August: Quilts by 'Ready Thready Sew' at the Tuam Arts Festival

The 3rd Annual Quilt Exhibition by the members of Tuam's quilt group, Ready Thready Sew, was held during Tuam Arts Festival 20th to 28th August 2010.
The group produced a riot of quilts large and small from pram quilts with coordinating soft toys to full bed size quilts and everything in-between.

Nora Brennan, a Western branch IPS member, entered a number of lovely quilts along with a really striking Cathedral Windows cushion in black with vivid silks in the 'windows. Nora bought the silks in Kathmandu and her inspiration was the multi coloured powders used by Hindus to paint their bodies and faces during the celebration to the God of Springtime. See the photos below for Nora's inspiration and resulting cushion.

The following photos are just a few of the many other quilts included in the exhibition.

(info provided by Sally Marrable)

August: A bundle of joy for Grandma Poth

Congratulations to Western Branch member, Sandlin Poth, on the birth of her gorgeous grandson, Stetson Skye Poth on 4th August, 2010.

The lucky boy looks very happy wrapped in his quilt made by Grandma.

Tuam quilt group, Ready Thready Sew will exhibit their work at the Tuam Arts Festival

The Tuam Arts Festival will run from 20th to 28th August, 2010. Tuam quilt group, Ready Thready Sew, has made 3 "community" quilts to display, among others, as part of the festival. This quilt, which was made with turquouse fabrics left over from the main community quilt, is approx 52 x 63 inches and is destined for Crumlin hospital. The main quilt, in many shades of blue, is bed size and will be raffled in aid of St. Vincent de Paul. A further small quilt is also destined for Crumlin.

Headford Quilts on the way to California!

A delegate from the Morgan Hill, California twinning committee visited Headford recently and made contact with Mogs McDonnell. The South Valley Quilt Association organises a major exhibition each year and they were hoping to show some quilts from their Irish twin-town, Headford. Mogs contacted the quilters who meet at her studio, "Bolg na Talun" to submit their work and 9 pieces were parcelled up and are now on their way to California. Here are some of those quilts.

"The Irish Chain" by Nuala McHugh

"Snail Mini Trail" by Mogs McDonnell

"Margarita" by Teresa Fahey

Maybe other towns/groups could look towards their twin-towns abroad for other possible quilting collaborations?

For more information on the South Valley Quilt Association see http://www.svqa.org/.

Headford Quilts on the way to California!

Some more of the quilts on the way to Morgan Hill, California for the South Valley Quilt Association's exhibition in September.

"Letters Home" by Ester Kiely

"I'm gonna marry a lighthouse keeper and keep him company" by Lila McHugh

"Forever and Ever" by Mary O'Grady

"Cat-A-List" by Mogs Mc Donnell

"A light in the dark" by Mogs McDonnell

An innovative stitch-related workshop with "Sampler Culture Clash"

I was one of a number of tutors involved in the "Support for Women" project at Leitrim Design House over the last year.

The project was aimed at women who have been impacted by conflict in their lives and it was a multi-disciplinary, multi-media, cross-border project.

Throughout the year they participated in self-development, creative journalling, creative textiles, painting, glass-making, printing and mixed media collage workshops. The project culminated with an exhibition of their work at "The Golden Thread" gallery in Belfast which will now travel to Leitrim Design House, Carrick-on-Shannon for an opening on August 19th at 5.30pm (all are welcome!).

On 22nd of July I travelled with the women to Belfast to participate in a workshop with David Littler and Yusra Warsama (also known as "Sampler Culture Clash"). Here our written and spoken responses to the exhibition were recorded to create a soundtrack to accompany the exhibition. The words were also translated into cross-stitch samplers and the patterns also fed into a piano player machine to create music!

The photos show some of this work in progress. The workshop was very enjoyable and provided me with a totally new perspective of stitch-related art. Very interesting stuff!

For more information see http://www.sampler-cultureclash.blogspot.com/.

For further information on the exhibition "Changing Art and Minds" see http://www.intoleitrim.com/.

Ester Kiely

September Workshop: Stitching on soluble fabric

The workshop planned for September, after our Summer break, is "Stitching on soluble fabric" with Ester Kiely. Here are some samples of how Ester has used soluble fabric in projects:

Detail from "Love Letters" where soluble fabric was used to create the stitched 'envelopes'.

A bowl created by trapping sheer fabrics between two layers of soluble fabric and free-machine embroidering using metallic and plain threads.

Miniature bowls created by stitching into soluble fabric with a variety of coloured threads. Vintage lace has been included to further embellish the one on the right.

Detail from "Jewelbox" a wall-hanging where 3D boxes were created by stitching onto soluble fabric.

Soluble fabric is easy to use and fun to experiment with. Once you master the basic steps of placing the fabric in a hoop and creating a grid with your free-machined stitches you are free to experiment and discover the potential for trapping threads and sheers, suspending pieces in a web of stitches, creating your own machine lace, stitched drawings, 3D objects, etc. This technique can also be used to create texured surfaces for your patchwork and quilting projects. The class is suitable for all skill levels.

For the class you will need:

• your sewing machine (you do need to be able to drop the feed-dogs or cover them with the plate provided)
• darning foot (this works best with a closed circular darning foot so that it does not catch in the thread)
• selection of threads, sheer fabrics and snippets of interesting fabrics
• embroidery hoop (some extras will be available to share on the day)
• your usual sewing accessories (scissors, bobbins, pins, etc)
• possibly some small bowls or other 3D shapes to use as moulds to shape your piece
• soluble fabric (some will be available to buy on the day which will be sufficient for you to create 3 or 4 sample pieces of work)

Lakeland Quilt Fair, Cavan County Museum 3-30th September

The above photo of the programme for the Lakeland Quilt Fair is difficult to read here, but you can request a copy by ringing the Museum at 049 8544070.

This is the 10th year of this fair and Frances Sawaya has put together a great programme to suit everyone. It includes two exhibitions:

• Make it New - An exhibition of new work from the Textile Art Forum
• Now and Then - An exhibition of traditional bed quilts with a modern focus

There are workshops running from 5th to 23 September by Nikki Foley, Pat Archibald, Pauline Openeer, Gloria Loughman and Amanda Northey-Damms.

The following shops will also be selling supplies at the fair:

• Farmhouse Quilts, Wicklow
• The Cotton Shed, Portadown
• The Fennel Shed, Buncrana
• Just Cotton, Athboy
• The Sewing Shed, Kerry