Crafts Council of Ireland Registration

http://www.ccoi.ie/content/view/143/250/ is the link to the Crafts Council of Ireland Registration form. Registration only takes a few minutes, the more people that register the stronger the Council's voice will be.

Registration is currently free and the benefits are;
• Receive notification on participation on CCoI projects and
programmes, eg. Enterprise Development & Training, Retail,
Collector and Gallery Programmes
• Receive discounts and special rates for events, publications etc.
• Receive the CCoI Newsletter and e-bulletins

Lynn Kenny Workshop

After giving the guest lecture at the October meeting, Lynn Kenny also gave a workshop the next day on stitching with paper and paint.

At the start of the workshop Lynn prepared some background pieces for people to work on by applying coloured tissue paper to magazine pages. In order to get the pieces dry enough to start stitching on, some heat was needed - hence the use of the hairdryers in the picture below!



Once the backgrounds were ready, Lynn showed how she stitches her pieces by transferring her designs onto greaseproof paper.



After this, everyone spent some time choosing and tracing their designs, before getting starting on the stitching.



Once the stitching was done, Lynn showed how paint can be added to enchance the design. She also showed how to apply fabric to create the designs using her method.

This was a very enjoyable workshop, and everyone made a few samples on the day. This is the kind of workshop which provided a very useful method of creating applique pictures and one that I'm sure will be put to good use in the future by the workshop participants.

Samples made by Claire Lynch:


Sample made by Nora O'Connor:


Sample made by Rebecca Palmer:

October Meeting

Lynn Kenny was the guest speaker at the meeting. Lynn is a full-time fabric artist who has a gallery/studio in Killaloe. She uses stitch to draw imagery in combination with paint, fabric and paper. You can view her work at http://www.lynnkenny.com


At the meeting Lynn gave a slide show about her work. She also showed a number of samples of her work which she passed around during the meeting.



The challenge for October was to make a Halloween cushion. Rebecca Palmer & Tracey Watson were voted the joint winners on the night. Rebecca made the orange stitched cushion, while Tracey made a witch cushion. Below are Rebecca Palmer's, Fran O'Donoghue's and Meg Kenny's halloween cushions.







Gillian Sheehan brought in her piece from the recent Yvonne Brown workshop in Tralee.



The Thurles ladies brought in 2 charm quilts which they have made.

National Exhibition 2010

The Irish Patchwork Society's National Exhibition 2010 will be held in Cork. The exact date hasn't been set yet but it will be on sometime in late Spring or early Summer.
The venue location is still in the process of being decided, because of this size restrictions for the quilts havent been yet been finalised.

However, the theme for the exhbition has been decided:
"Q FOR QUILTS"

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