Located in County Cork
Our next meeting is Saturday 9 September, Sacred Heart Church, 10am – 12.30pm.
Please remember your summer challenge, your annual renewal (€40 – please try to join at a branch meeting, it makes sorting out newsletters much easier!) and something for show & tell.
IPS Southern Branch met on 10 June, with main speaker Tina Sullivan Hawkes on “A Quilter’s Journey,” Patchwork Plus shop in attendance and a great show and tell from our members. Assumpta opened with a moment of remembrance for Kate O Kelly, who died 4 May 2017. Kate attended our meetings with her mother Hilary and we ask you keep the family in your thoughts.
Erin, our previous chair, presented the last part of the 2016 -2017 block of the month – how to put it all together! Find the instructions here.
Tina willingly shared her quilting story, from “only wanting to ‘collect’ nice fabric!” to running quilting groups in Knockavilla and at Colaiste Choilm.
Gallery of Tina’s Quilts:
She shared this top tip: “When working with flannel – wash on the rinse cycle and tumble dry before use – this will deal with any shrinkage.”
Show and Tell: 11 members brought work to show:
Reminder: September meeting is 9 September 10:00 – 13:00 at Sacred Heart, bring your membership renewal money, your summer challenge and show and tell.
At the June branch meeting the Summer Challenge was announced.
TRY A TRIANGLE
no size limit, no colour or fabric limitations, enter anything that you’d describe as “a triangle quilt”
prize: all entrants will be put in a draw for a sewing machine service at the October Meeting – so bring in whatever you make!
Check out this pinterest board for ideas, but if you think it is a triangle quilt, then so do we!
IPS Southern Branch met on 13 May, with main speaker Moya Geraghty on “Big Prints and how to use them,” the Sewing Shed shop in attendance and a great show and tell from our members. Erin, our outgoing chair, presented the latest block of the month and was in turn presented with a quilt made by members of Southern Branch in gratitude for her work for the branch during her time in Cork. 40 shades of green to take back to the USA!
Hazel Armstrong brought a display of the items she makes for “Days for Girls” – a day in June is being organised, come to sew, or donate the makings. Contact Mary O Regan for more information (see separate post about this).
Announcements:
2 June, 2017: Deadline for River of Dreams show. Any baby quilts shown can then be donated for Henry Bear Quilts. Further details and entry form here.
17 & 18 June, 2017: Lismore Quilts – Quilts in the Cathedral (more information here)
Month of June, 2017: Exhibition of Current “and Older” Patchwork Quilts by Christine M. Sawyer in Fermoy Library
On Big Prints:
Gallery of Big Print Quilts:
Show and Tell: 7 members brought work to show
Reminder: June meeting is 10 June, 10:00 – 13:00 at Sacred Heart,
We are having a Days for Girls kit making day Monday 26 June 2017 @ Bishopstown GAA hall, 10am to 4pm – bring your own lunch.
Let us know what you feel you might like to do to help… Overlocking, machine sewing, tracing, cutting out, ironing, donating items, chatting!!!
Queries?: Please contact: Mary O Regan (mary “at” redsockproductions.com 0876682641), or Mary Palmer (marimu.designs “at” gmail.com) or Assumpta Lydon (skipper.assumpta “at” gmail.com)
Email – corkireland “at” daysforgirls.org
Donations Required
FABRICS – ALL FABRICS NEED TO BE PRE-WASHED
What we need to make 50 kits
Greetings members!
On April 8th, we met for our yearly AGM.
We started with announcements. These included:
After announcements, we then commenced with our AGM.
We started with the Chair’s Report. This is the abridged version:
On behalf of the committee, I’d like to extend another warm welcome to our members, visitors, shop.
It’s been a fantastic year for the Southern Branch of the IPS. We’ve increased our membership to 74 members, and average 40 members attending the monthly meetings. As of Friday, we have 198 likes on Facebook (when someone likes a page, the activity of the page is seen in their timeline). When we post on Facebook, we also average about 400 people seeing that post through page likes and post shares. Since the creation of the website just a year and a half ago, we’ve also had (as of Friday) 7,063 individual visitors to the website. These visitors have been viewing our pages 20,444 times. We also established a presence on YouTube and have 140 subscribers and over 8,300 views! Having a strong web presence is now essential to having a successful organization now.
Now, to recap the year:
In May I had the pleasure of being elected Chair at the handover meeting. At that meeting, we decided to use two focus words to guide the committee in programming. These words were “Education” and “Community” The committee put forth a Cathy Davis’s quilt, Rainbow Rings for consideration to represent Ireland in the Festival of Quilts Diversity Exhibition. I’m proud to say that Cathy’s quilt was selected to represent the country. Our meeting was education focused, with a binding demonstration and quilting with rulers demonstration.
In June, we had the pleasure to host Ruth Bourke for a Tradtional Blocks Made Modern workshop, and talk on the modern quilting movement. Ruth’s talk was exceptional and everyone enjoyed participating in the workshop. We debuted the summer challenge theme, Revolutionary, to be interpreted as members were inspired. We also began our second Block of the Month series. We also hosted a brainstorming session at this meeting, giving members an opportunity to weigh in on what kind of programming they’d like to have and participate in.
Though we had a break off from our meetings over the summer, the members of the Southern Branch were quite active. Several members participated in the National Exhibition, Evolution in Limerick. We continued the Block of the Month series, and members worked hard on their Revolutionary entries.
In September we began our monthly meetings again. Maeve gave us a Christmas demonstration, Tracy Wardle was the winner of the Summer Challenge, and the Executive Chair, Kelly Fogarty joined us at our meeting.
