Hello, my name is tierneycreates Beastie and I am a Monster, but the good kind of Monster.

The regular blogger Tierney, appears to be too distracted lately to write a blog post, so I told her I will take care of getting a post up this week. She did help me take photos since I am not very good at selfies due to my limited arm range.

Here I am ready to start a long overdue blog post:

2018-07-27_18-05-22_257 — Tierney made me a make shift desk

2018-07-27_18-07-21_096 — Sometimes I have to look over my glasses while writing

But first – if you are new to this blog (welcome new readers, glad to have you join us!) you can read my story and see some of my adventures in the series of posts – Beastie Adventures. I was born in Dublin, Ireland and moved (well was shipped) to Central Oregon to join Tierney of tierneycreates in June 2018.

I am so glad my maker, Helen of Crawcrafts Beasties (crawcraftsbeasties.com) , made me a laptop so I could help Tierney with blog posts!

So what have I been up to? Well as you know, just like Tierney, I have locs in my hair (you may know these traditionally as being called “dreadlocks” but the current term is LOCS, as there is no “dread” in them!). Like Tierney, I am always wondering how to style my locs and sometimes I get lint in them as Tierney does with hers.

Tierney and I were playing with different hairstyles and she french-braided my hair:

2018-07-27_18-47-13_191 — French-braiding attempt

The cool thing about Tierney’s attempt at french-braiding (let’s be honest, she is not going to win any “French-Braiding Awards”) is that my adorable ears get featured:

My ears are normally hidden with my hair flowing free but here they are – popping!

Although I enjoyed showing my adorable ears, after a while the french-braid felt too tight and we returned to my regular hairstyle:

While writing you, my miniature schnauzer Mikelet (named after Tierney’s dog Mike) began staring at me and I suspected he wanted to go for a walk:

I was pretty sure he wanted to go for a walk when he got insistent:

I wanted to put the final touches on this blog post, so I told him to wait.

He got bored waiting and wandered into the living room.

Realizing he probably really needed to “go potty”, I went to the living room to get him for a walk before finishing my blog post and found him hanging out with “Big Mike”:

Big Mike’s beard was looking a little messy so Terry the Quilting Husband (TTQH) began combing it while Mikelet looked on:

Mikelet wanted his beard combed also (he wants to do everything Big Mike does), so TTQH attempted to also comb his beard:

Finally, with a freshly combed beard, Mikelet was ready to go on his walk:

Postscript

Tierney is not totally goofing off. She is still working on an art quilt for a special exhibit in which she cannot share photos until the curator announces the show.

But she did finish the little appliqué pillow she mentioned in this post – Sisters Outdoor Quilt Show 2018, Part II: Visiting Crafters.

It was her first attempt at wool appliqué and next time she plans to do better stitching, but it was a practice piece.

Mikelet however appears to really like the pillow as I found him hanging out with it on top of the bookcase (how the heck did he climb up there?):

Sisters Outdoor Quilt Show

Sisters Outdoor Quilt Show 2018, Part II: Visiting Crafters

July 16, 2018July 16, 2018 tierneycreates: a fusion of textiles and smiles

Hello! Are you as warm as I am? We’ve been blessed with 95+ temperatures in Central Oregon. I am writing this on my porch (which is shaded) as our two little evaporative coolers are not keeping the house as cool as I would like it to be (someday we dream of installing central air conditioning…)

the-sun-1396604 — Photo credit: “The Sun” by William Picard, free images.com

It’s dropped down to 92 degrees so it is now cool enough (ha!) for me to work on a blog post. I am continuing my series of posts about the 2018 Sisters Outdoor Quilt Show (SOQS), that began with this post: Sisters Outdoor Quilt Show 2018, Part I.

Terry the Quilting Husband (TTQH)’s sisters from New York, Sue and Diane, came to town for the show and to visit us for a week. We took them on a Central Oregon Quilt Shop Hop (they are both quilters/crafters) on Thursday and Friday before the SOQS on Saturday.

As a result of all that quilt shop-hopping, new projects were purchased by my sister-in-laws and we’ve had many enjoyable evening sitting around my living room, backyard (when it cools down in the evening), or my dining room table crafting together:

They’ve been working on two different wool appliqué candle mat patterns by Bareroots Little Stitches. One is a cat themed candle mat and the other is this dog themed mat pattern called #195 Puppy Love.

