Located in County Cork
Wild Threads West Cork are a group of textile artists, who meet to share, support and stimulate each other to create stunning pieces of hand stitched art. Some of them are our own members, too. They take inspiration from the flora, fauna, land and seascapes of West Cork.
The group have an exhibition at the Blue House Gallery in Schull, from 26 July to 7 August. So take a trip this summer, support them and check out their work!
For more information click on the links in the text.
The IPS is exhibiting 152 EQA Boundaries quilts at the Limerick School of Art and Design. “Boundaries” was the theme for the 2018 EQA challenge, and the quilts were displayed last year in Birmingham.
The exhibition is open from 16-19 July and 22-26 July in the LSAD Cathedral Gallery, from 10 am to 5 pm. Not open at weekends.
The exhibition for Hands Across the Border – Ruby Serendipity had its official opening on Thursday July 6th, in Louth County Library, Dundalk. The exhibition will continue in Dundalk until July 12th, library opening hours.
The Hands Across the Border exhibition then moves to the Chapter Room, St Mary’s Cathedral, St James’s Road, Kilkenny from 17th to 21st of July.
The IPS will be present at the European Quilt Association stand at Festival of Quilts in Birmingham from July 31st to August 4th.
Challenges:
– Knitting and Stitching: The challenge for all members is to make a quilt measuring A2 (16.5″x23.4″) (420mm x 594mm) ‘portrait’ and the theme is “There is always one!” Quilts to be brought to your September meeting. Forms will be available shortly.
– For those of you who like a challenge there is an open call for art work for Westival Music and Arts Festival in Westport in October. The closing date for the visual arts call out is August 16th 2019. The theme is Brittle/Fragile – what suits this theme better than textiles? – have a go, the more we present textiles for exhibition the more acceptable it will become and we all know that we can hold our against any other art medium. More information on https://westival.ie/pages/visual-arts-open-call
We met at the Sacred Heart Church on Saturday 8 June.
Jane Horner gave a wonderful demo of her (almost) singing and dancing overlocker machine (serger in US). She uses it very effectively and fast(!!) for patchwork, and showed us all how it is done – thank you, Jane!
Moya brought her shop Patchwork Plus.
Frances McCarthy told us with great enthusiasm about “#52blocks52weeks – Experiences of a weekly Block Party” that she is participating in.
This refers to a programme of 6″ quilt block patterns that are published online each week for a year (52 weeks, that’s why). Participants post photos of their weekly block on the dedicated Facebook group page, which is also where they get into contact with each other. If you go to the #52blocks52weeks website, you will find some more explanation how it works. The programme is run by the Canadian Quilters’ Association.
Frances showed us images of blocks that have been produced so far, halfway into the year, as well as her own blocks. What was especially striking, was the difference in blocks depending on colour choices, placement of dark and light, and the scale of the prints chosen for each block. Some blocks were fantastic, others just didn’t seem to work. We look forward to see what quilts will be produced from the project!
For our show and tell again some great work was shown off:
Bernie Kelly and Tina Hawkes showed their work from last month’s mystery block workshop:
Other beautiful works included some that travelled all the way from New Zealand with Frances Gamble who visited:
Many more showed off their inspiring projects, from panels to blocks, from small to large:
And Mary Palmer brought her award winning quilt that has come home from its travels:
We hope you all have a great summer, hopefully with some sunshine and a little stitching thrown in.
See you in September!
For those of you who intend to go to the AGM this weekend, the agenda of the meeting can be downloaded below:
AGENDA AGM Irish Patchwork Society (39 KB)
Also, in case you haven’t received an email about the last-minute change of venue for the weekend, below are the main changes:
Have an enjoyable weekend in Galway!
Our June meeting, the last before we break up for the summer, will take place this Saturday, June 8th from 10 am.
Shop: Patchwork Plus – Moya Geraghty
Library: check out our books
Demonstrator: Jane Horner – using an overlocker for fast patchwork
Speaker: Frances McCarthy
Show & Tell: please bring us your latest work (complete or WIP)
Coffee and tea will be available, offerings of cake/biscuits and other snacks will be gratefully received…
We gathered for a great meeting on Saturday 18 May.
A wonderful group of quilters visited us from the Mid West branch, and Nikki from the Sewing Shed brought her goodies from County Kerry.
We started by introducing the new branch committee:
At the start of a new year for the committee, we wanted to give everyone the opportunity to let us know what you want from our meetings and our branch. Suggestion slips were available at the meeting in the hope of receiving feedback from our members. Let us know what you like, what you don’t like, who or what you’d like to see at the meetings, etc. If you missed them, they will be available again next month. Or get in touch with anyone of the committee to pass on your views…
Frances announced we have been invited to attend the opening of the exhibition “Colours of my Mind”, featuring work from Joke Buursma and Ethelda Ellis. The exhibition will be open in Mountmellick until the 27th of June.
Suzanne Pass from the Mid West branch then showed us slides of the 15 quilts she and others in the branch made for the Heart Children Ireland (also known as Henry Bear), a charity that provides quilts for children in Crumlin. they had just been handed over the previous week, but Suzanne also made a heart quilt for herself which she showed.
After that, all visitors from the Mid West branch showed us some of their individual work. From their wonderfully varied quilts:
To bags, wall hanging and cushion:
And a great reversible quilt:
Then it was time for our own show and tell:
And Marie and Mai showed some quilts they had made for the Cork Cancer care Centre (formerly the Girls Club) who are looking for lap quilts.
In the afternoon Frances had an enthusiastic group (including the Mid West members) to do a mystery quilt, which was greatly enjoyed by all accounts.
We hope you will all be coming to our next meeting on June 8th, which will be the last before the summer.
