Yay! Tango Stripe (pattern by Jean Wells), is finally done!

It took a while to match all the seams of the rows in the diagonal/”on-point” setting:

But finally – it was done!

Okay it is not actually done as it still needs to be quilted. I will be giving it to my Washington state based quilting sisters I see at the end of the month to take to a long-arm quilter I met many years ago when I lived in Seattle – Krista Moser.

A couple of years ago I attended a quilt retreat with her and was reinforced on what a lovely and talented person she is (Little Miss Muffet, Made Her Own Tuffet). My quilting sisters Judy and Dana have used her services for years and she has done beautiful work on their quilts.

It is fun to see Krista who started as a teenager on a long-arm, move from making purses and long-arm quilting in her small garage to try and make a living, to building a quilting empire (her patterns are now sold in quilt shops are around the country as are her custom rulers)! She is like “local girl makes good”!

I had alway been hesitant about using out of town long-arm quilters, but I had a wonderful experience sending a couple quilts to my talented blogging buddy, Cindy (inastitchquilting.com) – see these posts: A Happy Ending for “Happy Ending” and Pajama Sale and Finished Pieces.

I’ve already put together the backing for the quilt and have it all packaged up to give my friends to take to Krista. I feel so free that this quilt (which was an old “UFO”) is done!

By the way, it was the imaginary pressure of you all expecting me to finish up the quilt soon since I kept sharing posts about its progress, that really pushed me to finish it. Living in a fantasy world can be really useful at times – ha!

I’ve already started working/planning/playing with my next UFO to work on but that will be a future post. But here is a preview/tease – it involves pieces from these two posts: Art Quilter Play Date and Quilt Retreat Inspiration and Projects.

I will leave you guessing for now…

What's on the Design Wall

What’s on the Design Wall: Serious Progress on Tango Stripe!

October 9, 2018October 8, 2018 tierneycreates: a fusion of textiles and smiles

This is a follow up to the post What’s on the Design Wall: Update on Tango Stripe, as well as the endless other posts over the past couple years about an UFO (Unfinished Object) known as Tango Stripe.

I made it through the endless Y-seams:

And finally got to the point that I could layout the blocks!

Yes it looks like a “hot mess” but I think it is going to be a cool quilt.

Here are the some of the denim setting triangles patiently waiting to be added:

And here is the quilt with all the block in place (not neatly in place but in place) – I will likely move some blocks around before I slowly get it all sewn together:

Next time I update you all on this piece, it will be when it is all sewn together (and not look like such a “hot mess”)!

What's on the Design Wall

What’s on the Design Wall: Update on Tango Stripe

October 3, 2018 tierneycreates: a fusion of textiles and smiles

This post is a continuation of my ongoing series “What’s on the Design Wall”, featuring my latest project up on either one of the small design walls in my studio or the large design wall my hallway.

After fun with Tula Pink fabric during a recent quilt retreat (see recent posts), I’ve returned to working on the Tango Stripe (by Jean Wells) quilt with Kaffe Fassett stripes and coordinating solids that I discussed in my 09/13/18 post What’s on the Design Wall: Tango Stripe.

As I shared in that post, here is an example of what Tango Stripe will look liked completed (except mine is set in denim):

2018-01-18_16-27-45_176 — Kristin C.’s Tango Stripe

I’ve completed all the small blocks (they were simple piecing) and now I am grouping some of them together in groups of 4 to create larger blocks per the pattern design:

Working on the larger blocks is going much slower as I am having to sew Y-seams (ick) but I’ve started to master them (if you are not a a quilter and are curious as to what Y-seams are, here is a link – Y-Seams – to read about something you will quickly discover you do not want to read about!!!).

My guess is if you are bad in life and go to the “Underworld” when you pass, you are forced to do Y-seams for eternity (either that or complex paper piecing…) for your punishment – so for goodness sake – live a good life!

A pile of larger blocks and their Y-seam party

I did finish cutting out all the large blocks and they are just lined up waiting to be Y-seamed:

At first I was doing one large block at a time and pressing it, hoping all the seams would lay flat and that I did not screw up my 1/4 inch calculations on the Y-seam. After a while I started to relax and I can do 3 – 4 before running over the the iron to see if they will press out okay!

But the piece is moving along and I’ve already cut out all the setting triangles which are made from a quilting weight recycled denim I found at a thrift shop (the liner of a high quality denim duvet).

Once I get the large blocks finished, I can start to lay the entire quilt out on my large design wall in the hallway.

Postscript

If you’ve followed my blog for a while then you know about my obsession with fabric scraps (a near pathological level of obsession).

Well cutting/piecing this quilt has lead to a nice little bag so far of Kaffe Fassett stripes scraps that will be a fun future project to play with:

This could become a future “challenge bag” (see post Basket of Challenges)!

What's on the Design Wall

What’s on the Design Wall: Tango Stripe

September 13, 2018September 14, 2018 tierneycreates: a fusion of textiles and smiles

What?

A tierneycreates post about Tierney actually creating?

Yes it has been a long time since I’ve shared my current textile project and posted in my series , What’s on the Design Wall where I featured my latest work in progress. For the past couple of months I’ve been working on an art quilt for a future WCQN exhibit and could not share images of the work in progress (or completed work) as the curator has not announced the show yet.

