June meeting

The June meeting was the Mid-West Branch's summer party so there was plenty of food and chat on the night.

Some of the fabulous show and tell at the meeting

Moya Geraghty (Patchwork Plus) was the guest speaker on the night. As always Moya brought loads of items for show and tell, she had some amazing quilts (her quilts are always really colourful and cheerful).

Here's Moya with one of her quilts done with black and white fabrics, and a few contrast colours which is really eye-catching.

We also had lots of show and tell from members as well:
Nora O'Connor was asked to bring in her amazing Baltimore Album quilt, there's a lot of work in this lovely quilt.

Ruth Bourke also showed some cushion that she made. Ruth tried out a variety of quilting techniques on the cushion for free-maching practice (spirals, matchstick quilting and free-motion). 

Ruth also showed this lovely Swoon block quilt made with rainbow coloured fabrics.

Suzanne Pass is on a roll making quilts. Here's her quilt which will be in the National Exhibition "Explorations". 

 

Suzanne also showed this cool 3-D mobile she made with hanging jellyfish.

Kathleen showed this teddy bear which she made for her grand-daughter.

 The Just Threads Group showed their group quilt which is going to be exhibited at the Festival of Quilts. The quilt was created using free online block patterns from Moda.

Grania Preston brought in a number of items for show and tell. Here's one of her quilts made using some Flea Market Fancy fabric by Denyse Schmidt. The quilt blocks were created from a book "Fast Quilts from Fat Quarters" by Barbara Chainey. We have this book in the Mid-West library.

Here's another quilt top by Grania, a log-cabin style quilt with lots of Lucie Summer "Summerville" fabric and solid-fabrics.

Tracy Watson showed this piece which I think she's going to enter into the EQA Seasonal Garden exhibition. The quilt is really eye-catching with the use of diamante sparkles.

June meeting

Our guest speaker at our June "Summer Party" meeting was Eileen Browne, a Limerick Lace-maker.

Eileen Browne demonstrating Limerick lace

Eileen came into give a talk and demo about Limerick Lace. The AGM challenge for October is to make a piece (15"max) inspired by Limerick lace so this talk gave our members plenty of ideas to think about over the summer.

There was lots of home-made food on the night

Only 1 person managed (or remembered!) to bring their Mystery Quilt in on the night. Gillian Killick brought in her quilt which she is in the process of hand-quilting. Gillian did a lovely job on selecting colours for her quilt and has even incorporated some of the left-over blocks into the quilt-back.

Mystery Quilt by Gillian Killick

Back of quilt

 Grania gave a demo on "Antia's Arrow". We're just waiting now for the September meeting for Grania to bring in three finished "Anita's Arrow" quilts!  Here's a link to more info on making the Anita's Arrow block.

Grania demonstrating Anita's Arrow

Anita's Arrow samples

Quilt top by Grania made using Anita's Arrow block

 Show & Tell:
Phyl Awylard brought in this Sunbonnet Sue quilt top that she has been working on for the past few months at the Villier's Sewing Days. 

June Meeting

Our June meeting was a summer party with plenty of food for everyone.

For most of the year, the branch has been running a mystery quilt challenge. There was a great turnout of finished mystery quilts on the night, which was brilliant - a lot of people were very interesting in trying out this quilt. The amazing thing was even though they were made using the same pattern, the different fabrics used made them all seem very different. Thanks to Rebecca Palmer who kindly organised the mystery quilt challenge for us.

Phil Alyward made this version of the mystery quilt. She used up the left-over pieces from the cutting of the quilt to make a piano-key type border.

More Mystery Quilts;

A very colourful baby quilt made by Chris Palmer.

Gillian Sheehan showed this great bag that she has made.

Ger Larkin brought in this quilt top that she's working on based on 9 churches in the Tuam area.

Isobel, more of our younger members, brought in this nine-patch block that she has hand-pieced!

June Meeting

Sandra Meech was the guest speaker at the June meeting. She gave a fascinating talk on "An Artist's Approach to Stitched Textiles" - which showed how her quilting style has developed from her early traditional quilts, then to City & Guilds work and then her own collage style.

Sandra also showed how working in a series can be very effective and how taking photo's and keeping sketchbooks can provide plenty of ideas for future quilts.

The monthly challenge for June was to make something out of green "robot-themed" fabric that was given out at a previous meeting.

There were only 3 entries on the night, which might have been because people were stumped with how they were going to use the fabric. I know I still have my piece pinned up at home awaiting some inspriation!

Bridget Keane was voted the winner on the night. She made a lovely space-themed wall-hanging, in which she cut out the robot shapes and appliqued them to the fabric. Left-over fabric was then cut into star shapes and appliqued as well.

Phil Dwyer made a very clever pincushion/thread holder. This was English-paper pieced using the robot fabric and complementary colours.

Gillian Sheehan used her sample to make a very practical and unique mouse-mat.

Alison Bingham brought in a quilt top that she is working on for a friend's baby. The colours are lovely and vibrant - just perfect for a baby. Linda Broderick and Meg Kenny brought in their finished wall-hangings from the Joke Buursma workshop.

Ger Larkin was give a surprise presentation of a flower planter to thank her for 2 years of hard work as the Mid-West Branch Chairperson. Gwen Cottiss (pictured in the centre) now takes over the Chair-person.