Western Branch of the Irish Patchwork Society

08 May, 2010

May: Western Challenge Trophy presented to Johanna Tyrell

"Hearts for Ella" by Johanna Tyrell wins the Western Trophy Challenge.

Miriam Gogarty (Executive Chair of IPS), Johanna Tyrell (Western Trophy Challenge winner) and Veronika Feldmann (Chair of Western Branch of IPS).

Miriam Gogarty was invited as this year's judge for the Western Trophy Challenge at 'The West's Awake' exhibition in the Galway City Museum.

Miriam complimented everyone on the work displayed and the overall presentation of the exhibition. She also gave a special mention to a number of quilts in the exhibition, which she admired for a variety of reasons.

However, one quilt stood out for it's workmanship, choice of colours and the warmth of the sentiment inspiring its creation. With great pleasure Miriam and Veronika presented the award to Johanna Tyrell for her beautiful quilt 'Hearts for Ella'.

Congratulations Johanna from all your friends in the Western Branch!

May: Show & Tell

Celtic quilt by Monica Lannon.

'Lara's Quilt' was made by Brenda Maloney for our littlest member Lara Feldmann!

Margaret Cunnane finished the 'Jacob's Ladder' quilt, which she started at Linda McMulkin's workshop.

May: Show & Tell

Lynn Naughton showed us a selection of the fabrics she dyed at last month's workshop with Nikki Foley.

Lynn decided to use these fabrics as a starting point for some experimental techniques she is learning from instructional videos at www.lindakemshall.com (Design Matters TV).

The fruit shapes were created by cutting a stencil from freezer paper and ironing it onto the fabric, bleach (or in this case toilet cleaner!) was applied to remove the dye, then the fruit was coloured in using Markal sticks (some info on how to use markal sticks can be found at www.embroiderersguild.com/stitch/projects/markal/index.html).

Lynn has created totally original fabric, with lovely shading, using these techniques and intends to continue her fruit theme to make a quilt/wall-hanging.

May: Show & Tell

Lynn also told us about some interesting tools for free-motion quilting that she has started to use as recommended by Leah Day (at www.daystyledesigns.com and www.freeemotionquilting.blogspot.com).

Supreme Slider costs approx $30 and sits on the bed of your machine. The bottom surface is non-slip and adheres to your machine-bed. The upper surface allows your work to glide freely as you machine-quilt. It has a hole to allow the needle to stitch as normal.

These quilter's gloves are made from a light breathable cotton yet they have rubber tipped fingers to allow you to grip the fabric for free-motion stitching. Some of us have used other gloves, gardening gloves or even footballer's gloves which can be a cheaper alternative, but they are sometimes a bit uncomfortable to wear. Lynn recommends these 'Machingers'.

These and other tools can be found at www.daystyledesigns.com.

07 May, 2010

City Tribune writes about "The West's Awake" Exhibition

A number of photographs from the opening of the exhibition featured in this week's City Tribune.

05 May, 2010

Newspaper reports on exhibition at the Museum

A photograph and article appeared on page 8 of today's Galway Independent about the Western Branch exhibition "The West's Awake" at the Galway City Museum.
Rosalie Andrews, Veronika Feldmann and Joan Colleran display "Western Reflections" a heritage quilt which will be worked on throughout the month at the Museum and presented to the Museum for its permanent collection.

04 May, 2010

Exhibition: The West's Awake is opened by the Mayor of Galway

We are very excited to see our exhibition open at the Galway City Museum for the whole month of May. This is our second time exhibiting at this beautiful location, where all the staff make us very welcome and we always receive great feedback from visitors to the Museum. We are expecially grateful to Breandan and Mattie for the care and attention with which they have displayed our work.

The exhibition was opened officially today, Tuesday 4th May by the Mayor of Galway, Declan McDonnell. We were delighted that he was able to attend despite his busy schedule. Sandlin Poth made a beautiful cushion, inspired by the marble tiles of Galway City Cathedral which was presented to the Mayor. The quilt on display behind them in the photograph is "Prairie Flowers" by Marie McPhilips.

Toni Foley and her sister are photographed in front of the group quilt made by Western Branch members and quilted by Frances Conroy. This quilt will now be raffled amongst those who contributed a block.

Lynn Naughton, Marie McPhilips, Bridgie Dalton and Pat O'Rourke from Roscommon stand in front of Bridgie's hand appliqued quilt.

Sally Coyle, James Harald (Galway City Arts Officer) and Margaret Cunnane in front of "Autumn Flight" by Colette O'Donnell.

Anna, Veronika and Lara Feldmann with Rosalie Andrews in front of "Rhythm and Blue" by Vera Buckley.

More photos from the opening of The West's Awake

Aine Ui Dhomhnaill with her mother and Breandan O'Heaghaire of Galway City Museum in front of Aine's first exhibition piece.

Peter and Linda McMulkin in front of "The West's awake, morning, noon and night" by Rosalie Andrews. We wish Linda a speedy recovery to her ankle!

Mogs McDonnell shows her "Amish for Saoirse" quilt to a guest.

Ester Kiely in front of her "Family Ties" quilt which returned from its travels to the Heritage exhibition in Sitges, Spain and Canada.

Mari Moran and Sandlin Poth in front of "Jacob's Ladder" by Jackie O'Toole.

More photos of the opening of "The West's Awake"

Invited guests listen to the Mayor's speech.

Invited guests listen to the story about the Hungarian/Irish collaboration on the two "Let the Flowers Bloom" quilts.

Liz and Breege from Abbeyknockmoy ICA group meet the Mayor of Galway and admire the "Let the Flowers Bloom" quilts. Abbeyknockmoy are currently working on their first patchwork wall-hanging to commemorate the ICA centenary in 2010 (see http://www.esterkiely.blogspot.com/ for more information on this project).

Anna Feldmann and friends in front of the "Let the Flowers Bloom" quilt.

Aisling sings "The West's Awake" to mark the opening of the exhibition.

26 April, 2010

The West's Awake

Please note the Galway City Museum is open Tuesday to Saturday from 10am to 5pm during May. It will be closed on Sundays and Mondays.

23 April, 2010

April: Heritage Quilt Update

Another step was completed today at Mogs' lovely studio near Headford. The 3 layers of the Heritage quilt were put together and tacked ready for the quilting stage. Quilting will begin now and continue at the museum as the exhibition is in progress for the month of May. Visitors to the museum will see the work in progress before the quilt is finally presented to the museum for its collection.

17 April, 2010

April: Workshop on dyeing with Nikki Foley

Dyeing can be a messy business! But it looks like everyone was enjoying themselves! We'll have to wait to see some of the results when these hand-dyed fabrics make their way into some new quilts.

April: Show & Tell

This month's "show & tell" was impressive but remember this wasn't just the items finished in the last month.....these are all the wall-hangings and quilts submitted for our exhibition (which happens every 2 years) so it is a selection of the work completed since 2008. Perhaps we won't be able to include all of them in the exhibition which runs from 1st - 31st May at the Galway City Museum, so it's worth showing them here.