Annual Christmas Party

The Annual Christmas party was a great success even though Miriam Gogarty wasn't able to make the party as she had rcently broken her leg. We'd like to send 'speedy recovery wishes' to Miriam.

Moya Geraghty from Patchwork Plus showed us all some of her colourful and (according to her) easy quilts.


































Show and tell saw these quilts and Chrismas decorations.












Alison Bingham and Paula Refferty and her Rhapsody quilt (started)





Please let me know who this belongs to.












Phil Aylward and Paula Rafferty

A wonderful array of food was brought (and consumed) many thanks for all of those who took the trouble to delight us with their culinary skill. If you have the recipe for the banoffee pie or the guiness chocolate cake please tell!

Thankyou to everyone for the gifts for the Christingle, I know mine is a treat and am sure that everyone was pleased with the treat of a special parcel.

Grania Preston organising the Christingle exchange.





Rachel Banting and Fran O'Donoghue volunteered to do a demonstration for some Christmas decorations. Fran's Christmas baubles were both speedy and colourful.




Rachel had a Christmas Tree wall hanging and some pixie shoes.










The Challenge of table runners was won by Claire Lynch her runner is the third shown here. Thanks for everyone who participated, they were all jolly.




It is great that so many people are enjoying the Viliers sewing days which are becoming a huge success with a good number attending to sew and share experiences.

A quick reminder - if anyone knows an auctioneer for the fundraiser in May that we could approach to help out please contact one of the committee members.



It was nice to see both Nikky Foley who told us about her new class by post and Maeve Meany who had her beautiful 1930's block of the month to show us. For details contact Nikky foley on info@thesewingshed.ie and Maeve Meany on maevemeany@eircom.net.


Meg talked breifly on the 'open' pricing for the library basket. We wold like to ensure that everyone feels free to both donate and give to this basket which should be a great way of raising funds for the library. As everything has been donated any offering would be welcome to help ensure that are resource books are up to date and modern. We would like to thank everyone who has donated and contributed to this.

Thanks also to everyone who took the time to help in preparing for and cleaning up of the hall for the party. I know some people were there until 11.30 to make sure everything was back in order. Thanks to Dan Kenny for putting up the Christmas lights.


A very Happy Christmas and good sewing wishes for the New Year!

November Meeting 2009

Ann Fleeeton was the guest speaker at the November meeting. Anne is a textile artist from Dublin. Her training as a geologist and her study of art history influence both the colour and texture of her work.

Anne's talk demonstrated how the Meditereanean and the artists enspired by the Meditereanean have influenced her work. She talked in depth and with great ability on a variety of artists such as Van Gogh, Picasso and Monet and how the lighting and colours of the surroundings had influenced them and her. She had an excelent slide show that helped visualise the theories that she was talking about and also bought a huge number of quilts that demonstrated the techniques that she talked about.

Anne teaches dyeing, fabric painting, machine embroidery and patchwork. She lectures regularly including several times at Quilt Expo. Her work has been exhibited in Europe, USA and Japan and published in books and magazines.

In 2002 and 2000 she won the Overall Award of Excellence and California Gold Medal in the Royal Dublin Society Annual Crafts Competition. She was the overall winner of the "New Materials for the New Millennium" exhibition at the Carrefour Européen du Patchwork, Alsace, France in 2001.

Her website www.annfleeton-quiltartist.com shows more pictures of her work and gives details of other talks and demonstrations that she may be able to give.

If anyone has any photos of the quilts please forward to me to be included, apologies. Please see Anne's website which has photos of her work.

Pictures from November show and tell

Mareen Talbot and Rachel Banting with the quilts returned form exhibiting in Cananda.

Meg and her Halloween costume 'Mother Earth'.

Demelaza Plamer with her beautiful doll. Congratulations to Rebecca who also won the challenge. Well done!



Rebecca Palmer with an embroidery from the October workshop by Lynne Kenny.

Reminders for November meeting

A gentle reminder that blocks for the Milford Hospice quilt in cream, green and brown can be given in to the members at the door.

Also that the 'Harvest Basket' to raise funds for the library will gladly accept donation.

Lastly that photos of quilts for the scrap book would be welcomed.

thank you!

Crafts Council of Ireland Registration

http://www.ccoi.ie/content/view/143/250/ is the link to the Crafts Council of Ireland Registration form. Registration only takes a few minutes, the more people that register the stronger the Council's voice will be.

Registration is currently free and the benefits are;
• Receive notification on participation on CCoI projects and
programmes, eg. Enterprise Development & Training, Retail,
Collector and Gallery Programmes
• Receive discounts and special rates for events, publications etc.
• Receive the CCoI Newsletter and e-bulletins

Lynn Kenny Workshop

After giving the guest lecture at the October meeting, Lynn Kenny also gave a workshop the next day on stitching with paper and paint.

