Cut and Come Again Workshop with Edwina Mackinnon

On February 9th, Mid-West Branch members attended a Cut and Come Again Workshop with UK tutor Edwina Mackinnon.

We also had a few members from the Kerry and Cork branch attending, it was nice to see a few different faces at the workshop.

At the start of the workshop, Edwina got everyone to lay out the fabrics they were planning to use for the workshop. We then went around to every table to see what people were going to use. Even at this stage it was evident that everyone had a totally different choice of fabrics and colour schemes. Advice was given to people about certain fabrics which wouldn't work, the importance of keeping some contrast fabrics, but use the proportions of colours wisely etc.

Some of the fabric selections were:

Moya's fabric selection

Liz's fabrics

Cecilia's fabric selection

Ger's fabrics

Tracy's fabrics

fabrics by Berndatte

Mary's fabrics

Phyl's fabrics

Gillian Sheehan's fabric selection

Grania's fabric selection

After the decisions were made on fabric selection we started to cut into our chosen fabrics. Edwina showed us various ways to create different block types, so everyone got busy cutting and sewing.

This proved to be a very addictive workshop, as the leftovers from one block could be used to create another block. One thing leads onto another, reflecting the name of the workshop "Cut and Come Again".

Edwina had listed a sheet or large piece of wadding on the requirements list and everyone used theirs to create their own design board. When working on a quilt like this, a display board of some type is necessary to ensure that colour proportions are correct, that you don't make too make blocks of one type etc.

One of the workshop attendees was totally taken by this way of quilt-making and was heard to say "sure why would you need to make a quilt any other way".

Edwina also had a number of Cut and Come Again quilts with her, showing how you could make up the quilt in different ways by adding sashing, using the blocks in rows, different layouts etc.

A very nice thing about this workshop was despite the fact that we all working with the same sized squares, the variety of colours, block construction etc. met that everyone's quilts will turn out totally different.


This workshop was very much enjoyed by all the workshop attendees.  I think there's going to be lots of "Cut and Come Again" quilts in the Mid-West Branch in the near future.

Thanks again to Edwina Mackinnon for a very enjoyable workshop!

Festival of Quilts Entry Form

The entry form for the Festival of Quilts is now available.


Click here for the entry form

February Meeting

Edwina Mackinnon from the UK was our guest speaker for our February meeting. She gave a talk " Colour Stories" and how colour is used and why it is so important in her quilts.

Edwina brought a packed suitcase full of quilt pieces for her talk, she said that she kept weighing the bag when packing to ensure that she got as much as possible in there.

Edwina showed us this gorgeous kaleidoscope quilt she had made in a lovely ashes of roses colour scheme.  the quilt contains hand-dyes and some commercial fabrics. Edwina spoke about how in a quilt that this; you should audition fabrics at the start to ensure they are all in the same colour scheme, and then you can add as many fabrics as you like as they will all work..

Edwina Ashes of Roses Kaleidoscope Quilt

Edwina also showed us another kaleidoscope quilt - this one was created from just two fabrics. By using a fabric with a multicolour pattern you can get a totally different look than from the shown quilt above. 

Kaleidoscope Quilt

Edwina then showed us how you can keep on working with a simple pattern and develop it further. In this case, she kept working with the kaleidoscope block, but used in a much smaller scale and also created it this time using English paper piecing.

Glimpse by Edwina Mackinnon

 Edwina then moved on how using a simple colour scheme to make quilts. This particular quilt started off with simple block-printing, to which extra detail was added.

Edwina also showed us this quilt that created in a round robin project which took 14 months to complete. Very cleverly, Edwina machine quilted this one from the back using a flower design which meant that she wasn't distracted by the detail on the front when quilting and that the quilting design linked all the blocks together. 

Edwina's Round Robin Quilt

Edwina also showed us this mini-quilt which she teaches at her "Take One Flower"  workshop

Take one flower quilt by Edwina

Edwina is currently busy working on a number of quilts for upcoming exhibitions. This Sushi quilt forms part of a series of quilts that she is completing.

Sushi quilt by Edwina

Edwina also showed some screen-printed fabrics. Edwina used break-down printing and discharge paste to make this two pieces.

Breakdown printing by Edwina

Breakdown printing by Edwina

Edwina created this quilt for the Festival of Quilts a few years ago, it was created using soy wax batik, dyes etc. to create a landscape piece.  

Show and Tell:
There was some show and tell on the night.