Here is one sister-in-law’s progress on the kitty themed wool appliqué mat:

As you can see there are many little pieces. Luckily I had freezer paper, appliqué glue stick and of course basic sewing supplies on hand.

Here is the progress my other sister-in-law is making on her dog themed wool appliqué candle mat:

The mats are super adorable! One of my sister-in-laws taught me how to make french knots which I’ve never made before.

Oh you wonder – what I am working on during our crafting sessions? I am working on a wool appliqué miniature pillow that I started in March during a class with Kathy Cardiff (see post Trends Show Part II: More Classes).

I will share on Instagram (@tierneycreates) the completed images of our pieces.

Next post, I will share images from the 2018 Sisters Outdoor Show (once I weed through the zillion of photos I took!) If you cannot wait until my next post, here are two Central Oregon quilting bloggers that are already sharing awesome photos and stories:

Kristen Shields (kristeinshieldart.com):

SISTERS OUTDOOR QUILT SHOW 2018 :: PART 1

Anna Bates (wooliemammoth.blogspot.com & Quilt Roadies YouTube Channel):

Surround yourself with people you can always learn something from. Always work with people that are better at their craft than you are. – Tony Vincent

Special Events, Studio

Trends Show Part II: More Classes

March 24, 2018June 22, 2022 tierneycreates: a fusion of textiles and smiles

Happy Saturday and here is part two of my two part posts on attending the EE Schenck’s Trends show last weekend in Portland, Oregon.

Alas, in this post there will be no “unexpected roommates” (see Trends Show Part I: The Unexpected Roommate ) like the previous post; but for the rest of the show I continued to take two more great “Take n’ Teach” classes – from Latifah Saafir and Kathy Cardiff.

Latifah Saafir: Fear Curves No More

Latifah Saafir is amazing – she is an engineer turned quilt pattern and quilt tool designer based out of Los Angelas, CA. She is a also a great teacher. Check out her website – Latifah Saafir Studios: One Stitch, One Seam, One quilt at a time.

She demonstrated her brilliant method for piecing curves using pieces cut from The Clammy, her giant clamshell maker template. Below are photos from the class (including some yummy fabric she used for her demo):

Later that day I was fortunate enough to share a shuttle bus ride (EE Schencks provided a free shuttle to and from the hotel to the Trends show) with Latifah and hear more about her transition from scientist to quilting guru!

Kathy Cardiff: Wool Appliqué

Kathy Cardiff is a Washington state based designer, author and teacher who specializes in wool appliqué. Check out her website – The Cottage at Cardiff Farms.

She taught a hands on wool appliqué class in which she prepped our little wool appliqué pieces with fusible backed paper, we just needed to cut the little pieces out to make this (her sample):

She also prepared templates for us to use to press the pieces together onto freezer paper before peeling them off to place the fabric for the little pillow:

Her work is amazing, here are so additional photos from the class and her booth:

2018-03-17_14-29-59_909 2018-03-17_14-30-03_429 2018-03-17_14-37-57_584

She definitely took the fear out of wool appliqué for me like Latifah Saafir took the fear out of curved piecing for me!

Here is my wool appliqué piece currently in progress from the class:

The funny thing is I’ve had a The Cottage at Cardiff Farms sunflower wool appliqué pillow pattern and supplies for many years but I was too intimidated to get started on it. It no longer seems scary – especially now that I have learned a quick way to put the appliqué pieces together and fuse them!

I told Kathy about the pattern I’ve had for years (purchased at the Stitchin’ Post in Sisters, OR); she knew which one I referenced and gave me tips after class on how to complete it!

There’s No Place Like Home

We had fun in Portland but I was also happy to return home again. My heart always soars when we drive from the Mount Hood pass area into Central Oregon. It is so interesting how the climate and the landscapes change from Portland to Mount Hood to Central Oregon.

The moment I saw my beloved “high desert” landscape, blue skies and Cascade Mountains everywhere – I knew I was home!

View from inside the car window before Madras Oregon (still too cold to roll the window down!)

Postscript

Recently I read an article online (oops I do not remember the website) that strongly recommended you do not store your thread out in the open because of dust, etc. In a previous post, Aurifilia, I discussed my beloved collection of AURIfil thread (actually obsession).

Well I decided to take down my mounted thread racks and store my thread collection instead in bins to protect the thread.

So I went from this:

2018-02-07_08-34-17_706