At the start of the workshop Lynn prepared some background pieces for people to work on by applying coloured tissue paper to magazine pages. In order to get the pieces dry enough to start stitching on, some heat was needed - hence the use of the hairdryers in the picture below!



Once the backgrounds were ready, Lynn showed how she stitches her pieces by transferring her designs onto greaseproof paper.



After this, everyone spent some time choosing and tracing their designs, before getting starting on the stitching.



Once the stitching was done, Lynn showed how paint can be added to enchance the design. She also showed how to apply fabric to create the designs using her method.

This was a very enjoyable workshop, and everyone made a few samples on the day. This is the kind of workshop which provided a very useful method of creating applique pictures and one that I'm sure will be put to good use in the future by the workshop participants.

Samples made by Claire Lynch:


Sample made by Nora O'Connor:


Sample made by Rebecca Palmer:

October Meeting

Lynn Kenny was the guest speaker at the meeting. Lynn is a full-time fabric artist who has a gallery/studio in Killaloe. She uses stitch to draw imagery in combination with paint, fabric and paper. You can view her work at http://www.lynnkenny.com


At the meeting Lynn gave a slide show about her work. She also showed a number of samples of her work which she passed around during the meeting.



The challenge for October was to make a Halloween cushion. Rebecca Palmer & Tracey Watson were voted the joint winners on the night. Rebecca made the orange stitched cushion, while Tracey made a witch cushion. Below are Rebecca Palmer's, Fran O'Donoghue's and Meg Kenny's halloween cushions.







Gillian Sheehan brought in her piece from the recent Yvonne Brown workshop in Tralee.



The Thurles ladies brought in 2 charm quilts which they have made.

National Exhibition 2010

The Irish Patchwork Society's National Exhibition 2010 will be held in Cork. The exact date hasn't been set yet but it will be on sometime in late Spring or early Summer.
The venue location is still in the process of being decided, because of this size restrictions for the quilts havent been yet been finalised.

However, the theme for the exhbition has been decided:
"Q FOR QUILTS"

IPS AGM

The IPS AGM took place on the 3rd October at the Manor West Hotel, Tralee, Co. Kerry.

On display at the AGM was the Hungarian-Irish Quilt made with appliqued flowers. A number of the flowers were made by Mid-West Branch members. The quilt took a lot of work to make but looked amazing now that its finished! This quilt (along with it's Hungarian compatriot) will be on display in Hungary next month as part of the celebrations for the Hungarian Patchwork Society's 20th Anniversary. See below for a close-up picture of the appliqued flowers.



Meg Kenny's Chakra quilt was also on display at the AGM.




Gillian Killick entered the "Rose Window" themed competition and was highly commended by the judge (guest speaker Yvonne Brown).

Yvonne Brown (from the UK) gave the lecture after lunch - and after all the official AGM business was over and done with. Yvonne gave a slide show of her work and explained how she got interested in sewing & quilting. Yvonne also sent around the audience samples & quilts so that everyone could see close-up how work is created.

Meeting 11th September 2009

Meg as the new Mid-Western IPS branch chairperson gave very warm welcome to everyone after the summer break. Meg als0 thanked the outgoing committee members; Gwen Cottiss, Claire Lynch,and Cecelia O’Doherty as well as welcoming the present committee members; Grania Preston, Holly Hogan, Maria Hibbard, Paula Rafferty, Lynda Broderick, Rachel Banting, Anita Mahon, Alison Bingham, Fran O’Donahue and Meg Kenny. Claire Lynch is our newly appointed national editorial rep.






SHOW AND TELL - (apologies I have embarrassingly lost my notes, anyone who would like to add to these very short descriptions please let me know)


Tracy Watson and her much envied bag.








Tracy also completed this child's quilt during the summer inspired by the mermaid panel.

















Gillian explaining the 'Hebrides' fabric on her quilt










Anita Mahon with her two quilts with similar fabric but different piecing techniques, the one on the right having frayed edging.











Claire Lynch and 2 quilts made over the summer.

















A detail of Meg Kenny's celebration banner.

Gillian McGuiness demonstrating some of the stretching techniques that she explained can help to prevent the aches and pains that sitting in one position for a long time can induce. Gillian was most helpful in demonstrating the correct way to sit, ensuring that you regularly move about and take rests and practise the stretches that release the tension. Gillian showed us (and made us practise) holding the stretches for longer than we normally would to help the muscles relax.



After the talk Gillan gave neck and back massages and was available for booking the full massage the next day.


Thanks to Maeve Meany for bringing her shop with her to this meeting.

.

River of Dreams Exhibition June 2009

SHOW AND TELL JUNE 12TH 2009



Nora O'Conner and her fabulous pixie shoes




























Theresa Riordaon and Holly with their stained glass windows from Paula Rafferty's workshop.














Anita Mahon showing her embellished t-shirts.















Hexagon first quilts from Johanna Canti and Rebecca Palmer.



































Francis Nugent's farm animals quilt made by Clockjordan quilters for a charity raffle.