Alison Bingham brought in this colourful and exhuberant quilt which she has been working on for the past two years, all it needs now is binding. The New York Beauty block was made at a Mid-West Branch workshop, and Alison then added in hundreds of flying geese to frame it. Great job Alison!

Quilt by Alison Bingham

Liz Scanlon decided to use up some of her fabric scraps to create a Spiderweb quilt. Liz also used yellow and blue fabrics around each block to create a secondary pattern in the spiderwebs. Another fantastic quilt by a Mid West member.

Spiderweb Quilt by Liz Scanlon

January meeting

January was our Quilt Clinic Night. We all know every quilter has some unfinished project in their stashes at at home - it might be a nearly finished quilt or just a few blocks, but there's always some unfinished somewhere in our homes. Sometimes we lose interest in a project we're working on, other times we get stuck on how to finish it, how to change the design around etc.

So for this meeting we got members to bring in their UFO's (unfinished objects) or other projects that they got stuck on and wanted advice on how to continue and finish the projects.

It proved to be a really interesting night as everyone had loads of opinions and advice for people when their quilts were shown. Hopefully it inspired everybody to finish at least 1 UFO this year.

First up was Gillian Sheehan, she brought in this lovely sampler quilt which has been unfinished for many years. The quilt is almost finished - it only needs a bit more quilting on some of the blocks and borders. Gillian got advice about the quilting designs etc, hopefully after getting the advice we'll see the finished quilt shortly at one of our meetings in the coming months.

Gillian Sheehan's Sampler Quilt UFO

Deirdre brought in this quilt top, which had a lovely almost Japanese feel to it. Deirdre had lost interest in the project and was unsure of how to finish it off e.g. leave it as it is or add more borders. The general consensus was that the quilt needed a few borders to bring it up to a usable size e.g maybe more pinwheel blocks,  but that it should definately be finished.

Deirdre brought in this pink and lime green quilt top which was left unfinished as she was unsure of the colour scheme. Everyone loved the colours as it was so different, had a very fresh spring-time feel to it.  Deirdre got lots of opinions from the group on the best quilting designs for this one.

Deirdre's lime green and pink quilt

Deirdre also brought in this unfinished quilt top, everyone thought that it needed more pinwheels and flying geese blocks and to keep going with it. 

Deirdre's triangle quilt

Cecilia brought in her long-term UFO project which has a lot of personal memories for her. Cecilia said with all the techniques that she's learned over the past few years, that she now knows how to finish this quilt.

Cecilia's UFO

Kate O'Donoghue brought in this quilt top made from a jelly roll.  When trimming the quilt, Kate realised that it had developed a wave due to the triangles on the edges, some constructive advice was given on how to rescue this project.

 

Kate O'Donoghue's Jelly Roll Quilt

Claire Lynch also brought in her UFO which has been unfinished for over 15 years. I think almost every quilter has a unfinished hexagon project somewhere, it's no wonder there has been so many antique unfnished hexagon quilts. Claire only has few more borders to add to this quilt but is now thinking of using it make a bag instead of a quilt.

Claire Lynch's Hexagon Quilt

Theresa Riordan also brought in her UFO tablemats. She has two of them made but the rest of the mats have been unfinished for a few years now.

Theresa Riordan's table runners

 Gillian Killick also showed this quilt that she has been working on.

Quilt top by Gillian Killick

Show and Tell:

Gwen Cottiss brought in her fabulous quilt room display  It was absolutely amazing when you got up close to the display to see the detail in creating miniature dolls and tiny hexagon quilts. This is the kind of display you could look at for hours as there was so much detail in it, and nearly all created by hand.

Display by Gwen Cottiss

Mini quilts and dolls

December Meeting

The usual Christmas party buffet

Finished paper bag swap presents ready to be handed over

Phyl Awylward (l) with her Christmas table runner

Kate O'Donoghue (l) with her quilt-as-you-go quilt.

Caroline Brouder (l) showed her finished quilt made with photographs transferred to fabric

Cecilia O'Doherty showing her handmade Christmas decorations

Liz Scanlon showed this great Christmas quilt. The blocks all came from a  Christmas block swap, and Liz did a lovely job in putting the blocks together to make a lovely Christmas quilt.  

Cecilia (R) is showing the Christmas decorations that Kate made from Tracy Watson.

Kate opening up her paper bag swap present

Finished Christmas present

Tea-cosy made by Tracy Watson. Modelled by Cecilia.