Meeting 12th June 2009

IRFU QUILT RAFFLE
.
Congratulations to Alice Quaid on the incredible 6200euro that was raised by the raffle of quilts for the IRFU Charitable trust. The IRFU Charitable Trust helps rugby players that are disabled through accidents on the field and provide for 34 Irish disabled players with help in adjustments to houses and transport and for medical care. Alice explained that the idea for the fundraiser was seeing the dress shirts worn by the players which had the RFU badge embroidered on the pockets. Being a quilter she saw that the material could be used in a quilt and the idea took root. One of the quilts sewn by her sister, Julie Crosby, was made from donated dress shirts that had been given from the wives to be sewn. The first prize quilt was sewn by Alice and shows the signatures of some of the Munster players including; Brian O'Driscoll Denis Hickey Shane Holgan Peter Stringer Denis Leamy Luke Fitzgerald Malcolm O'Kelly John Hayes Paddy Wallace.



It was a pleasure to welcome Declan Madden who drew the numbers in the raffle. Good luck to all the players currently with the Lions in South Africa.

Many thanks to all those who donated their quilts for prizes.


TALK AND SHOP 12TH JUNE 2009


Nikki Foley was the guest speaker and shop for the evening. Nikki's interesting and illuminating talk was on some of the gadgets that are available and her thoughts on the gadgets on how useful or on the interesting effects that you can achieve using them. There was a lot in her talk but the pointers that I found most interesting were;

1 portable ironing boards made from the inners of the fabric rolls covered in wadding and fabric with a handle on one end, perfect with a small travel iron for sitting next to your machine in classes.


2 Rotary blade sharpeners extend the life of the blade as each blade can be re-sharpened twice. The cost of the sharpener would be gained back over time. Unfortunately the sharpener will not take out nicks caused by rolling over pins etc.

3 Bias binding tool, the hint was given to buy the next size up and to experiment on which way up you find easier to get the correct result.

4 Two ways of getting a home PC to print out designs onto material were shown, firstly an A4 sized treated paper that after printing can be ironed onto material, secondly a paint that can be painted onto the fabric then placed into the printer. For the paint there is a choice of matt or transparent so that you can choose between the material showing through the printing or not.

5 Fabric effects with water soluble paper and angelina wool.

6 Fabric bondings including a description of bondaweb, steam and seam and a glue pen.

I think that all of us who listened to Nikki's talk learnt something, thanks Nikki.

European Quilting Day 20th June (EU-QUiP Day)

For the past few years there has been a Worldwide "Knit in Public Day" - day meant to encourage knitters to go out and knit in public.

Following on from this, the European Quilting Association (EQA) is trying to start a similar event for quilters:

The European-wide quilting in public day

This will take place on the 3rd Saturday in June - that's the 20th of June in 2009.
http://www.e-q-a.eu/Events/events.html

The 20th June is also the longest Saturday of the year - so there's plenty of daylight hours with which to quilt and sew in the open air (weather permitting of course!).

It's quite simple - all you need to do is to arrange to meet up with some other quilters in a public place and take something convenient to work on.

May Meeting

May meant that it was time again for the annual AGM. Various reports were given by members of the committee i.e. treasurers, membership reports etc. Nomination were taken for new committee members - the positions they will take up will be announced at the June meeting. A presentation of flowers was made to Gwen Cottiss for her hard work as chairperson throughout the year.

The challenge for May was to make something using the A4-sized piece of the large-scale floral fabric that was given out to members a few months ago.

Tracey Waton made this bag using the challenge fabric.

Meg Kenny's samples made using the challenge fabric.

Anita Mahon used the fabric to make this needlework organiser - most of the challenge fabric was used on the outside of the organiser of which I didnt get a picture.

Claire Lynch was voted the winner with her pin-cushion organiser - photo to follow.

A number of items were brought in for Show & Tell:

Anne-Marie Nugent brought in her newborn baby son on the night.

A member of the Kerry Branch brought in this fabulous picnic blanket with matching bag which was made in a Nikki Foley workshop. The quilt was beautiful and was way too nice to use as a picnic blanket!

Alison Bingham brought in two very cute baby quilts that she recently finished. The 2nd quilt shown made for baby Cillian was the first log cabin quilt that Alison has made.


Wallhanging made using small nine-patch blocks made by Claire Lynch.
This quilt was made by Maria Hibbard.

This seaside themed quilt was made by Gillian Sheehan - made using the quilt-as-you-go method.

Theresa Riordan showed some table mats that she made. She also brought in an appliqued cushion that she made on a quilting holiday in Bordeaux.

Meg Kenny gave a talk on a number of her quilts and she brought two of them in for display. She also discussed how the quilts were made, the inspiration behind them and construction method. The 2nd quilt shown is based on the chakra's and has been commissioned for an office space in the USA.

As well as giving a talk, Meg also gave a demo on turning patchwork blocks into small bags.

Moya Doherty "Quilt-as-you-go" Workshop

April 2009 meeting

Mary Palmer was the guest speaker at the April meeting. She brought a large collection of quilts that showed how her quilting style has changed from when she first started quilting to her more recent creations.

The quilt shown below is one of Mary Palmer's newest quilt.

Gillian Killick brought in 2 antique quilts for show & tell. This quilt was shown on the "Antiques Roadshow" when it was filmed in Dromoland Castle a few years ago. During the filming of the series, the experts got more excited by the back of the quilt - turns out that the yellow flowery fabric used was much older than the rest of the quilt.

Nora O'Connor brought in two bags that she recently made. The colourful bag was made from a Ricky Tims hand-dyed piece of fabric which was really eye-catching. Kate O'Donoghue made this beautiful Star Quilt.

Phil Awylward brought in this wall-hanging that she started making on a quilt tour to Bordeaux last year. Fran O'Donoghue brought in 3 very detailed dolls that she had made. The picture below shows Fran with a ballerina doll that she created.

And here are two more of her dolls...

Fran also made an appliqued teddy bear wall-hanging.

Rachel Banting brought in this denim quilt made from old jeans - some of the squares are even made using pockets from the jeans.The quilt squares were then added to with the addition of buttons and simple stitching.

March 2009 Meeting

Linda McMulkin was the guest speaker at the March meeeting. Linda brought a number of quilts and quilted items with her for a show & telll. She also brought her shop "Rags for Linda" with her on the night.

Here's a picture of Linda with a brightly coloured log cabin quilt.

Linda with a quirky cat wall-hanging.

This is Linda with a celtic banner quilt that she made.Linda with 2 chicken-themed wall-hangings which are always popular.

Anita McMahon brought in a folder of her completed ATC's. Anita has been on a roll making ATC's since the Frieda Oxenham workshop last November. She has been very creative with the use of materials e.g. bits from computer circuit boards, bog cotton, pages from puzzle books etc.

Committee members also brought in Star Blocks to encourage all branch members to bring in a Star Block for the April Challenge. Don't forgot to bring your star blocks with you for the next meeting on Good Friday.