We have moved!

Our new blog can be found on the Irish Patchwork Society home page www.patchwork.com.www.irishpatchwork.com

Please visit our new site and if you would like to visit us at our branch we meet on the 3rd Saturday of the month September to May in Ballybrown Community Centre, Clarina, Co. Limerick.  Door open at 10 AM for a meeting start at 10:30AM.  Visitors Welcome.

September Meeting

Hello Ladies,

So our wonderful summer finally draws to a close and we look forward to a new year for the Mid West Group IPS.

We have a few dates coming up for your calendar:

• Our first meeting is on Friday, 14^th September at 7.30pm at the Baptist Church.
• Villiers Sewing nights start on Wednesday 19^th September from 7 to 10.
• Sewing Saturday on 29^th September in Villiers from 10 -4.
• The National AGM is on 6 – 7 October in the Castletroy Park Hotel.  Form attached.   We will be accepting completed forms and payments (including cash) in the September meeting.

Please keep in mind the upcoming Challenges

• For the September meeting, a postcard on the theme of” What I did this summer” incorporating the kit handed out at the June meeting. They will be voted on in September and we would like to retain these for display at the National AGM.
• For the AGM, a 18” to 19” finished block on the theme of “STAR”. Please bring this with you to the AGM.  You are also welcome to bring this for Show and Tell in September.

Our Speaker for September meeting is Assumpta Lydon from the Cork branch.   The shop is Roisin McManus “Quilt Yarn Stitch.”  Don’t forget your Library books to return. We have more than 20 new books added to our stock over the summer.  We look forward to all the Show and Tell that you have been busy with over the summer.

The membership has been raised to 50 euro, the first increase in 14 years.   We will accept 40 euro as a partial payment on the night, and apologize for short notice.

Looking forward to a great and productive year.

Mid West Committee

Opening on Saturday 7th July at 2pm!  Hoping to see you all there.

Feb & March updates

Thank you to the wonderful Valerie Mulally who was our guest speaker in our March meeting.  It was wonderful to hear about Valerie's work especially her award winning quilt and her relationship with Sunbonnet Sue! 

Show and tell from our February and March meetings were wonderful in their variety and colour!  A selection from Emer, Gerardine, Gillian, Mary, Kate and Suzanne are shown below.

 Our next meeting is April 14th and our next workshop with Nikki Foley is on the following Saturday the 15th.  Hope to see you there!
-Ruth

December Meeting recap!

Thank you everyone who attended our December meeting. We had our annual Christmas party with lots of savoury and sweet dishes and a very festive show and tell!

A fabulous Don't lose your mittens quilt by Caroline and even Christmas presents made for oneself by Alison!

Looking great Alison, you were them well!

Gerardine's Group Quilt made with Modern Irish Bee 2017, featured one block made by each person int he group and designed, assembled and quilted by Ger.  Perfect for a Christmas finish.

And you can't get more Christmassy than this fabulous quilt by Emer with gingerbread men, presents, fairly lights and a truck carrying the Christmas tree home.

Love the back and the Snowman label!

Claire's exploration of the Dresden plate gave us a beautiful wreath quilt.

Karen shared a variety of smaller festive makes, and prompted lots of ideas of what you can do with fabric for Christmas.  Love the penguin!

Imelda's Santa Claus passing by the window, a brilliant way to use a panel in a quilt.

Suzanne's festive Bee Quilt with each member of the Bee making 2 quilt blocks, anything they liked as long as they used the green/gold fabric in the block somewhere.  A great challenge and a lovely result!

Maureen's beautiful felt bag.

And her amazing applique quilt. 

Thanks to everyone for celebrating with us in December,

See you all at our meeting tonight!
-Ruth

November Branch Meeting

We held our Mid-West branch meeting on Friday, November 10.   We had three Christmas demonstrations on the night led by Kate Hennessy, Suzanne Pass, and Kate O'Donoghue.   The demos are to prepare us for our Christmas "Wrapped" challenge where we are to bring in a small Christmas item for the Christmas party on December 1.   We'll also be having a pot luck for food and a wrapped fat quarter gift exchange.   The Christmas season has begun!

The main order of business was to announce that Frances Shanahan stepped down as our branch Chairperson.   Suzanne Pass stepped up as temporary chairperson and asked if anyone new would be willing to come onto committee.   Suzanne thanked everyone for their support over the past few weeks.  Imelda O'Grady kindly stepped up onto the Committee, and after the meeting, Kate Hennessy agreed to cover the editorial role that Suzanne had previously covered.   Suzanne Pass has officially agreed to step up as Chairperson.

Mary Murphy came up to Show and Tell early and shared the story behind her Aurora piece, that is a yellow tent in the foreground. 

Loretta O'Brien showed her "Touch of Red" EQA piece from a few years ago.   We discussed the current EQA Challenge of "Boundaries."    Loretta also gave a moving talk about Helen Hardesty, a founding member of the Irish Patchwork Society who passed away recently.

Liz Stanley brought some gold work that she did recently, a quite unusual piece.  She also had with her a beautiful bag that she cleverly used a man's shirt for the lining!

