River of Dreams Quilt Exhibition 2018

The Rainbow Rose got an outing!  Every year there is a quilt exhibition in Limerick called River of Dreams and anyone can enter a quilt.  I thought it might be nice to put in the Rainbow Rose as it was only shown previously in Birmingham at the Festival of Quilts.  Nice to get another chance to show off Tomomi's fabulous quilting!

The opening was about 7pm and it was lovely to see the evening light shine in on it.  It was hung up high on account of it being 84" x 84" and I was thrilled to see it pop out at me when I walked into the gallery space at Limerick School of Art & Design.

There were lots of gorgeous quilts on display so I thought I'd show you some of my favourites.  Maureen Talbot on the left and Tomomi McElwee on the right.

Close ups of fabulous quilting!

Every year there is a charity drive and this year it was little blocks to make a quilt for the homeless charity NOVAS.

These little blocks are massively cute and it was lovely to see more and more appearing on the wall as the exhibition went on.

I loved this Sarah Fielke design made by Gerardine Cahill.  Beautiful fabric choices and I could look at the hand quilting up close for ages!

Really liked the colour in this Craftsy class pattern made by Alison Bingham,

and the frosty colour palette in these paper pieced trees by Frances Shanahan.

It was great to see some Modern Irish Bee Quilts too.  On the left Suzanne's large block quilt - we made a block inspired by colours of the Irish flag, any size up to 18".  On the right Mary Murphy's round robin quilt (7 of us made a different round and mine was the outer triangle border!)

I really enjoyed this mix of quilts from traditional to modern on one wall.  (Quilts by Biddy Condon, Joan McGarry and Betty O'Farrell).

On the last day of the show I was asked if the Rainbow Rose could be borrowed for a display in Dublin during Irish Pride week so off it went for another showing! 

Delighted to be able to show it off as much as possible before it comes back to me to cherish!  Thanks again to Tomomi for the amazing quilting and friendship.  The quilting makes the Rainbow Rose and I could look at it for hours and hours!  We don't see each other too often but I am so glad this hobby has given me so many great friends. 

Happy Sad!

It was a happy sad week last week and I'm only starting to come around to myself again this week now.  We had the awfulness of sending Wilbur to sleep and then I left straight away, for the Festival of Quilts in Birmingham, with friends from the Irish Patchwork Society.

A tired looking me posing in front of The Rainbow Rose I designed for the MQI group QAL and quilted by the amazing Tomomi McElwee @ Slaney Handcraft.  We submitted it as a 2 person quilt and it was chosen to represent Ireland in the European Quilt Association gallery called Diversity.

Not having a goods nights sleep since the Thursday before, I was not really in the form for a road trip but I wasn't going to let anyone down and stay home feeling sorry for myself.  Gordon had the week off and stayed around the house spending time with Maggie and Charly, so I didn't have to worry about the two furballs and them missing Wilbur. I knew they'd be distracted by having one of their humans around all the time.   The trip was worth it and I would have enjoyed it better if it had been any other week.  I took over 200 photos and bought some interesting bits and pieces and will share them with you in the next post!

For now, I thought I'd show you some of the process of blocking this quilt and the amazing quilting that Tomomi did for it.  There was quite a bit of preparation involved getting this quilt ready for exhibition.  First I had to wash it, as the blue water erasable marker didn't come out of all the white with just spritzing.  I wasn't going to put this gorgeous thing into the washing machine with out cleaning the machine first, so 2 bottles of Dettol washine machine cleaner and 2 rinse cycles later, I cleaned out the rubber seal on the door and found coins, hair pins, SD and usb sticks!  Then I took a deep breath and popped it into a cold wash with 6-7 colour catchers.

With all the strong colour in this I had a suspicion the red would run but it didn't.  The only thing the colour catcher picked up was the green from the extra wide backing fabric.  That surprised me as I was not expecting that to run at all!  Still the quilt itself was perfect so onto the blocking step!

As we don't have carpets in our house (only on the hall stairs!), I needed something to be able to pin the quilt to, to stretch it out while wet.  I bought 4 packs of these kids playmats from Argos, moved all the furniture and set to smoothing the quilt out and pining every 2 inches or so, all around the quilt, with sturdy glass head pins.  I used a ruler to measure out from one of the seams all the way around with the same measurement to make sure I got the star square and pinned in place.

It took over 2 days to dry and the green blues section was a bit puffy, so I got the steam iron out and hovered over those sections using steam to make them lie flat and a few extra pins, to get the seam straight on.  I think it worked quite well. It certainly made the trimming process that bit easier having a flat straight quilt!

