Aurora

Every two years the Irish Patchwork Society and the Northern Ireland Patchwork Guild have a co-exhibition called Hands Across the Border.  This year the theme was Aurora and being chairperson of the IPS I had to make a speech! 

Some people are naturally good at public speaking, some people would rather run 10 miles than stand up in front of family and friends and talk!  I find myself somewhere in between, nervous and over preparing in the run up to the thing but then a let's get it done attitude seems to win out and blink, it's over and I'm asking myself what was all the fuss about - until the next time!
 

It was fun to see all the interpretations of Aurora:  Roman goddess of the dawn,  in Ireand she is Brigid, also a Disney Princess Sleeping Beauty, Northern & Southern Lights (Aurora Borealis and Australis) and even the Dawn Chorus of birds that somehow in our neighbourhood start singing an hour before dawn, which these days is about 4am!

The venue was amazing, right in the centre of Dublin called the CHQ Building.  2 walls for hanging and 2 glass walls so the passer's by could see all our work, filling the space with colour!

While they were all beautiful the three that stood our for me were these by Tomomi McElwee, Ethelda Ellis and Olena Pugachova.  Forgive the exposures I have it set so you cans see the amazing quilting and detail in all three.

Tomomi McElwee

Ethelda Ellis

Olena Pugachova

 The exhibition was shown in Lisburn as well as Dublin and ended last week so I hope if you didn't get to see it in person you enjoyed this little bit of it!

IPS Gallery at the Knitting and Stitching Show 2016

So the Christmas demos in the local fabric shop went well (post here) and since all that crazy busy-ness right up to last Saturday, I took my foot off the brake this week and got on with celebrating my birthday and getting the boring housework done! As such, the WIP's are still at the same stage, so I thought I'd share with you, photos from the Knitting and Stitching show in Dublin last month. I had the honour of curating the Modern Gallery of the Irish Patchwork Society's display. My booth was 3 walls of 3 to 3.5m wide so I had to seek 5-6 quilts to fill the space.

Not all the quilts submitted to me for consideration, were what I would call modern in the sense of the MQG definition, but they had modern elements.  In the end, it was choosing quilts big enough for the space and what would hang well together.  It was hard saying no but really lovely saying yes and I have to give a big thanks to Paula Rafferty for the hanging which made the booth look so well!

The modern gallery was 1 of 6 in the display with other categories being Young Quilters (18 and less), Traditional, Art, Bags, and a Christmas display by the South Eastern branch.  I was delighted to see a Rainbow Rose in the submissions and this lovely version is by Imelda O'Grady from Limerick!

Aine Lecky made this lovely modern quilt and had it long arm quilted by the Quilt Shop Tuam. 

The centre piece of the booth was The Aviatrix Medallion made by Erin Case.  The pattern is by Elizabeth Hartman and it is just a beautiful celebration of colour! 

A passerby to the booth commented that you would need sunglasses for our section and his companion said "yes, isn't it wonderful".  Not sure that was what he meant, but it put a big smile on my face!  This gorgeous scrappy colour quilt was made by Sharon Hughes.

Next to Sharon's was Tomomi McElwee's colour play, with Red and White the colours of the Japanese flag, and my quilt idol (see earlier blog post here!)  Ethelda Ellis' gorgeous sunset. 

As always I am in awe of Tomomi's quilting! 

This was the young quilters gallery...

and the bags...

and an early Christmas!

I don't have too many photos of the traditional quilts but I was delighted to see Paula Rafferty's Share Jane.  Over 100 quilters made blocks for this and 2 other colour versions for the Dear Jane anniversary exhibitions this year.  I made 2 of the white blocks in this version based on the colours of the Irish Flag.

One of my favourite pieces was Valerie Mulally's quilt from a block of the month.

I think my favourite block in this quilt is the rabbit - can you spot him?

Of all the quilts in the show though, this was the one that made me smile!  A Zebra made by Elizabeth Brennan for the Art Quilts section.  I would have had this in modern in a heartbeat!

That's the lovely thing about quilting - lots of genres, crossover of styles and opportunities to play!  It was brilliant to be a part of the exhibition and thank you to all the quilt makers who contributed and made our jobs curating such a success.

Distance

The IPS takes part in challenges set by the European quilt Association (EQA) and they are usually small scale mini quilts and always really very interesting to look at.  I posted about past exhibits Crossroads and Movement and this year we were fortunate to have Distance exhibited with the IPS National Evolution in Limerick, so  I got to spend quite a bit of time with the quilts.

Some were beautiful.

Some were a little sad like this one about emigration by Cynthia Keegan and the next one about growing older and apart from loved ones.

 All were very interesting and fun to look at!

There were 20 quilts from Latvia and Ireland and 19 from Austria so if you want to see more I uploaded all the photos to the Midwest branch photo page on Flickr!  I just love these little pieces and thank you to the IPS International reps Loretta O'Brien & Paula Rafferty for sharing them with us.

IPS exhibition Evolution and a very busy weekend!

I got to meet my quilt idol!!!  You might remember this post where I shared my enthusiasm for Ethelda Ellis's work after a visit to her exhibition in Mountmellick Library this summer.  Well I got to sit beside her at lunch at the Irish Patchwork Society's AGM!

I did tell her I love her work and visited her exhibition - I didn't do the selfie thing so no photo!  And it gets better!    As I found myself sitting beside Ethelda Ellis, opposite sat my online quilty friends Tomomi McElwee @ Slaney Handcraft and Lena @Quilt Art!  Tomomi I know for a few years now and it was wonderful to meet Lena in person as I am also a huge fan of her gorgeous work.

Lena handed me her camera to take this photo of her being awarded the prize for excellence!

In fact not only did Lena win the viewers choice at our Evolution exhibition, she won the award for excellence for the same piece.  She is on a roll as she also won her category in the Bloggers Quilt Festival too!  Congratulations Lena, well deserved, every bit of it!

Lena's beautiful quilt Fallen by the Wayside

Detail of Archaeopteryx

There were quite a few of us I know from the Modern Quilters Group in the IPS too and I got to catch up with Maya Toscani and Cynthia Keegan that I am in a bee with for 2 years now - first time meeting in person!  And I won a prize in the raffle of some really lovely Christmas fabric from Sew Crafty Fabrics - thank you ladies!

I am still catching up with myself after the AGM and the talk by Quilt Artist Dorothy Russell (click here for the link to her website to see her intricate panel work).  So I though I would share some of my favourite quilts from Evolution, the IPS National exhibition that was hosted by our branch in Limerick in the summer. 

Four Winds textile Group

Tomomi McElwee

Irene MacWilliam

Erin Case

Cecilia O'Doherty - A Brief History

Imelda O'Grady

Maya Toscani

Phyllis Murphy

Maureen Kennedy

Louise Mullane

My Quilt on the Human family tree - the Hominidae (you are here!)  Needs a good steaming - pesky fold lines!

Me in front of my quilt Same but Different

Mum had to have a photo too!