March meeting & workshop photos!

Last month we welcomed Arlene Shawcross to our branch for a talk and a workshop.  We were treated to delicate works of free machine embroidery.  Using a soluble base Arlene is able to make very intricate pieces that she quite often turns into clothing.  Thank you Arlene for sharing your work with us!

 Thank you also to our volunteers and shop on the night!

Our extensive library looked after by Kate and Imelda

Frances and Kate for helping with teas and coffees!

Sew Crafty Fabrics our shop on the night!

Our workshop involved a piece of art created using organza and blending thread and fabrics to reflect a line or image from a piece of poetry or a story.  We all had fun reading things into the shapes and colours.   Arlene's piece that she used to demonstrate her method was based on the image of a woman in a red dress lying on the green grass on a bright sunny day!

This was our show and tell table at the end of the day and it was filled with beautiful colour and texture!

I loved this detail in Louise's piece.  We were all very generous with each other and swapped organza bits.  Louise used some of the selvedge of a piece of yellow I had to make Daffodils and then added some bling!  A lovely touch to her art piece.

These are some of the examples of Arlene's work shared with us on the day!

And the other things I found really pretty were the baskets of thread that Arlene had brought to sell.  I am totally drawn to the warm colours and did have a case of thread envy when I saw Tracey's collection shown on the bottom right.  One day, maybe!
More photos on our Flickr page here! 

National Exhibition in Limerick!

Irish Patchwork Society

The Midwest Branch of the Irish Patchwork Society invites all IPS members to submit quilts for the National Exhibition on the theme of “Evolution”.

Limerick School of Art and Design (LSAD), Limerick City, 12 ^-22^nd July 2016.

Rules of the exhibition:

1.                   The quilt must consist of a minimum of two layers, although any technique may be used.

2.                   Size: quilts can be made to a maximum of 1.25 meter (approx. 50”) on any one side.

3.                   The quilt has a free choice of edging treatments.

4.                   No glass fronted, framed, mounted quilts or quilts made from kits will be allowed.

5.                   The work should have been completed in the last two years.

6.                   The quilt must have a 10 cm (4 inch) hanging sleeve, (with sufficient fullness to accommodate the hanging rod).

7.                   Please ensure that your quilt has a stitched fabric label on the back at the bottom edge with the following information:      

• Name of the Quilt, Name of Quilter, Postal Address, Telephone number.

8.                   The quilt should not have been exhibited prior to submission to this exhibition.

9.                   Quilts made by more than one person at any stage of construction should identify all of those involved.

10.               Quilts are not for sale during the exhibition.

11.               All IPS members are eligible to enter and there is a €10 entry fee per quilt to defray the costs of holding the exhibition.

12.               This is a juried exhibiition. The judging panel’s decision will be final.

13.               The quilts are covered by the IPS insurance once the quilt is received by the hosting branch.

14.               By entering your quilt you agree to have it photographed for publicity purposes and the catalogue of the exhibition.

15.               Each quilt must have its own bag labelled with both the name of the quilt, the name of the maker and your branch.

16.               Quilts will be released at the end of the exhibition period and not before that time.

17.               Deadline for quilts to be received is the 31^st May 2016. No late entries will be accepted due to cataloguing and photographing of quilts. 

Entry form can be downloaded here.

We look forward to receiving your entry and seeing you all for our National exhibition in July!

IPS National AGM

The Irish Patchwork Society AGM will take place on Saturday 1st October in the Ormond Hotel, Ormond Street, Kilkenny. (The hotel is located 10 minutes walk from the train station, 5 minutes walk from Dublin bus stop, accessible car-park etc.)

AGM: Saturday 1st October.
Tea and coffee will be served from 9.30  
Registration 10am

AGM quilt challenge:
Quilts on the theme "Witches and Castles". No bigger than 15" x 15".

Talk:
Afternoon talk by quilt artist Dorothy Russell from Angelesey on the "Butterfly has two wings".

