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!

November Meeting

November Meeting

Miriam Gogarty (Eastern Branch and past IPS Chairperson) was the guest speaker at our November meeting. Miriam is a very prolific quilter and brought lots of items for show and tell, and did a fabulous job entertaining us at this meeting.

Here's just a small sample of the work that she brought with her on the night.

One our previous branch challenges was to complete a 12" square using some challenge fabric. A lovely array of blocks was completed for this challenge, blocks were then donated to the branch to be made up into a quilt. Luckily one of the branch members Imelda O'Grady volunteered to complete the quilt top. This quilt was then donated to the Bumbleance Charity.

Doris and Imelda showing group quilt

Imelda with the Branch challenge quilt.

A number of members also donated quilt to the Bumbleance charity. The Sewing Shed were the shop on the night. Nikki Foley (The Sewing Shed) collected the quilts on the night for the charity. The 2 photos below shows all the quilts donated on the night, a lovely array of brightly coloured children's quilts.

Donated Bumbleance Quilts

Here's the guest speaker Miriam Gogarty explaining how she made this particular quilt. 

Miriam is well known for her landscape quilts, so showed us a number of her different versions of landscapes.

Show and Tell:
 Suzanne Pass brought in her Minions quilt and cushion which she has made for her son. Anyone who has seen the film Despicable Me will be familiar with the very cute minions.

 Another member with a fantastic heart themed quilt. 

Phil Walsh, Gillian Killick and Chairperson Cecilia O'Doherty

Gillian Sheehan brought in some lovely items as well for show and tell. Her is friendship braid quilt.

Gillian also showed this lovely wall-hanging. Apologies for the blurry photo.

Maureen Kenny showed this lovely applique cushions which I believe were started at the Ann O'Rafferty Hand Applique workshop back in October. 

Tracy Watson showed this lap quilt she has made. Tracy is making two identical quilts for her daughters. 

Mary Morrissey showed this lovely pink and purple railstrip quilt which she has made as a Christmas present for her daughter. 

Mary Enright showed us this lovely Christmas wall-hangings she has been making for Christmas gifts. Wall-hangings made using the Twister Tool

November Meeting

 Mogs McDonnell from the Galway branch was the guest speaker at our November meeting. Mogs brought a great display of show and tell with her, some of the work was made by her students.

Mogs with one of her wall-hangings

 Here's another quilt by Mogs.

Hexagon quilt

 This quilt was a community project organised by Mogs in Headford, Co. Galway. All the participants appliqued their hand-prints to the quilt. Quilt is on display in a local hall, and is very eye-catching.

Here's Mogs and Cecilia showing some Christmas Nativity Wall-hangings. Mogs gave a workshop on making these wall-hangings on November 9th. 

Some of the show and tell on display at the November meeting

One of Mog's students (Niamh Langan) created this fabulous Doc-Marten quilt which incorporates family photo's.

The Quilt Shop Tuam was our shop on the night. It was the first time that we've had this shop at our meetings, everyone loved the fabric available, so I'm sure we'll be getting Roisin's shop back again soon.
 
At the June meeting, members were given some dolphin themed fabric to create a block with. Here are some of the completed blocks displayed at the November meeting. There was some great creative thinking used to make these blocks, all of them are really original.

Blocks created from summer challenge fabric

November Meeting

The November meeting was full of demo's of all Christmas decorations.

Tracy gave a demo on Christmas decorations using paintsticks. 

Kathleen gave a demo on making a quilt-as-you-go table runner

Kathleen giving her demo on a Christmas table runner

Grania Preston gave a demo on making Christmas decorations using small polyestrene balls and folded fabric pieces.(Apologies for the sideways photo!)

Grania showing Isobel how to make the decorations

Show & Tell:
Paula Rafferty brought in a number of quilts that she has been busy making.

Quilt by Paula Rafferty

Anita's Arrowhead quilt by Paula Rafferty

November Meeting

November Meeting

The November challenge was bags.  Nora O'Connor won the challenge with this pieced bag.

 Another bag entry from Claire Lynch

 Phil Awylward entered this bag in the challenge

Demelza Palmer showed this quilt that she recently completed. Demelza has been collecting sea-themed fabrics for a while and used them to make this quilt. Her mother (Rebecca) did the quilting on the quilt, but all the piecing was done by Demelza - great job!

 

Some more completed Hand Blocks for the International Quilting Festival of Ireland 2011. 

 Tracy Watston showed her completed piece from the recent Philippa Naylor workshop. Philippa gave 2 workshops after the IPS AGM in Cork on curved machine piecing and machine quilting.

Theresa Riordan showed off some of her Christmas wreaths that she's been busy making.

Kate O'Donoghue made this lovely foundation pieced quilt top.

Carmel Creaner from the Cork Textile Network was the guest speaker at the November meeting.