the dining table, this time with the bowl and candles that will sit on top of it when it is done:
You can see my breakfast in the background, it is a nice place to sit, read and eat breakfast.
I really like how the table runner is looking in the room and it coordinates well with my color scheme. I have one of those Ruggable washable rugs on order for under the table the in a muted brown color. Hopefully the rug will tie the room even more together (as well as protect the carpet from food spills when the dining table it being used).
You might have noticed in the first image in this post a stack of library books on the chair in the corner. A while back I decided to end my series of posts on the stack of library books I borrow from the library (last post in the series was Revenge of The Library Stack). But I thought I would share a special library book borrowing bonanza event.
The Saturday before New Year Eve (12/30), John and I decided to have a unique adventure – we decided on one day to visit all the libraries in our local library system that were within a reasonable drive. We drove to four different library branches, three of which I’ve never visited. Since my library card worked at all the libraries, I had an “incident” and came home with a LOT of books.
It was fun raiding the NEW NONFICTION sections of each library as well as browsing their 700s sections where all the yumminess for me awaits! It was such a delight to visit all those libraries in one day and what a wonderful sense of anticipation I had as our car parked in front of a library I’d never been to before!
Remember the post I did on the literary and popular culture inspired Christmas Trees my local library had on display (see post O Christmas Tree, O Christmas Trees…) as part of the Forest of Trees? Well the other libraries we visited in the library system also had trees on display as part of this library system wide program.
I took a ridiculous amount of pictures of the different trees at each library branch we visited. Here are some of my favorites (sorry the lighting wasn’t the best for photography) listed in order of the photos:
Such amazing creativity on the part of the library staff who came up with the concepts and decorated the trees!
I was inspired by other bloggers’ year end recap posts and I thought jump in. I have a paltry amount of “makes” for 2023. Below are photos of projects that I either finished or at least finished the quilt top on:
Oh and I didn’t make all the handmade Christmas gifts I had planned, but I did make a Dallas Cowboys (American Football team) tote bag for one person who is a huge fan:
I did have to include a little bit of humor and added this tag on the side which states “Dream Impossible Things” – ha! She got a kick out of it.
My excuses for an underwhelming amount of makes in 2023: I broke my ankle in January 2023 and have my first under anesthesia surgery when I had a surgical repair of my complex ankle fracture; as well as immobility for several months…so yes I am using that as one of my excuses – ha!
Another excuse for a lack of “makes” in 2023 was that once I was able to be mobile again I did a bit of traveling. I’ll share a recap of my 2023 travel in a separate post.
Here’s what I have on my plate to start out 2023:
1) 3 finished quilt tops to quilt (the first two below I will machine quilt and the 3rd one I plan to hand quilt
2) 2 granny square blankets to finish
3) A new table runner in progress
And then I have like a million (ok perhaps a little less than that) projects in queue.
There were 7 of us for Christmas Eve and we were going to make do with our 6 person seating kitchen table, with one person (#7) either crammed in or sitting at the kitchen counter.
We don’t have a formal dining room, just an open room when you first enter the front door which we turned into the library (previously it was a “sitting room”).
Well I came up with the semi “hare-brained” idea on December 23 that we should go buy an actual dining room table and put it into the library. It would serve as both a library table (it’s always been my dream to have one) and a dining table when needed.
So off we went to IKEA on 12/23, which was surprisingly empty so close to the Christmas holiday, and bought a table which seats 8 (but you could fit 10 at the table).
Yes John could have built a table in his woodshop but we figured it would cost the same or more to build from scratch a 92 1/2″ x 39 3/8 ” table (234 cm x 100 cm approximately) and he wouldn’t have it ready for December 24th!
We got the table home and before you know it we had it set up and made up for Christmas Eve (including Christmas Crackers):
And the table worked perfectly for our Christmas Eve dinner of 7 people (we used the loveseat in the library as seating for 2 of the 7 people; and the chairs are the existing kitchen table chairs):
In addition to candles on the table, I set up tea lights on the bookshelves in the library for a nice atmosphere during our festive dining.
And the two dogs that attended (Mike and Ajax) enjoyed foraging under the table and begging for food:
Christmas morning I was having some quiet time sitting at the new table in the library having tea and looking at library books with Mike the Miniature Schnauzer…
…and I thought: this table needs a table runner! (And a new larger rug under it…I am looking into one of those Ruggable rugs that remove from their pad and are machine washable).