But I’ve finished the piece and now I can start working on my backlog of projects.

The first project in queue is one I’ve had around for a while. You can read it’s story in this June 2018 post – .The Tale of Tango Stripe.

Here is where I left off – I worked on it during a May 2018 quilt retreat:

2018-05-19_21-22-51_924 — Up on a design wall at the quilt retreat

I am working in bring this tale to a conclusion!

It felt so good to pull it back out of its box and put it up on the large design wall in my hallway (yes if you are new to this blog, I use my whole house for crafting):

2018-09-12_18-52-19_027 — Up on the design wall at my house (hallway design wall)

I’ve been using the smaller design wall on the closet door in my studio to make additional blocks:

On the smaller design wall on my closet door in my studio

Making the blocks is very fun, even though a template is involved (normally I hate templates). The designer, Jean Wells Keenan of the Stitchin Post did a wonderful job with the pattern.

At first I could not understand why she did not give instructions to just make up all the blocks at once. After playing with making a couple blocks during the quilt retreat I attended in May, I totally got why you design your blocks as you go.

The quilt is make with Kaffe Fassett stripes and those are fun to work with and create various pairing combination with solid colors:

I am using recycled denim (from a denim coverlet liner I picked up very cheap at a Thrift store) as the setting fabric. However, earlier this year I saw another amazing setting fabric option – olive green fabric:

If I ever make a second Tango Stripe quilt I think I am going with the olive or khaki green or even a tan setting fabric.

I will post an update as I progress – I have a lot of blocks to make!

Postscript

I’ve updated my tierneycreates Studio Tour page in case you want to take a peek at where I am currently creating!

2018-09-13_09-02-49_957 — Important reminder I keep in my studio!

Quilt Retreats, Studio

The Tale of Tango Stripe

June 4, 2018June 5, 2018 tierneycreates: a fusion of textiles and smiles

Continuing my series of posts about the annual May quilting retreat I attended with my Quilting Sisters in Vancouver, WA May 17 – 20. To read my previous posts about quilting retreats I’ve attended, see my post category – Retreats.

In the post The Pillow Project I mentioned that for this May’s annual quilting retreat I pulled out some old unfinished objects/projects (UFOs); or as my blogging buddy Shirley @ handmadehabit calls them – “stranded” projects.

Well another “stranded” project that I brought to the quilt retreat was the Tango Stripe (pattern by Jean Wells of the Stitchin‘ Post) project.

This quilt is made with Kaffe Fassett stripes fabric and coordinating solids. I’ve wanted to make this quilt for years after falling in love with the store sample when visiting the Stitchin’ Post.

I’ve nearly started it a couple times as evidenced by these posts:

Diving into a quilt (and other stuff) (January 2017) and Quilt Seating! (December 2016)

A couple of months ago at the monthly art quilter group I attend, our group leader brought in her completed Tango Stripe quilt, set in olive green fabric instead of denim colored fabric, and it was fantastic. This reminded me how much I want to make my own.

So I brought my collection of Kaffe Fassett striped fabrics and solids to the retreat and finally started cutting the blocks with the templates from the pattern:

I got this far in my progress on the quilt top during the quilting retreat:

I know it does not seem like a lot but there is a lot of template work to create the effect of the quilt. You do not cut the whole quilt out at once per instructions but you design as you go.

I did not finish it as you can see but I made a lot more progress than I had in the 5+ years since buying the pattern!

For now it is put away as I need my large design wall to finish it up and currently my large design wall has a quilt in progress for a future WCQN exhibit that I cannot yet share. But once I finish that piece, Tango Stripe is going up on the design wall and is going to be finished!

It is a tale whose story needs to end (with a completed quilt!)

Postscript

During the retreat, one of my quilting sisters gave me a sweet Moda fabrics Frivols quilt kit for my birthday:

This section of the insert inside the tin made me smile as I think it describes many of us well:

Hope you have a great week of “making” if you are a “Maker“!

More stories from the May quilt retreat are coming.

Studio

Quilt Seating!

December 26, 2016June 22, 2022 tierneycreates: a fusion of textiles and smiles

As I mentioned in a previous post, I am on five-day holiday from work and I planned to spend time working on my project backlog.

One of my backlogged projects, was deciding what to do with a small (baby or doll sized) quilt top I made from a collection of 2″ inch squares. I decided this weekend to recover the stool I keep under my computer desk in my studio with it!

Here is what I started with – a lovely stool given to me by a friend (who originally bought it second hand):

The butterfly fabric was nice but the fabric was dated, had a weird velour-like feeling and did not bring me joy.

So – on top of the current cover, with a layer of batting placed underneath, I recovered it with my 2″ squares (aka “postage stamp”) quilt top:

It fits my studio better and goes with the general studio theme of quilting and creating.

Postscript

Here is my next project in queue from my backlog – Tango Stripe, a pattern I bought in 2011 or 2012 by Jean Wells of the Stitchin’ Post:

I am very excited about this quilt, I fell in love with the store sample at the Stitchin’ Post (see list on my blog of “Central Oregon Quilt Shops” for links to my local shops).