Hands Across the Border Exhibition

Just a reminder to members about the "Hands Across the Border" Exhibition.

All entries to be handed up by the 6th February to the two Branch Representatives as the next executive meeting is on the 10th February.

Quilts have to be in Dublin by the 10th February - no late entries will be accepted, due to time needed to catalogue and photograph the quilts.

The exhibition opens in the National Botanic Gardens in Dublin on Wednesday February 25th at 11.30am. The exhibition then runs until the 14-15th March, and the Botanic Gardens are open every day.

January 2009 Meeting

The theme of January's meeting was "BAGS".

Nearly all quilters end up making at least 1 bag, so there were plenty of bags to view at the January meeting!

Gwen brought a number of bags to show and also had a number of hand-outs on how to make some of the bags. The picture below is of Gwen showing someone the inside of one of her bags.

Meg Kenny brought in this beautifully embroidered green bag.

Anita brought in her blue bag for show & tell. This bag was made over 20 years and still looks perfect.

Regeneration Exhibition Pictures

Christmas Meeting 6th December

The Christmas meeting was a very jolly affair this year with plenty of food!

For a change it was decided to operate a "Secret Santa" this year. Great fun was had during the meeting as numbers were drawn for your chance to go up and collect a present.

A jumble rumble was held on the night to raise funds for the library. Books and fabric were sold off and it seems to be have a great success.

Theresa Riordan showed her quillows that she makes for local craft fairs. She demonstrated how they are constructed. Sheila Allen was the lucky winner of one of the quillows during the Christmas raffle.

Another member brought in a Mola quilt that she purchased on her travels abroad.

Frances Nugent showed a puff-ball quilt that she made. This quilt was recently raffled off for charity.

Gillian Sheehan showed a tractor quilt she has made for her grandson featuring the clever use of a tractor panel & other related fabrics.

A quick demo on how to make fabric baskets was shown by Claire Lynch.

The Frieda Oxenham ATC workshop took place in November, so most of the workshop attendees brought their finished ATC's for display. Anita Mahon has made loads of ATC's since the workshop incorporating some unique materials e.g. circuit boards from timers.
Gillian Sheehan also brought in her Icelandic themed ATC's & Claire Lynch brought her completed ATC's. Some ATC swapping was done on the night, with the promise of more to come in the New Year.

Regeneration Exhibition

The Mid-West Branch held their "Regeneration" Exhibition in Limerick City Hall recently. The exhibit ran from the 24-28th November 2008.

It was the first quilt exhibit by the Branch in over 6 years.

Paula Rafferty's quilt "Elementals 1" was voted the Viewer's Choice. Margaret Talbot's piece came a close second.

Some pictures of the exhibit will be put up later but until then, some photo's have been uploaded to this link:

http://picasaweb.google.com/lynch.claire/RegenerationExhibition?feat=email#

Frieda Oxenham ATC Workshop

Frieda Oxenham recently gave two 1-day workshops on Artist Trading Cards (ATC's). Great fun was had by all who attended the workshops.

Frieda was very generous with her knowledge and the workshop was well prepared and organised.

Ann-Marie at work making her ATC's.
And below her ATC's.



Loretta at work.....
As was Nora....

ATC's have turned out to be very addictive and most of the workshop attendees have been well and truly bitten by the ATC bug! The workshop seems to have been very popular judging from the amount of ATC's displayed at the Christmas meeting.

Seen below are the finished ATC's from the Saturday workshop.

November 2008 Meeting - Talk by Frieda Oxenham

Our guest speaker on the night was the lovely Frieda Oxenham who travelled over from Scotland on Friday to give a talk on "Artist's Trading Cards" at the meeting.

Frieda explained all about Artist's Trading Cards (ATC's) which some people weren't familiar with. To accompany her informative talk Frieda had a slideshow on her ATC work. She also brought folders of ATC's which had to be seen to appreciate the detail and work that had gone into them.

There was a very good turn-out for the talk on the night and after the talk, people were even more looking forward to the ATC's workshops which which were on the Saturday & Sunday.

Niikki Foley brought a Christmas wall-hanging that she had recently made.

A gorgeous stip-pieced quilt was displayed at the Show & Tell.

The November challenge was the English Paper Piecing Block. Gwen Cottiss was voted the winner on the night with her gorgeous paper pieced star cushion.

Other entries for this hand-piecing challenge included this block.

Another entry was this pastel hexagon pieced cushion constructed with velvet fabrics.