Fees:
Full day inclusive €27.50 (including lunch)
Entry to talk only: IPS members €12, non-IPS members €17


Sunday 2nd October
Workshop: New York Beauty
The New York Beauty block is made using foundation piecing, which makes fine points much easier to achieve. It is a superb technique which gives a very professional look.

Workshop cost is €65.

An Grianan photos!

Thirteen of us from our branch made the trip up to An Grianan this past weekend.  I have uploaded photos to our online archive at Flickr but thought I'd share some of them here on the blog and on our Facebook page too!

Working hard in the Square in the Circle Workshop with Sandra Mongtgomery!

  Some of the projects shared at Show and Tell on the last day:

 Louise and her challenge entry - Sew bunting!

  Thank you ladies for a brilliant weekend!

Requirements list for Tomomi's workshop in February

Free motion quilting workshop

Aims and objective:
To learn how to set up sewing machine and sewing environment to do free motion quilting easily.
To learn how to free motion quilt the basic shapes and create other shapes and motifs from that.
Will make a whole cloth quilt for a cushion cover of 16” or 18”.

Each participants needs:

Own sewing machine with a free-motion, embroidery or darning foot.
Extension table for the machine if available.
If the extension table is going to be used, have a sheet of Supreme slider or heavy duty silicone oven sheet from ALDI.
A practice quilt sandwich; Fat quarter size, made of any fabric
A cushion cover quilt sandwich; 20” for 18” finished, 18” for 16” finished, preferably solid colour to show the quilting.
Good quality threads, for the practice, different coloured thread from the fabric to see quilting better and matching coloured thread would be a better choice for the cushion cover.
Please use low loft wadding.
A pen and some paper for drawing.
Some wrist size elastic band.
Water or air soluble marker.
A pair of quilting gloves or any gloves with non slip dots(optional).

Do clean and oil your sewing machine and balance the thread tension prior to the workshop. Not a single lint left in the bobbin area!

Insert a new needle which should be quilting, top stitch or jeans needle and size 80 for 50wt thread and bigger for heavier thread

Do read or bring the manual of machine, if you don't know which dial does what.

Wind at least two bobbins for practice and two for cushion cover with same thread as top.

Extension power supplies might be needed.

Wear comfortable shoes or no shoes

Morning all! Just thought I'd share some photos and let you know where online our photo archive is. Every month I upload the photos I've been taking at our meetings to our Flickr account Midwest Patchwork. 

Flickr is a photo sharing site owned by Yahoo. You have to have a Yahoo account to log into Flickr. It's free and very easy to set up. Flickr offers a limited storage amount for free users but there are paid options too for more storage and you don't get bombarded with ads. If you pay about 25 dollars a year you get unlimited storage and a Pro after your name!

You can follow people on Flickr similar to Facebook and when you first log in you will see a stream of people's photos that you follow. Commenting and hearts to mark a photo as a favourite are all available and you can send emails to people you follow using Flickrmail.

Flickr used to be a very popular place to share quilt photos and join quilt groups to share work in progress and finishes as part of a quilt a long online or share a project made from a pattern or a technique with the designer. As Instagram and Facebook have become more popular amongst quilters, Flickr is not the go to place anymore but it is still worth a look and very handy for storing images online.

Every month I upload the photos from our meetings and last month started adding them to our Facebook group as well. If you want to see photos of past meetings and exhibitions we have taken part in please visit our group page here!

For now here are some images from our Christmas party at last Decembers meeting!
-Ruth

Upcoming workshop

Tomomi McElwee of Slaney Handcraft has prepared this gorgeous sample for our upcoming workshop in February. The workshop is on free motion quilting and at the end of the day you will have a completed cushion cover and learned traditional quilting motifs like feathers and some modern flower motifs like tulips and daisies.

The sample will be shown at this Friday's meeting and if you are interested in attending the workshop please see Grania Preston to book a place!  For now here are some close ups of Tomomi's gorgeous quilting!