Welcome to Precious Tyes

I have many passions in life and one of them is quilting. The others are reading, knitting,
crochet, cross stitching exercise and being a mom which are all precious tyes to me.
This blog will be about all of these things but mainly about quilting and how it is tied into my life.
The above wall hanging was designed by me and published into a pattern called Homespun Memories.

My blog is also about my Nifty Fifty Quilting swaps which are 50 state quilt block swaps that I started organizing over 10 years ago when my husband was going through depression. It helped me through a very difficult time. We have swapped over 70,000 quilt blocks during this time with many stories that traveled across the country along with our state quilt blocks. Our groups also make charity quilts for Breast Cancer Awareness.

Saturday, August 19, 2017


It breaks my heart to hear Heather Heyer's mom, Susan Bro talk about her courageous and inspirational daughter. Grief is a very complicated emotion. The journey through grief can be an extremely dark bottomless pit with thoughts of no way out. But sometimes the light of hope can shine into that pit and give a spark which enables one to have the optimism of escaping. Heather's legacy is her mom’s light of hope. Quilting and creating music can also give the light of hope to those who are hurting. My husband was inspired to write a song while listening to Susan speak at her daughter’s memorial service. He was very touched by hearing about her daughter’s beautiful and loving spirit for standing up for what she believed in. His song is about how we can resist the violence, hate and destruction by finding friendship and spreading the love. He also suggested a quilt of friendship which made me think of organizing a Nifty Fifty Friendship/Love quilt block swap. The quilt blocks would be self-designed or an established quilt block pattern that encourages the spread of friendship and love. Here is a link to my husband’s song Resist!(Love!) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pqwm9GpxG74

Any thoughts from the quilters out there for another Nifty Fifty Swap?

Monday, April 17, 2017

A little update...I have not quilted since my husband's death from suicide 5 years ago. But I just recently felt the tinges of the quilting bug again (although it still may be some time before I can start quilting again).  The past 5 years I have been attending college.  This fall I was hired as a Special Education teacher for 4th grade and Kindergarten students. I feel like I have made a difference in helping them with their learning difficulties.  I have also been going to graduate school while being a first year teacher and it has been overwhelming.  In between earning my Bachelor's degree and being hired as a teacher I meet someone very special.  We were married in May 2015.  He is the most caring, generous and loving person I have ever met.  I am so internally grateful to have found him and he is the love of my life.  He is so supportive and I am not sure if would have been able to accept this teaching job and continue in graduate school without his support.  He is a part time songwriter and performer and he has written several songs since we meet.  Recently he wrote a song which is very inspirational to me especially when I think about the journey I have been on the past 5 years.  We also sadly loss my father this past September and my mom is having a tough time. This song was very inspirational to her.  I hope it may touch others as it has touched us.
Enjoy --"The Song"  Lyrics and Music by Shane Brown--https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f_vhBcwIDa8

Shane has also written a couple of other songs for me since we have met.  You can listen to them under the video link on his website at www.shanebrown.online   He wrote "Cowgirl Shadetree" and "There is a Place".  Another one of his songs that I love is called "A Girl in a Rainbow. I hope you enjoy them as much as I do.

I hope once I graduate with my Master's degree in Special Education and have my first year of teacher under my belt I will be able to get back to quilting and continue to update my Quilting Blog ahttp://niftyfiftyquilters.blogspot.com/

Hugs,
Teresa