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!

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