May Meeting

The May meeting was the Mid-West branches AGM.

A lot of people go AWOL at the mention of the word AGM, and last night was no exception - there was a very small turn-out at the meeting.

Most of the committee were stepping down last night at they had done their two years. The only member who is staying on is Caroline Brouder (Executive Committee Representative).

Valerie Shortt and Kathleen Cleary Brennan were voted onto the committee.

If any other Mid-West members would like to go on the committee, please contact a committee member or attend the June meeting.


Clew Bay Quilting were our shop on the night. Unfortunately the owner of the shop recently had a house fire, and a lot of her stock was destroyed. So there was a fire sale last night, with very reduced prices on fabrics and supplies.

There was a variety of show and tell on the night.

Nora O'Connor showed her round robin quilt.

Deirdre has completed her round robin quilt top.

Grania Preston showed her round robin piece. This was done as part of a free-form round robin project with Claire Lynch and Paula Rafferty, based on the theme of graffiti. Claire and Paula's quilts had already gone up to Galway in advance of the International Quilt Festival of Ireland (IQFOI). All 3 of these quilts will be on display at the IQFOI in the Graffiti and Tattoo Category.

Phyl's niece Mary brought this bag for show and tell.

Kathleen Cleary Brennan brought in this lovely landscape piece of Mount Errigal that she is currently working on. 

 Claire Lynch brought in her Pastel memories quilt made from flannel fabrics.

Valerie Shortt showed this lovely red modern quilt hanging.

This lovely crazy-patchwork quilt top was made by a new member.

April Meeting

Mary Palmer was our guest speaker at the April meeting. For the 1st part of her talk Mary gave a slideshow about her quilts and where she gets her inspiration from.

Then she moved on to a show and tell of some of her quilts, Mary brought loads of quilts starting with some antique quilts that were in her childhood home.

This was a very well attended meeting, as everyone knew that it was going to be a great talk with Mary as the guest speaker.

Cathedral Windows quilt

Sampler quilt by Mary

There was show and tell on the night as well. This quilt top was made by Chris Palmer, the pattern for the quit is in the 1st Jelly Roll book by Pam and Nicky Lintott.

This quilt by Liz Scalon was started at the Edwina Mackinnon workshop back in February.

Quilt by Liz Scallon

Phyl Awylward made a bag big enough to fit her quilting mat and rulers to bring to workshops.

Bag by Phyl Awylward

 Marcella Maloney showed this quilt that she made along with some schoolchildren that she teaches.

March Meeting

Seams Sew Simple from Roscommon was the shop this month. Shop owner Lynn Naughton also gave us a quick demo on using quilting rulers etc. . 

Show & Tell:

A few of the Mid-West members brought in some show and tell for the meeting. 

Marcella finished this lovely and colourful houses quilt. 

Houses Quilt by Marcella

Gillian Sheehan  is making great progress on her blocks from the recent Edwina Mackinnon "Cut and Come Again" workshop.

Cut and Come Again blocks by Gillian Sheehan

Gillian Killick also brought in a number of items that she has made over the years.

Burren Quilt by Gillian Killick

Wall-hanging by Gillian Killick

Cecilia O'Doherty is busy working on making gifts for her family. Here she is showing a fabric basket/bowl made using green fabric themed for St. Patrick's Day.

Cecilia with her fabric basket

CCoI Teach the Trainer Courses

Crafts Council of Ireland 'Train the Trainer' Course

The Crafts Council of Ireland is looking at providing a number of 'Train the Trainer' courses in 2013, which will provide a FETAC Level 6 accredited qualification. This is a key opportunity to join a training programme that teaches the fundamental principles of successful training, building upon participants' confidence, skills and ability to deliver effective training sessions.


Interested individuals (with at least 2 years experience of giving training courses in their relevant craft) should express their interest via an email to the CCoI. For further details follow this link.

Offaly
Introductory session April 9th - Training Days April 16th / 23rd / 30th

DublinIntroductory session May 28th - Training Days June 4th / 11th / 18th

Louth
Introductory session October 1st - Training Days October 8th /15th /22nd

* If the area you are interested in is not listed, please apply anyway as other venues may be added later in the year.

Cut and Come Again Workshop with Edwina Mackinnon

On February 9th, Mid-West Branch members attended a Cut and Come Again Workshop with UK tutor Edwina Mackinnon.

We also had a few members from the Kerry and Cork branch attending, it was nice to see a few different faces at the workshop.

