Visiting the Southern Branch

A big thank you to the Southern Branch who welcomed us to their November meeting for an amazing Show and Tell and an afternoon of sewing.  A good many of us carpooled to Cork and had a really fun day, meeting with friends and making new ones, sharing quilt making stories and tips and even got some stitching done on the day!  Here's a few photos of the Cork ladies show and tell and to see more visit the Southern Branch's blog here for a slideshow and recap of the day.  Thanks so much to you all and hope to return the favour and visit again soon!

News update

Our next branch meeting is on the 2nd December (a week early due to Christmas!)  The challenge is to make something using the One Hour Basket pattern by Kelby Sews.  We will have a Secret Santa swap too so please bring something about 5Euro wrapped to swap. 

We have started a Pay it Forward box where you can leave unwanted fabrics, craft magazines etc for other members.  It is proving a big success!

We are looking for everybody to make a 6" block (6 1/2" unfinished) that we can use to sew together into a branch banner and will be collecting blocks at our January meeting or earlier if you have them!

We are continuing our demonstrations in Hickeys this month with Ruth showing a Dresden plate cushion on the 12th and Louise making mini makes for Christmas on the 26th.

Our branch has been invited to the Southern Branch in Cork on Saturday 19th.  Please let Grania know if you haven't already done so if you plan to attend!

Upcoming events for your diary:
Haberdashery by the D4 Textile group is on from 8th November to 5th January at the Phoenix Park Visitors Centre
Remix by the Cork Textiles Network is on from 15th November to 22nd December

and Kate Hennessy is having an exhibition next week in Limerick details below!

Exhibition this month!

Hands Across the Border forms!

The Irish Patchwork Society
and The Northern Ireland Patchwork Guild present:

“Hands Across the Border 2017”
“Aurora”
Official Opening Tuesday 16th May 2017 in CHQ Custom House Quarter, IFSC, Custom House Quay, Dublin Northside, Dublin
Exhibition will run until the 26th May
Northern venue is Lisburn Arts Centre, June 2017

Exhibition Rules and Conditions;

All Irish Patchwork Society and Northern Ireland Patchwork Guild Members are eligible to enter
1.    The quilt must consist of a minimum of two layers, although any technique may be       used.
2.    Size: quilts can be made to a maximum of 1 meter square.
3.    The quilt has a free choice of edging treatments.
4.    No glass fronted, framed, mounted quilts or quilts made from kits will be allowed.
5.    The work should have been completed in the last two years.
6.    The quilt must have a 10 cm (4 inch) hanging sleeve, (with sufficient fullness to accommodate the hanging rod).
7.    Please ensure that your quilt is labelled on the back at the bottom edge with the following information:    Name of the Quilt, Name of Quilter, Postal Address.
8.    The quilt should not have been exhibited prior to submission to this exhibition.
9.    Quilts made by more than one person at any stage of construction should identify all of those involved.
10.    Quilts are not for sale during the exhibition.
11.    This is a juried exhibiition. The judging panel’s decision will be final.
12.    The quilts are covered by the IPS insurance once the quilt is received by the hosting branch.
13.    By entering your quilt you agree to have it photographed for publicity purposes and the catalogue of the exhibition.
14.    Each quilt must have its own bag labelled with both the name of the quilt, the name of the maker and your branch.
15.    Quilts will be released at the end of the exhibition period and not before that time.
16.    Deadline for quilts to be received is the 31st March 2017. No late entries will be accepted due to cataloguing and photographing of quilts.

Download entry form here!

Call for Entries!

Call for Entries

The Irish Patchwork Society invites all IPS members to submit quilts for an Irish exhibition at the OEQC Open European Quilt Championships in Maastright October 19-22 2017.

The Theme is “Illuminate” and the size is 20 x40 inches portrait orientation.

Rules of the exhibition:

1.                  The quilt must consist of a minimum of two layers, although any technique may be used.

2.                  Size: 20 x 40 inches portrait orientation

3.                  The quilt has a free choice of edging treatments.

4.                  No glass fronted, framed, mounted quilts or quilts made from kits will be allowed.

5.                  The work should have been completed in the last two years.

6.                  The quilt must have a 10 cm (4 inch) hanging sleeve, (with sufficient fullness to accommodate the hanging rod).

7.                  Please ensure that your quilt has a stitched fabric label on the back at the bottom edge with the following information:            Name of the Quilt, Name of Quilter, Postal Address, Telephone number.

8.                  The quilt should not have been exhibited prior to submission to this exhibition.

9.                  Quilts made by more than one person at any stage of construction should identify all of those involved.

10.              Quilts are not for sale during the exhibition.

11.              This is a juried exhibiition. The judging panel’s decision will be final.

12.              The quilts are covered by the IPS insurance once the quilt is received by the society.

13.              By entering your quilt you agree to have it photographed for publicity purposes.

14.              Each quilt must have its own bag labelled with both the name of the quilt, the name of the maker and your branch.

