March Branch Meeting

The March Branch meeting had mini-workshops as it's theme. Paula Rafferty showed how to make fabric postcards and also how to use the embellisher machine (which had people queuing up to use it!)
Gwen Cortiss showed how to make hexagons using old and new techniques. Phil Dwyer also brought along her hand-pieced pincushion with colour co-ordinated threads.
Claire Lynch showed samples from the Margaret Beal workshop which she recently took at the An Grianan IPS weekend. She also demonstrated the use of the soldering iron with fabrics and how to create buttons with it.

The challenge for March was "Blue and green should not be seen". Maureen Talbot was voted the winner on the night with her beautiful foundation-pieced wall-hanging. The piece was constructed in a very restful blue-green colour scheme.
Alison Bingham nearly forgot to bring a piece on the night, but luckily her hand-made bag fitted the theme perfectly. It was constructed with blue and green squares, and had appliqued flowers.

Tracy Watson's entry had the centre part constructed using a soldering iron on fabrics. Kate O'Donoghue made a very vibrant wall-hanging in denim fabric and bright green fabric. Claire Lynch entered a cushion with 2 appliqued hearts.
Gillian Sheehan entered a small wall-hanging with a metallic centre.

There was a variety of entries for the Show & Tell which was great. Alison Bingham showed a lovely quilt which she made for a friends baby. Paula Rafferty showed her piece which is to be entered in the Links Exhbition.
Maeve Meany showed 3 boards filled with block made by 3 members in the past month - a great achievement!
Claire Lynch showed 2 items; a quilt top and a finally-finished quilt using the fabric from the June Challenge.
Holly showed a rail-fence quilt in very vibrant colours.

Meg Kenny showed her beautiful quilt which had made . The border of the quilt was screen printed with sonograms of her grandson. All the fabrics in the centre of the quilt were hand-dyed and screen printed (with images relating to fertility). She showed etchings and drawing which she used to create the prints. It was a very informative talk and showed how people could interprate their own experiences to design and create their own quilts.

We also had an overseas visitor on the night - Edie from Alaska, who is in Ireland for the next 3 weeks. Thanks to the power of the internet and blogging, Edie found out about the March meeting. She spoke about her embroidery and patchwork, and she also showed the hat she was wearing - which was crazy pieced. Every part of the hat had been embellished with embroidery stitches, sequins etc. Edie has her own blog called the "Sporadic Packrat" which has been added to the list of Patchwork-related blogs over on the right-hand side.