Kate Hennessy, who is also the hero of the day for doing a demo and stepping up into the editorial role, showed a beautiful baby quilt.   She started this before the baby was born, not knowing whether the baby was a boy or girl.   It's perfect for either! 

We have a wonderful group and we're now set to continue with a strong committee set for the coming two years.

October Mid-West Branch Meeting

The Mid-West Branch met on Friday the 13th in Baptist Church, Limerick.  The night was definitely not an unlucky one!   We had many new members join, and we were very lucky to have Roisin McManus bring her shop from Tuam.   She brought a huge selection of fabrics, including some fabulous Christmas fabrics.

Our meeting was run by Frances Shanahan, our current branch president, and she was extremely complimentary to Tracy Watson who was our speaker for the evening.   Frances, along with many members of the branch, went to see Tracy's exhibition last year in Ennistymon.   We were all treated to the back story of how Tracy prepared herself for the exhibition and gathered her ideas and pieces together.   Tracy displayed her selection of pieces including the "cartoons" that she used to create her curved pieces.  She also framed some smaller pieces, which worked quite effectively.

Meeting in progress

Tracy Watson's pieces on display

Our Show and Share began with Ruth Bourke showing a few of her pieces.  She brought several with her as she was off to Galway in the morning to do a workshop for their branch.   She showed her Rainbow Rose which is the piece which represented Ireland in the Diversity gallery at Birmingham Festival of Quilts.  She also showed her color Ticker Tape example, which each square a different color.  It's a fun way to use up scraps!

Gillian Killick brought her piece "Waves of Color" to share.  She had it in the Dublin Knit and Stitch last year, it is a lovely triptich and hangs incredibly well.

Many members, including some new members, showed their pieces in the show and share.   It's so inspirational to see so many active quilters in our group!   For a full set of photos go to: https://flic.kr/s/aHsm5MHhkx

AGM 2017 in Cork, October 7

The AGM for the Irish Patchwork Society took place in Cork at the beautiful Kingsley hotel, and it was a lovely relaxed day.   We arrived to tea and coffee along with the most delicious little biscuits, and had plenty of time to wander around to shop and visit before the meeting commenced at 11:00.   Many members of the Mid-West branch attended.  It was also terrific to be able to connect some new faces with names from the many exhibitions.   We gathered our Mid-West members for a photo:

Ruth Bourke ran the meeting with style and grace.  There is a lot of work being done by the committee, the most largest new piece of work is getting our organization set up to be recognized as a charity.   This will allow us a different status and recognition as a group that provides education of the arts.   We have a lot going on in terms of public exhibitions!

The Strategy Planning Group has also been meeting regularly to help organize processes, and is making great progress.  Mary Hunter gave us an update on their sub-committee.

The quilt making Challenge is always a bit of fun.   This year the challenge was to make a Binary quilt, it could be any two colors but could not venture away from those two.   Jane Horner helped to hang the quilts in the little mini-quilt show.  Many different colors and ideas were represented.   The winner of the challenge wins a prize with a mini-quilt.   The winner was Linda Cowley, who also won last year, so she won her own little quilt!

We had a delicious lunch with a view of the river, then came back to the hall to chat some more until we were called for the speaker portion of the meeting.   Janice Gunner from the UK came to talk about a specialty of hers - Japanese textiles.   We were treated to many beautiful fabric examples and the history behind the fabrics as well.  Janice has travelled extensively in Japan.  Janice prepared a slide show with photos from Japan and the regions that produce the different types of fabrics.  

Thank you to the Cork branch for the wonderful day, and thank you to our committee members who put in so much time over the year.   The Irish Patchwork Society is a terrific group!

Branch Meeting September 8, 2017

We held our first branch meeting of the new year at the Baptist Church on Friday night, September 8.  It was a busy night at the door with membership dues as well as our usual meet and greet with raffle tickets.   We had a much larger number of visitors than usual, and we all made an effort to help them feel welcome.   It's great to have a so many new faces at our meeting as well as all of our friends.

Sew Crafty Fabrics with Avril Riordin provided the shop for the night.  She brought so many bright and beautiful fabrics, thank you for traveling with your wares!

Frances Shanahan, our new president, ran the meeting with style and grace.   We had a new type of guest speaker, a yoga teacher Sara Cory.   She demonstrated some mindfulness techniques and hand stretches, great for quilters who spend hours at our sewing machines.   Namaste.

Our meeting challenge was to create a name tag.  We had five entries, and we voted during the meeting.   Our winner was Liz Stanley.   Well done, Liz.

Tracy Watson explained her workshop which will take place next month on October 14.  She will be teaching methods for couching threads to create different textures.

We had another completed quilt from our 2.5 inch squares challenge!   Claire Lynch showed her completed challenge quilt.

Many quilters shared their summer projects in the Show and Share this month.  Thank you to everyone who was able to attend and we hope to see our friends who could not make it next month!   A larger set of photos is posted on our flickr feed:  https://www.flickr.com/photos/midwestpatchwork/sets/72157686426009464

Thank you to everyone who attended and helped to make our meeting a great success.