15.               Quilts will be released at the end of the exhibition period and not before that time.

16.               Deadline for quilts to be received is the 31^st May 2017. 

Download entry form here!

Knitting & Stitching Show

The Mid-Western branch was well represented at the IPS galleries on display at the Knitting & Stitching in Dublin this past weekend.  For those of you that missed it here are some photos!

The 2016 IPS exhibit featured galleries with Traditional Quilts, Modern Quilts, Young Quilters, Art Quilts, Bags and a brach display by the South Eastern branch on the theme of Christmas.

Young Quilters Gallery

Ashling Murphy with her piece!

Quilts by Isobel and Ashling on display

Loretta O'Brien's Kandinksy inspired art Quilt on the bottom row.

Some of the quilts from Evolution were exhibited included Gillian's beautiful shells piece.

More than 30 bags were on display!

The modern section with Imelda's Star Light, Star Bright baby quilt!

Paula's Share Jane - over 100 quilt makers contributed to this Irish version!

Christmas comes early to the Knitting & Stitching - South Eastern branch.

Louise and Isobel invigilating!

Exhibition on over the long weekend!

October meeting recap

We were delighted to have Ester Kiely from the Western Branch as our guest speaker for our October meeting. Ester spoke to us about why you would want to keep a sketchbook. It was lovely to see Ester's work and how she uses sketchbooks and journals to prompt ideas and working out the design for a quilt. We all had a good look through the journals and were encouraged to start one of our own.

Thanks also to Rags for Linda who were our shop on the night and to Ruth and Suzanne for demonstrating the one hour basket (our Christmas challenge) and how to make Morsbags.  Suzanne went to a lot of work making bag kits for everyone and it was brilliant!

We handed out our pin cushions swapped with the South Midlands branch at the AGM and they were much admired!  Thank you to all in Kilkenny who made for us! 

The following day some of our members attended a workshop with Ester on starting a sketchbook and thanks to Suzanne again for the photos!

As always Show and Tell was plentiful and here are some of the quilts and quilt tops shared at our meeting! See you on November 4th for our next meeting (not the 11th as the Rugby is on!)

Upcoming Bargello Workshop

We're having a Bargello workshop on November 5th with Roisin McManus from the Quilt Shop Tuam.

Just in case anyone isn't familiar with the term, a Bargello quilt is made of strips of fabric sewn together to create movement. If you can sew a straight seam, you can do this!

You can get the effect of waves, curves and other shapes moving across the quilt top. Even though there are so many curves and shapes on the quilt, there is no curved piecing whatsoever.

All ranges of colours are used, from light to dark. When choosing colours, there are many choices. A common option is a range of shades in a single colour family for a monochromatic quilt. Another choice would be two complementary colours.

The bargello technique can be used to create interesting backgrounds for applique, to showcase landscape prints, and to use up your stash.

These quilts look incredibly difficult, but surprisingly, they are quite easy to make.

Recap September meeting!

Our return to branch meetings kicked off to a great start with a wonderful exhibit of show and tell items from the Crafty Angels sewing group, many of which are members of the Mid-Western Branch.

We were treated to a display of items from quilts to knits, decoupage to candle making and all through it all we could see the lovely generosity of the group, making for various charities and supporting each other in good times and in not so good times.  Thank you ladies for such a lovely exhibit and sharing your work with us.

For more photos see our gallery tab at the top of the page or our photo archive here on Flickr.

Our next meeting is on October 14th with guest speaker Ester Kiely, spaces available on our journaling workshop with Ester on the 15th if anyone is interested talk to Grania on the night.  We will also be distributing our pin cushions received from the South Midlands branch and of course as always plenty of show & tell, demos and visiting shop! 

Workshop with Gwen!

Last month on the 18th September we had another brilliant workshop on miniatures with Gwen Cottis.  We were shown the most detailed samples and told that miniature quilts are those that if you saw a photo with nothing to give a hint at the scale, you would think they were full standard sized quilts.

Getting the crisp points on such tiny pieces involves Foundation Paper Piecing and Gwen talked us through her method, brought books to show us for inspiration and gave recommendations for our own bookshelf.

We started with trees and leaves as our practice pieces and we were given an amazingly detailed folder outlining the steps, pre-printed templates on foundation paper and layouts for three different mini quilt layouts.

 You would think an Autumn workshop would have us reaching for the golds and browns and reds and greens as in Gwen's beautiful mini but quite a few of us were drawn to the umbrellas!  That's Limerick weather for you!

It was a busy day and the time just flew but we all had little finishes we proudly shared when the 2.5" square mini blocks were all squared up and looking so crisp and cute!

Imelda tackled the Hunters star and completed this lovely piece on the day!

At the end of the day most people had 4 little minis and we laid them all out to admire each others work.

 Here they are in their teeny tiny glory...

Didn't we do well?

Thank you Gwen for such a wonderful workshop!