December: Christmas Party

Thanks to everyone on the committee who helped to provide the food for our annual Christmas party and to all those who helped arrange tables, serve and clear up afterwards.
To all those who made a dish....email Ester the recipes to add to our new recipe page (see the tab at the top of the blog).

December: Christmas Challenge

December's challenge was to make a Christmas-themed item. And the winner was...

Joan Colleran with this fantastic wall-hanging! She won a lovely bundle of fabrics donated by Sandlin.

Below are photos of the other entries.

December: Show and Tell

Despite the recent severe weather, we had quite a good turn-out at our December meeting. With lots of items for 'Show and Tell'

This quilt top was made by Sandlin and long-arm machine-quilted in variegated thread by a friend.

This sampler quilt was made by Frances Conroy.

This nursury quilt was made by Rosalie.

Sally's quilt was an unfinished project until recently and she machine-quilted it herself.

This is another quilt by Sally.

Mary finished this Jacob's Ladder quilt which was started last year at the workshop by Linda McMulkin.

Margaret has added 'yo-yos' (also known as Suffolk Puffs) to a Boots gift-bag to make a useful sewing bag.

Margaret also recently completed this Christmas wall-hanging which she had started last year.

Linda shows us the back and...

front of a patchwork bag, which also has useful internal pockets. Perhaps this is a workshop for a future date?

Christmas Party Saturday 11th December

Last year's Christmas Pudding Tea-cosy by Ester Kiely

Despite the weather we've had recently we are expecting a good crowd for our annual Christmas party on Saturday 11th December.

Christmas Challenge: bring along a Christmas themed item you have made for the challenge and vote for your favourite. There's a prize for the viewer's choice.

Fat Quarter Bingo: bring along a fat-quarter to participate. The winner takes home a great stash of fabric!

Party food: A selection of treats for everyone to enjoy as we kick off the Christmas festivities together.

So if you have been suffering from cabin-fever after the cold spell, come along for some festive cheer to the Bridge Centre at 10am on Saturday 11th December. We look forward to seeing you there!

Limerick Quilt Retreat for IPS members in February 2011

We received some info about the upcoming Limerick Quilt Retreat (Feb 2011).

The retreat will be different to the usual 'An Grianan' weekend, as there will be no scheduled teachers or workshops. Instead, this will be a social weekend where you have the entire weekend to work on projects and catch up with IPS friends from around the country. This could also be the perfect opportunitity to finish up your "Branching Out" quilts for the upcoming exhibitions.

The weekend will run for the weekend of Friday 18th February to Sunday 20th February 2011 at the Limerick Strand Hotel, Limerick City.

There is a reduced rate of €169 per person sharing in a twin room for the weekend. This includes 2 nights bed and breakfast and 2 evening meals. Single supplement is €40 for the weekend.

Also included in this price is the use of a large "sewing room" for members which is at the top of the hotel and has wonderful views over the Shannon. This "sewing room" will be set up so that people can use it till late on Friday night, all through Saturday, and on Sunday until 4pm.

Booking is via the reservations number 061-421890 for Irish Patchwork Society members. Note: People will have to make the bookings with the hotel themselves!

The Limerick Strand Hotel, Ennis Road, Limerick is centrally located in the city, so it should be easy to get to for most people. There is an on-site underground car-park with 200 spaces (€5 per 24 hours).
The hotel also has a heated 20m swimming pool, jacuzzi, sauna, gym room etc. so there is plenty of amenities on-site. See http://www.strandhotellimerick.ie/ for further details.

Information about this Retreat is also up on the IPS blog www.irishpatchwork.blogspot.com and details will also be included in the Winter Newsletter.

Christmas is coming!

(Wall-hanging by Margaret Cunnane)

Our December meeting (Saturday 11th December) is always a relaxed and fun affair as we all wind down (or gear up!) for the Christmas holidays!

After the usual meeting and sharing of news, we will have a game of 'Fat Quarter Bingo'. If you haven't played this before, don't worry all will be explained on the day. To join in bring along a 'fat quarter' (for those of you new to quilting, that's just a square of fabric approx 20 x 22inches). The winner of the game will win the pot of 'fat quarters' to take home!

We will also have a 'Christmas Challenge'. For this all you have to do is bring along a Christmas themed item that you have made with fabric (decorations, place-mats, wall-hanging or anything). Viewers will vote for their favourite and the viewer's choice will win a small Christmas gift.

Afterwards we will have a buffet lunch. The committee will organise the food, so all you have to do is show up and be in party mood!