The only thing that was a bother was this room could not be used for the 2 1/2 days.  No dogs allowed and this is normally where they play and spend time with us in the evenings.  They were not impressed and wanted in!  Gordon also had to skip the TV as this is where the telly is.  He happily made do with 4 library books!

Hedgehog!

Being an animal lover Tomomi added in lots of Irish wildlife to the quilting and I love her to bits for it.  I told her to give it the Tomomi treatment with no help at all for quilting ideas and she certainly did that in spades and came up with so many beautiful motifs.  The quilting makes this quilt and is the reason it got chosen for Birmingham.  You have to look at the back to see the quilting properly and here are some of the animals found in the quilt.

Dolphin

Squirrel

Rabbit

Fox

And my favourite!  A Basset Hound that I thinks is the spitting image of our puppy Maggie.

It was hard at times last week being away.  There were times I wanted to just go home and times when I was completely distracted immersed in sewing talk and quilty inspiration.  A happy sad week!
 

Losing Wilbur was incredibly sad but happy that we had him for as long as did.  He was tons of fun and gave us many laugh out loud moments and many more quiet contented moments.  I found this photo of our holiday last year with us all walking the beach.  It makes me sad that we are all moving on without Wilbur but we are not leaving him behind.  Like me following on at the rear taking photos and letting him take his time, I'm carrying the happy memories with me.  And now I have Maggie in quilt form too!  So, so happy I didn't try and quilt this one myself and let Tomomi do her thing instead. So Happy Sad, but more happy than sad!  Can't ask for more than that.

Linking up with the Friday finishes!

The Not A Finish Friday Post!

It may seem quiet around here but there has been lots going on in the background.  I've been working hard on so many things my head is starting to spin! So here's a quick recap!

I've been designing a little bit again and working on a block for a North, South, East and West project due on the 30th. I have a love/hate relationship with paper piecing.  I love the intricacy you can get and the sharp points but I always find a stage in the process where it's like there is no end in sight and I just have to grit my teeth and just get on with it!

 I really struggle getting the pieces to match up perfectly and then there's the paper ripping out bit...  Yes there are Twix wrappers in there.  Eating chocolate helps make the pieces line up! 

But at then end, there is a block you couldn't have made any other way!  I still have the middle to do yet but am relieved to have the biggest bit of the block done finally!  These are hand dyed fabrics I've had since a workshop three years ago on a gradient fabric by Vanessa Christenson.  The yellow seems a bit overwhelming in this amount but at least it will attract attention if it gets picked for exhibition!  This is the bottom of the quilt.  There is another block yet to be made!

I have also discovered that I have a love/hate relationship with EQ7.
 

It just doesn't suit my way of designing.   I appreciate that it's main strength is in blocks and layouts but I like a blank canvas and like to crop and copy and paste and play with scale.  I found trying to make the paper piecing template for this block so frustrating - no idea why it can't snap to things the way I want the lines to - probably me doing something wrong!   In the end I had to print it and re-mark the colours and hope it worked.  Thankfully it did, mostly!

I've also been working on finishing 2 quilts for the Modern Quilter's Ireland 2nd Exhibition, called Fun and am so glad its a long weekend to get time to get closer to getting them done.  I hope to have at least 1 to share next Friday as I am subbing in for Fiona on TGIFF (Thank Goodness It's Finished Friday) so come back next week to see all the link ups!

Crazy hearts by Claire Lynch

In the background, I have been working on tons of things for the Irish Patchwork Society and getting ready to teach the Eastern Branch my Ticker Tape Pictorial Quilts and the Rainbow Rose quilts in Dublin in 2 weeks time.  Very excited about it!

Especially as I got my Rainbow Rose quilt back from Tomomi  and can't stop looking at it. 

Please pop over to Slaney Handcraft to see the amazing quilting she has done, my words cannot do it justice and it is really worth reading Tomomi's thoughts on the quilting.  I cannot wait to share lots of photos when I get it blocked and bound but for the moment here's a close up of my favourite bit  - our puppy, Maggie, is quilted into it!

Speaking of the dogs we have had a rough month of it!  Charly swelled up after her evening walk with an allergic reaction (we think to a bite) and emergency phone call #1 to vet.  Thankfully with anti-histamines (mine from the cupboard) she recovered very quickly.

