IPS AGM

The IPS AGM took place on the 3rd October at the Manor West Hotel, Tralee, Co. Kerry.

On display at the AGM was the Hungarian-Irish Quilt made with appliqued flowers. A number of the flowers were made by Mid-West Branch members. The quilt took a lot of work to make but looked amazing now that its finished! This quilt (along with it's Hungarian compatriot) will be on display in Hungary next month as part of the celebrations for the Hungarian Patchwork Society's 20th Anniversary. See below for a close-up picture of the appliqued flowers.



Meg Kenny's Chakra quilt was also on display at the AGM.




Gillian Killick entered the "Rose Window" themed competition and was highly commended by the judge (guest speaker Yvonne Brown).

Yvonne Brown (from the UK) gave the lecture after lunch - and after all the official AGM business was over and done with. Yvonne gave a slide show of her work and explained how she got interested in sewing & quilting. Yvonne also sent around the audience samples & quilts so that everyone could see close-up how work is created.

Meeting 11th September 2009

Meg as the new Mid-Western IPS branch chairperson gave very warm welcome to everyone after the summer break. Meg als0 thanked the outgoing committee members; Gwen Cottiss, Claire Lynch,and Cecelia O’Doherty as well as welcoming the present committee members; Grania Preston, Holly Hogan, Maria Hibbard, Paula Rafferty, Lynda Broderick, Rachel Banting, Anita Mahon, Alison Bingham, Fran O’Donahue and Meg Kenny. Claire Lynch is our newly appointed national editorial rep.






SHOW AND TELL - (apologies I have embarrassingly lost my notes, anyone who would like to add to these very short descriptions please let me know)


Tracy Watson and her much envied bag.








Tracy also completed this child's quilt during the summer inspired by the mermaid panel.

















Gillian explaining the 'Hebrides' fabric on her quilt










Anita Mahon with her two quilts with similar fabric but different piecing techniques, the one on the right having frayed edging.











Claire Lynch and 2 quilts made over the summer.

















A detail of Meg Kenny's celebration banner.

Gillian McGuiness demonstrating some of the stretching techniques that she explained can help to prevent the aches and pains that sitting in one position for a long time can induce. Gillian was most helpful in demonstrating the correct way to sit, ensuring that you regularly move about and take rests and practise the stretches that release the tension. Gillian showed us (and made us practise) holding the stretches for longer than we normally would to help the muscles relax.



After the talk Gillan gave neck and back massages and was available for booking the full massage the next day.


Thanks to Maeve Meany for bringing her shop with her to this meeting.

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River of Dreams Exhibition June 2009

SHOW AND TELL JUNE 12TH 2009



Nora O'Conner and her fabulous pixie shoes




























Theresa Riordaon and Holly with their stained glass windows from Paula Rafferty's workshop.














Anita Mahon showing her embellished t-shirts.















Hexagon first quilts from Johanna Canti and Rebecca Palmer.



































Francis Nugent's farm animals quilt made by Clockjordan quilters for a charity raffle.

Meeting 12th June 2009

IRFU QUILT RAFFLE
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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.