Luckily I had in my stash a group of blocks my friend Wendy gave me (see post Quilter Distractions: Good Mail filled with “Taupe”) from a quilt she made for a magazine article/pattern she wrote for October 2010 edition of The Quilt Life called SuperSymmetry.
It is not enough blocks to make a quilt but it was enough to start a table runner!
I used up all the blocks Wendy sent and I am only at about a 6 foot table runner. The table is over 7 1/2 feet long so I am going to have to piece more blocks. Luckily Wendy sent me a bunch of coordinating fabric scraps!
I plan to add some type of thin border to the pieced blocks to float them. I don’t plan to make the table runner very wide as I just want to run the center of the table.
I’ll update you on the progress.
Oh and I’ll close this post with something sweet I saw this morning on my walk.
We have a lot of deer in the area so there are a lot of “deer crossing” warning signs as crossing deer (who like to randomly cross the street when you least expect it) are a dangerous traffic hazard.
Well someone decorated one of the “deer crossing” signs with a red nose (like Rudolph the Red Noses Reindeer!) to make it festive!
This bit of whimsy gave me a huge smile on my walk!
I continue to work on the Colour Wheel quilt/wallhanging that I most recently blogged about in the post “Colour Wheel” Quilt in Progress, but I am not ready to share my further progress (and I did come up with a plan on how to use the trimmed sections of the color wheel and incorporate them into the quilt!), so instead I will share an update on the batik table runner I made for a friend.
This post is a follow up to the post – Update on Batik Scrappy Table Runner. It is also part of my documentation of the backlog of projects I am finishing in 2023 – A Year of Finishes – 2023.
Back when I lived in Bend, Oregon (now over 4 years ago), I promised to make my friend L a table runner for her long dining room table which I had enjoyed several wonderful meals at over the years.
Finally back in December 2022 I started the table runner and made it from batik fabric scraps using the pattern Bamboo Shade by Aardvark Quilts. Here is where I was at in December 2022 – I had pieced it and prepared it for quilting:
I shared in the March 17, 2023 post 7 Million Stitches+, that I was working on machine quilting the table runner on my new sewing machine.
Here is the completed table runner:
And here is the table runner on my friend L’s dining room table (she received it in the mail the other day and sent me a photo)!
It felt wonderful to complete that project and finally give her the table runner!
Saturday November 11th was the annual PJ Sale at the Stitchin’ Post in Sisters, Oregon. Each year I attend with quilting friends and last year I started bring Terry the Quilting Husband (TTQH) to the sale (as a bonus he drives there in the cold, dark and sometimes snowy weather as the sale starts early).
Each of our wonderful quilt shops in Central Oregon has their own special focus when it comes to fabric collection. The Stitchin’ Post has the best selection of unique art quilter focused fabrics in the region. It also carries fabrics that would appeal to traditional quilters.
During the Pajama Sale, if you get there before 8:30 am (doors open at 6:30 am) AND you are in your PJs, you get 35% off nearly everything in the store!
I did not buy that much – a couple books and notions. My favorite part of the PJ Sale is hanging out with fellow quilters all in our PJs wandering around a quilt shop and then going out to breakfast afterwards – in our PJs! It is like the morning after a huge sleepover, ha!
I figured no one wanted to be on my blog photographed in their PJs so the photos below give you a feel but do not have any faces:
One lady had an over the top robe from the 1970s. I asked her if I could take a photo and suggested she turn around unless she wanted to have herself in her robe featured on my blog, ha!
We went to the Gallery Restaurant in Sisters for breakfast after an hour wandering around the sale. It very quite fun with a group of us gathered around a large table in a restaurant, all in our PJs (except for my friend’s 96 year old Dad who lives in town and another husband who joined us in their regular clothes).
One of my friends had a spectacular set of PJs with the words “Queen Bee” all over them:
I wore my traditional schnauzer themed PJs (they are actually Scotties in gray and black and I pretend like the gray ones are schnauzers).
Cozy Cobblestones came back from the long-arm quilter, Cindy of inastitchquilting.com and this weekend I added the binding.
It is now hung in the living room above the TV:
Cindy did wonderful job quilting the piece and here are some photos of her beautiful work:
Her quilting really compliments the blocks made from Northcott Fabrics’ Stonehenge line! I am so glad I met her through blogging!