Wilbur ate a box of firelighters containing Kerosene and emergency phone call #2 to the vet!  I had to work from home last Friday to monitor him and get activated charcoal into him (10 times the amount of what he had eaten).  He was not a happy camper (frowny face above) and all I could smell for days was firelighters!  Still both are grand now and Maggie has her play pals back!  The vet must think we are the worst owners ever!

Feels like as soon as April is over, I'm going to take May off and enjoy the exhibitions and catch up with the new blogger blog hop, that is going on at Quilting Jet Girl, She Can Quilt and Cooking up Quilts!

Finishes - Clocks to Cosmic colour!

So while I was in Cork, the Limerick Quilt Centre were down too with their pop up shop for the Southern branch's meeting.  And you would think that being a regular customer I would have no need of anything but I succumbed to impulse and bought a fabric clock making kit!

A few years ago I bought the lampshade kit in the same range (haven't used it yet!) but thought I'd get the clock kit out and up and running.  It was really easy to use and I love how it looks with this Karavan print from Valorie Wells.  Can I call this a Friday finish?  Is that cheating?

One thing I can definitely claim as milestone reached is my Rainbow Rose quilt top.  I finally made a decision on the applique and went all Orla Kiely inspired on the corners.  It's now with being quilted by Tomomi@Slaney Handcraft.  I asked her to give it the Tomomi Treatment and you should have a look at the beautiful quilting that is being done here on instagram.  Awed as always by Tomomi's quilting!

Lastly, the deadline for Aurora, a co-exhibition between the Irish Patchwork Society and the Northern Ireland Patchwork Guild, is this Friday so I had to get a move on to get my quilt done.

Inspired by the colours that digital cameras can pick up that we don't see ourselves, I tried to pick a vibrant selection of yellow greens, mint blue, magenta, reds and berry colours to symbolise the Aurora Borealis against a starry or city at night sky. 

Circular quilting to depict our planets motion and wavy quilting in straight lines for the light that we see.

It's now all bound and labelled and just needs a hanging sleeve!  To see the amazing quilts Tomomi and Lena from Quilt Arts did check out these links here and here.  They are incredible and I hope my simple quilt is hung right at the other end of the gallery!  It's going to be a fun and very colourful exhibition and I am really looking forward to seeing their quilts up close in real life.  They will be on display in Dublin in May and in Lisburn after that.  Might have to visit twice!

To Border or Not to Border!

That question has new meaning on this green and rainy island of ours after last weeks surprise vote on Brexit.  I am doing my best to think positively and reminding myself that it must be worse for all those who voted to stay in but are now on the way out of the EU. There's a lot of work ahead to protect the peace process here now that we are not all part of the same bigger vision, despite Northern Ireland voting to stay in.  Here's hoping sanity reigns at some point and the open border stays put!

While I can't do much about the geographical border, I can make some decisions on my quilt top.  All along I had intended my Rainbow Rose quilt to be floating in the wide open space of the invisible background fabric borders.  The borders are there but you don't really notice them!  Then I read on the blog of someone making this one block quilt, what was coming next – applique maybe?  

Quite a few people had gotten on with assembling the centre section, I thought that might happen so was sure to add in the bit about rotating the star for complimentary colours if they wished, just in case everyone forged ahead!  Some did rotate the star and some didn’t – depending on the fabric choices it really looked better one way in one block and the another in the next block.  It has been really fun seeing how different they all are turning out.

Feeling that the last post I was writing might be a little bit light in terms of instructions, just assembly and borders, last Thursday, while mum was visiting and hogging the telly to watch Emmerdale, I pulled up inkscape and got to playing.  I had two ideas, a flourish like in calligraphy and some Orla Kiely inspired gradient coloured petals.  This was the end result!

I’m the only one making the larger sized quilt out of 10” squares, most are making the 40” baby quilt version out of 5” squares.  As the border is a little thinner on the larger size, I wanted to make sure the border ideas would fit both just in case someone out there might be doing the same as me or someone in the future comes back to this to make it!  So on Friday evening I made the templates in two sizes!

And on Sunday morning I made the pieces to test the against the quilt!  Now I’m seriously thinking of adding the applique!  I’m stuck between the hexagon flourish or the circle with petals.  That last one seems to add movement and make the block spin and seems very appropriate for the week that has been in it!

What do you think? Flourish or petals?

I quite like this one but the fussy cut circle will have to change.  All I read when I look at it is Air Conditioning!

So while I'm deliberating my choices, hope everyone has a wonderful weekend!
Linking up to Modern Quilters Ireland.