Ticker Tape Workshops

A few weeks ago I gave the Ticker Tape workshop I developed from my Wilbur scrap quilt to the Western Branch of the Irish Patchwork Society in Galway. This was my third time giving this workshop and I have been adding to the templates for people to try. I used the guitar as a teaching piece and am working on a sketch of a West Highland Terrier for one of the ladies in my own branch, the Mid-Western Branch in Limerick.

Not everyone has been lucky enough to have a Basset Hound in their house (?) so I have added in other shapes for people to try including cats, teddy bears and other breeds of dogs! For some reason, just like when making Wilbur, I got the head and body drawn up on the Westie no problem but struggled with the legs. I think I have his little feet right now and am making adjustments for the next class which is in a Quilt Shop in Tuam, Co. Galway called Quilt, Yarn, Stitch. Really looking forward to the 2nd December and teaching my first quilt shop class! Very exciting!

This is a photo of the progress made by Nora on the scrappy Teddy on the day in Galway and below is a photo I took of Olena's dragon she made from the workshop given to the Eastern branch of the IPS in Dublin. I had the honour of being mentioned in her artist's statement when she showed it at the River of Dreams quilt exhibition in Limerick this year.

That was a special exhibition as in addition to the bed quilts on display there was a wall of donated baby quilts for the Henry Bear charity where each child undergoing heart surgery gets a quilt to wrap them up in for their recovery.

 Mine was Kenny the Koala! And he ended up a pattern.  

It's funny where an idea for a quilt can take you and what can develop from it!

Modern Irish Bee!

One of the last activities for Modern Quilters Ireland is our Modern Irish Bee. This year, our group of 9 have been making big blocks for each other 18 ½" in size. There have been lots of half square triangle blocks which are fun to scale up to big sizes.

If you would like to find the instructions for any of these come visit our facebook group: Modern Irish Bee.

Suzanne gave us a free form option, to make a block with an Irish theme that she will put together for the festival of Quilts in Birmingham next year and she left the choice and content of the block up to us! Having had a conversation with Suzanne about books, and having seen the cutest paper pieced book block from Tall Tales on the Honey Pot Bee facebook group, I knew I wanted to use that in some way. After all one of the things Ireland is famous for is our writers like Yeats, Joyce and Beckett. So I though books would work quite well.

The other thing we are famous for is our wet weather! And with hurricane Ophelia just having passed through the weather is on the tip of everyones tongues.  (We lost our satellite dish so very lucky that was the worst that happened! Watching the TV on the laptop for the moment!)

Almost every casual conversation on a normal day starts with chat about the weather too and the hundreds of ways to describe a rainy day: bucketing down, pi**ing out of the heavens, lashing, soft, floggging it, spitting it, rotten, drowning out, fierce, pelting down, hammering down, torrential, weather for ducks, a day for the fire, no drying out today, wetting rain(?) and my favourite – someone left the tap on above in heaven.

With that in mind I decided to make weather themed books so I have a rainy winter, sunny summer, autumn leaves and the spring you might say is the bright green text border that ties it all together! Yes I might be taking a bit of artistic licence with it but isn't that half the fun! The paper pieced book block is quite titchy so to make something suitable for an 18" block I made 3, trimmed to 7" x 4 ½" and surrounded them with white background fabric and a 1.5" green border! If you want to make something similar yourself, download the book pattern from Jodi's Craftsy shop here. I think it's the perfect size for a cushion and would be great for a kids room for reading activities and I can imagine a pocket in the back for a book too! Might just have to make another one...