On June 11, the Southern Branch met for our final meeting before the Summer Break.  We started the meeting with some announcements.  These included

• Many thanks to Moya of Patchwork Plus for bringing an amazing selection of fabrics, tools and notions.
• Many thanks to Joanna for running the demonstration table.  We’re planning on continuing this on for the next year, providing members with opportunities to learn from in person demonstrations.
• Congratulations to Cathy Davis for being selected to represent the Southern Branch for the Diversity in Europe Quilt Gallery.
• Be sure to visit the “Blues” Exhibition going on at the Bishopstown Library.  The exhibition runs until the end of the month.
• The Knitting and Stitching Show’s IPS gallery will be a bit different this year.  They’re planning on having a Modern, Art quilt, bag, traditional, branch, and young person’s gallery.  There will be one person in charge of curating each of the gallery.  If you’re interested in joining in the exhibition, you’ll need to send in a good quality photo for consideration.  When we get more information, we’re planning on offering an opportunity for providing photographs.  Start your brainstorming!
• National AGM is October 1st, Ormond Hotel in Kilkenny.  Dorothy Russell is the speaker and instructor.  Find out more information about her at dotrussell.co.uk
• Theme for the National AGM Challenge is “Witches and Castles”  Finished product should be no bigger than 15” x 15.”
• We’re planning on creating a teacher page on our website as a resource.  Please email us at corkips@gmail.com to be included.
• River of Dreams Quilt Exhibition is happening at the Limerick School of Art and Design, June 24th-July 1.
• Open European Quilt Championships October 20-23 in the Netherlands.  There is a special fibercard exhibition going on, and they’re asking people to send in fabric postcards on the theme of Twenty  Find out more information at our website!
• Full list of exhibitions in the newest Newsletter.
• Membership form going to be available in September.  Please print out and bring a completed form to the September meeting.  Email blast will be done.
• Be sure to bring in any outstanding books back to the library in September.  We’re planning on going through the library over the summer!

After the announcements, we introduced the summer challenge.  This years theme is:

REVOLUTIONARY

What exactly does this mean?  Well, you could take what first sparked our inspiration for the theme, the 100th commemoration of the Easter Rising.  Or, you could take a more literal interpretation and work with circles or curved piecing.  Another idea would be to do something you’ve never done before in patchwork.  You’re welcome to interpret this in any way you choose, and we’re excited to see what you make.

This year’s prize is a sewing machine service to be performed by John O Donnell during our October open meeting.

Next, we debuted the first block of our Block of the Month, the Half Log Cabin:

We’ll be posting the step-by-step slideshow during the next week, so watch out for that!

Next was a jam packed Show and Tell.  Many quilts were collected for Quilts for Crumlin.  What an amazing display of work by our members:

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Finally, our invited speaker, Ruth Bourke gave us a fantastic presentation on Modern Quilting.  If you’d like to find out more about the Modern Quilters Ireland, you can check out the website here.

After our meeting and a bit of lunch, Ruth ran a fantastic workshop entitled “Traditional Blocks Made Modern.”

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Here’s the result of our work today:

If you missed your change to weigh in our brainstorming session today, feel free to send in suggestions on programming you’d like to see for next year to our email address, corkips@gmail.com!

Our next meeting is September 10, 2016, see you then!