This weekend I also finished one of the table runners I discussed in posts such as “What’s on the Design…Ironing Board?” and “Can We Talk About Table Runners?“. Here it is freshly ironed after I quilted and put on the binding:
It measures 16.5″ x 44″ which seems to fall into a fairly standard table runner length.
I’ve not decided if I am going to quilt the other four (4) table runner tops I made or stick them away for now (oh no they will become “UFOs”!!!). I do not think I will re-open the tierneycreates Etsy shop at this time. I’ve had some recent art quilting related exciting news, that I will share at a later date, that makes me want to focus on my efforts on building my art quilt portfolio rather than trying to make stuff to sell on an Etsy shop.
There are only so many hours in the day!
In my previous post, A Good Mess, I shared some statistics from a recent national survey (The Quilting in America 2017 survey) on how much money the average quilter spends a year on quilting related supplies and activities. The two numbers were $442 and $500 per year depending on how “dedicated” the quilter is.
I really enjoyed the comments some of you made on these figures; and wanted to share how I nearly FAR EXCEEDED this number during the Stitchin’ Post’s Pajama Sale on Saturday!
There was glitch in their cash register and my total came to $730,000! The Stitchin’s Post staff behind the register, a couple other customers and I had a huge laugh over this! I asked if my purchase also came with a new luxury home, a car, and an outfitted sewing studio with a stocked fabric closet?
They re-rang my purchase and with my 35% off discount (we arrived at 6:50 am and I was in my PJs) my purchase came to $73 instead of $730,000.
This post is actually a continuation of my ongoing series “What’s on the Design 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!
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!
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!
Have you ever been to Costco? It is a magical place I try to stay away from (see my post Break Up 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!)
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…)
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.
As I hinted in the Postscript section of the September post Limitless Library Love I 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).
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).
I will privately contact the winners, within our solar system, for their mailing addresses.
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!
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 MQG is 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 Can We Talk About Table Runners? – 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
I might ramble a bit in this post, bear with me. I am trying to figure out standard lengths for table runners. I know, I know, this is a shocking and controversial topic to take on in a blog post. If you can stay awake while reading this post, I will try not to bring up too many sensitive issues about table runners, ha!
Why am I thinking about table runner lengths – have I simply run out of things to think about?
Let’s back up a moment…
Recently I sold the last of my tierneycreates table runners from when I had my tierneycreates Etsy shop, to a work colleague. She remembered the table runners I had offered in my shop and wanted one. I explained I only had one left and I had laundered it as I had used it on my table. She still wanted it.
So we worked out a deal, I mailed it to her, and here is a photo of it on her table:
The photo made me smile. I love the idea of something I made being useful in someone else’s home and making them smile. This is aligned with the tierneycreates tagline of “a fusion of textiles and smiles”.
Here is the original style of table runner (quilted) I made for my Etsy shop that I could not keep in stock:
Here is one in green ombre that is not quilted that sold out in my shop also:
The one in the photo above is does not look very exciting, so you will have to just trust me that it looks better in person (and the women who bought it gave it a 5-star review on Etsy).
So this leads us back to why I am thinking about table runners lengths – because I am thinking about making up a new batch of quilted table runners (and maybe selling them on Etsy); and I am not sure what length to make them!
Do I just make up a couple in different standard lengths?!?!?
I did a lot of “googling” to try and find a guide to standard table runner lengths. I found several pages which listed info on standard table runner sizes.
Then I came across this webpage – Table Runner Dimensions
What I liked about this webpage was this statement:
“A table runner should be long enough to overhang the end of your table by approximately 6 to 10 inches on each end.”
Why did this statement appeal to me? Because it means there is no way to anticipate all the different table sizes potential customers will have and that I just need to decide one standard length I will offer as well as offer a custom table size option. I am going to aim around 42″ as my standard length.
I have spent the last couple of days working on creating the strata for my scrappy table runners from a bag of Kaffe Fassett-type of fabric scraps from my collection of Challenge Bags (see post Basket of Challenges ):
I welcome your thoughts on this oh so controversial topic – table runner lengths>
If you were going to make up table runners for unknown tables, what length would you make?
One of my miniature schnauzers, Mike, was trying to take a nap with the book I was reading and I thought it was a very sweet photo:
tierneycreates 