In October, it was our annual open meeting. We had three demonstrations going on during the extended social time, and John O’Donnell gave us an excellent presentation. In order to make things easier for our librarians, we had our used book sale at this meeting, earning over €60 and making the lifting a little easier for the librarians. After this meeting we had our first Open Sew Afternoon, with about 15 members participating.
I also had the opportunity to represent the branch at the National AGM in October. On Friday, Assumpta and I attended the outreach meeting for Branch leadership and was able to contribute to the discussion about the website. They gave Cork much praise in regards to our efforts on the website.
The Southern Branch was then selected to organize the 2017 National AGM in Cork. The committee has taken steps to organize this, from selecting the site, The Kingsley and the instructor, Janice Gunner.
The committee organized quite a busy November meeting. We invited the Mid-Western IPS Branch from Limerick to join us, as well as inviting two shops to exhibit at the meeting, Lismore Quilts and Sew Crafty Fabrics. After the meeting, we had an open sew afternoon and treated the Mid-Western Branch members to lunch.
In December, had our usual Christmas festivities. Ann hosted the Table Quiz and did a fantastic job coming up with challenging questions. We then had our Christmas challenge, a Mug Rug. Patricia O’Brien was decided the winner and the members who wanted to, swapped their Mug Rugs. We had two Blocks of the Month, and Moya gave us a talk on Christmas and Patchwork projects.
In January, we had a fantastic demonstration on the importance of labelling your quilts. Tomomi McElwee was our guest speaker, giving a history of her quilting journey. After the meeting, Tomomi presented her challenging Patchwork Bag workshop.
In February, we met and hosted another swap, a pincushion swap. Emer Fahy also gave us a detailed talk on Color Theory. February was also the deadline for Nine Patches from members.
These nine patches were then used to make a quilt for the Community Exhibition held in the Sirius Arts Centre in Cobh. This quilt was given in thanks to the Sirius for hosting the exhibition from the 2nd of March to the 26th of March. We had the opening for the exhibition on the 2nd of March with Seamus McGrath in attendance.
At our March meeting We invited Ruth Bourke, now Chair of the Executive committee to the branch for another talk. This time it was about trends in online quilting. Following the meeting, Ruth led a workshop about making a ticker tape quilt.
Which brings us to today. Quite a successful year.
On a personal note, I’d like to thank you for your organization. When I first arrived here 3 years ago, I found it was quite an isolating experience. My boys were young, and I hadn’t really found my people. I hated being away from my family and friends. It was a chance trip to Dingle, and a trip to the Sewing Shed on the way that helped me find out about the branch. When I arrived, Tracy made a point of being very welcome to me because of that, when a month or two later volunteers were asked to step forward to help Tracy out, I volunteered. Because of that, I found my place here and Ireland and grew to love it here. I’d like to thank every one of you for that. In particular, I’d like to thank the ladies I’ve had the pleasure of serving on this committee with.
The minutes of the previous AGM were then read and accepted.
Ann gave us her Treasurer’s report, letting members know that the Branch has healthy finances.
Joanna gave us her Executive Representative Report.
One motion was put forth and approved. The motion was to take any monies earned yearly by the library and reinvest it in buying new books. Volunteers stepped forward to come up with a suggestion for books to buy for this year.
Finally, we requested members to step forward to join the new committee, as Ann, Erin and Susan had to step down this year. Many thanks to Mary, Áine and Frances for stepping forward. We’re meeting on the 29th for a handover meeting if there are any other members interested in stepping forward.
Once the AGM was completed, we had a fantastic Show and Tell:
Many thanks to members for showing off all of their fantastic work.
Our next meeting is happening the 13th of May. See you then!
Greetings members!
With our AGM happening this month, this is going to be one of my last opportunities to write to you on behalf of the committee. It’s been an honor to serve as the chair, and I’ve learned and grown so much though my experience here at the Southern Branch.
On April 8th, 2017 we’ll be meeting at the Sacred Heart Church on Western Road at 10:00 am.
Patchwork Plus will be our shop.
The agenda of the meeting includes:
Tea and coffee is provided, other refreshments depend on your generosity.
A few notes for you about the AGM. This is the yearly meeting where the formal business of the organization is performed. During the meeting, we’ll have the Chair’s Report, Minutes of the last AGM, Treasurer’s Report, Executive Representative’s report, Motions, election of new committee, and any new business. Please see the attached file for the Agenda. I’d recommend printing your own for taking any notes as we’ll only have a limited amount of copies.
The committee has decided that visitors are welcome to sit in the meeting, however only paid up members are allowed to vote on any business presented.
A note about any motions that you’d like to put forward—motions presented at the Southern Branch’s AGM should only be actionable for the Southern Branch. If you’re interested in putting forth a motion for Executive level business, that should be done at the National AGM that is happening October 7th at the Kingsley here in Cork. Remember that any motions presented at the local or national level need to be specific and actionable to be accepted.
I’d also like to invite all members of the branch to join the committee! It’s essential for the branch to run smoothly to have 5-6 members on the committee. With three members stepping down, the branch will need three more to take their place. The current committee has focused on making the transition as easy as possible by having plans in place for all of the meetings up to June.
Did you get a chance to see the Community Exhibition at the Sirius Arts Centre? Wasn’t it a fantastic exhibition? If you submitted a quilt, you can pick it up at our meeting on Saturday. If you aren’t able to attend our meeting on Saturday, you can arrange a time to get your quilt from Assumpta. You can email her at skipper.assumpta@gmail.com or phone her at (087) 224 1540.
Let me know if you have any questions or concerns!
–Erin