Schoolhouse Quilters Exhibition opens Fri 26th November

The Schoolhouse Quilters exhibition takes place at Our Lady's Bower Secondary School, Retreat Road, Athlone and the official opening is on Friday 26th November from 7 to 8.30pm with the Mayor of Athlone, Sheila Buckley Byrne. The exhibition will also be open for viewing on Saturday, 27th November from 11-5pm and on Sunday, 28th November from 11-4pm.

November: "Stack and Whack" workshop with Mogs McDonnell

After our November meeting Mogs McDonnell taught a ‘whack and stack’ workshop which at least 15 members attended.

We all watched in trepidation as Mogs showed us how to draw up the template that we would use as our pattern. She gave us some good advice on how to make up our template so that we wouldn’t end up with very small pieces of fabric that might be hard to work with, and we used a simple numbering system on the fabric pieces which corresponded with the numbers on the template.

We were able to choose for ourselves whether to divide our fabric into 4,6, or 8 pieces (or more if you were working with larger pieces of fabric). The amount of finished squares would depend on the number of pieces that you divided the fabric into e.g. 4 pieces = 4 squares, 6 pieces = 6 squares and so on.
As we were able to design our own template, our finished pieces were all individual and unique.

What initially looked like a very complicated procedure actually turned out to be quite a simple one, once you got into the swing of it. The pieces were very easy to assemble and the finished squares were very quick to make up and could be used to make a variety of things from placemats to wall hangings, lap quilts to full size quilts.

This was a fabulous workshop that was suitable for all levels and I for one will definitely be using this technique again.

Thanks Mogs for teaching such a great workshop I thoroughly enjoyed it and I’m sure that everyone else that attended did too.

Workshop review by Jackie O’Toole (see below for photos showing the variety of blocks made at the workshop)

November: Guest Speaker, Mogs McDonnell

Mogs McDonnell has been a member of the IPS since around 1995. She first began making quilts from a book of patterns and then attended classes with Helen Hardesty, a teacher Mogs admires greatly. Mogs later decided to study for her degree in Art and Design, specialising in Textiles at GMIT. Mogs now teaches a variety of workshops at her lovely stone-built studio "Bolg na Talun", Lisheenageeha, Headford. Mogs is registered with the Crafts Council of Ireland (see www.ccoi.ie for more information)

These two quilts were hand screen-printed from original designs by Mogs based on an old mill in Tuam.

This quilt is entitled 'Lady of the Lake' with an impression of Mogs in the middle.

This quilt is an original design by Mogs and started at a 'Solstice Arts' community day for cultural integration at Campbell's Tavern in Cloughanover (near Headford). Members of the local community, the gospel choir and various ethnic groups living in Galway were invited to create a print of their hand and inscribe it with their own hand-written message. Mogs then created the yin & yang central panel representing earth, wind, fire and water, surrounded by symbols of the sun, moon and stars. The quilt took a couple of years to finish and was launched at a subsequent event at Campbell's where many who had a 'hand' in it returned to see the finished piece. An artist's book was also created to mark the event. Although the quilt later 'disappeared' for a little while from the tavern, a special poster appealing for news of the quilt was successful in reuniting the quilt with its creator! But the quilt will appear again at future community events.

November: Show and Tell

Veronika showed a tiny patchwork doll's quilt she made for her daughter.

This was the quilt Veronika submitted for the national "Links" exhibition. The quilt shows the links between Veronika and her grandmother, both of whom left their homes for different reasons. The quilt traces their journeys with lots of memories along the way.

Margaret shows a patchwork teacosy...if anyone has a pattern for similar Margaret would love to find it again!

This cupcake-themed quilt was made for Margaret's daughter's friend. Both girls share a love of baking and visiting each other's houses for baking sessions and tea! The back of the quilt is ideal for snuggling up as it's a soft fleecy blanket from Penney's put to good use!

This is one of Madeleine's cushions made from a wall-hanging that was 're-purposed'.

Madeleine also made this quilt which was ordered to include lots of red, orange and yellow.

Madeleine's next project was a wonderful quilt made with scraps of curtain fabric.

Joan showed a Christmas wall-hanging where the triangles act as pockets to hold your collection of Christmas cards.

Colette made this lovely Advent calendar where the characters are taken from the pockets and attached to the buttons on the Nativity scene in the countdown to Christmas.

Bernie showed this lovely Kimono quilt which made great use of her collection of Japanese fabrics. All the leftover scraps were used to create the centre panel.