At the start of the workshop, Edwina got everyone to lay out the fabrics they were planning to use for the workshop. We then went around to every table to see what people were going to use. Even at this stage it was evident that everyone had a totally different choice of fabrics and colour schemes. Advice was given to people about certain fabrics which wouldn't work, the importance of keeping some contrast fabrics, but use the proportions of colours wisely etc.

Some of the fabric selections were:

Moya's fabric selection

Liz's fabrics

Cecilia's fabric selection

Ger's fabrics

Tracy's fabrics

fabrics by Berndatte

Mary's fabrics

Phyl's fabrics

Gillian Sheehan's fabric selection

Grania's fabric selection

After the decisions were made on fabric selection we started to cut into our chosen fabrics. Edwina showed us various ways to create different block types, so everyone got busy cutting and sewing.

This proved to be a very addictive workshop, as the leftovers from one block could be used to create another block. One thing leads onto another, reflecting the name of the workshop "Cut and Come Again".

Edwina had listed a sheet or large piece of wadding on the requirements list and everyone used theirs to create their own design board. When working on a quilt like this, a display board of some type is necessary to ensure that colour proportions are correct, that you don't make too make blocks of one type etc.

One of the workshop attendees was totally taken by this way of quilt-making and was heard to say "sure why would you need to make a quilt any other way".

Edwina also had a number of Cut and Come Again quilts with her, showing how you could make up the quilt in different ways by adding sashing, using the blocks in rows, different layouts etc.

A very nice thing about this workshop was despite the fact that we all working with the same sized squares, the variety of colours, block construction etc. met that everyone's quilts will turn out totally different.


This workshop was very much enjoyed by all the workshop attendees.  I think there's going to be lots of "Cut and Come Again" quilts in the Mid-West Branch in the near future.

Thanks again to Edwina Mackinnon for a very enjoyable workshop!

Festival of Quilts Entry Form

The entry form for the Festival of Quilts is now available.


Click here for the entry form

February Meeting

Edwina Mackinnon from the UK was our guest speaker for our February meeting. She gave a talk " Colour Stories" and how colour is used and why it is so important in her quilts.

Edwina brought a packed suitcase full of quilt pieces for her talk, she said that she kept weighing the bag when packing to ensure that she got as much as possible in there.

Edwina showed us this gorgeous kaleidoscope quilt she had made in a lovely ashes of roses colour scheme.  the quilt contains hand-dyes and some commercial fabrics. Edwina spoke about how in a quilt that this; you should audition fabrics at the start to ensure they are all in the same colour scheme, and then you can add as many fabrics as you like as they will all work..

Edwina Ashes of Roses Kaleidoscope Quilt

Edwina also showed us another kaleidoscope quilt - this one was created from just two fabrics. By using a fabric with a multicolour pattern you can get a totally different look than from the shown quilt above. 

Kaleidoscope Quilt

Edwina then showed us how you can keep on working with a simple pattern and develop it further. In this case, she kept working with the kaleidoscope block, but used in a much smaller scale and also created it this time using English paper piecing.

Glimpse by Edwina Mackinnon

 Edwina then moved on how using a simple colour scheme to make quilts. This particular quilt started off with simple block-printing, to which extra detail was added.

Edwina also showed us this quilt that created in a round robin project which took 14 months to complete. Very cleverly, Edwina machine quilted this one from the back using a flower design which meant that she wasn't distracted by the detail on the front when quilting and that the quilting design linked all the blocks together. 

Edwina's Round Robin Quilt

Edwina also showed us this mini-quilt which she teaches at her "Take One Flower"  workshop

Take one flower quilt by Edwina

Edwina is currently busy working on a number of quilts for upcoming exhibitions. This Sushi quilt forms part of a series of quilts that she is completing.

Sushi quilt by Edwina

Edwina also showed some screen-printed fabrics. Edwina used break-down printing and discharge paste to make this two pieces.

Breakdown printing by Edwina

Breakdown printing by Edwina

Edwina created this quilt for the Festival of Quilts a few years ago, it was created using soy wax batik, dyes etc. to create a landscape piece.  

Show and Tell:
There was some show and tell on the night.

Alison Bingham brought in this colourful and exhuberant quilt which she has been working on for the past two years, all it needs now is binding. The New York Beauty block was made at a Mid-West Branch workshop, and Alison then added in hundreds of flying geese to frame it. Great job Alison!

Quilt by Alison Bingham

Liz Scanlon decided to use up some of her fabric scraps to create a Spiderweb quilt. Liz also used yellow and blue fabrics around each block to create a secondary pattern in the spiderwebs. Another fantastic quilt by a Mid West member.

Spiderweb Quilt by Liz Scanlon