Summer Swap Show & Tell

Our summer swap was a great success. We've been making tote bags for each other and it's been tons of fun watching the photos appear on Flickr and Instagram and the happy thank you messages showing how generous our group has been with time spent on making and adding in some fun extras too!

Thanks everyone who took part, all bags have been shipped and I am delighted  we had such a great swap!  Remember send in your ideas for our annual Christmas swap which will be announced after Halloween!

In the meantime, hope everyone enjoys their tote bags (I'm using mine already!).  Thank you all who took part and made this an easy going, creative and successful swap!
-Ruth

Show & Tell and Upcoming Events

Happy Friday everybody!  Hope all are looking forward to the weekend and maybe like myself getting some work done on my two quilts for our Happy Exhibition!

I had a bit of a shock when I looked over the form and saw the date required in Dublin is May 8th.  If anyone needs entry forms please drop us a line and Fiona will send you the details. Thank you Fiona for all your hard work on this, so looking forward to it!  The exhibition itself runs from May 25th to June 26th with the opening being held on June 4th so mark your diaries.


There is lots going on for National Quilting week so check out Quilt Ireland website or Facebook page for more details.  The IPS (Irish Patchwork Society) have some exhibitions between now and then on the go.  In conjunction with the Northern Ireland Patchwork Guild, the Hand Across the Border exhibit is opening in City Hall, Belfast in May and then travelling to the Botanic Gardens in Dublin for June.  The theme is Reflections.

If you are in Limerick there are two IPS exhibits on during National Quilting week.  The Mid-Western Branch exhibit "Local Landscapes" runs from the 2nd to the 6th June and quilts from the EQA exhibit Movement will be on display from to1st June to the 14th June.

It's been a while since we had a bit of Show and Tell.  Check out these group shares from Flickr, Facebook, and Instagram!

Quilting!

Modern Irish Bee blocks

IG #mordernirishquilters  #modernquiltersireland

Thanks everyone for the house blocks - they are looking fantastic up on the design wall, so good I might not want to take them down!
-Ruth

September Show and Tell & Upcoming Events

We've had a busy September in our Modern Quilters Ireland group! Thank you to Cindy, Anna and all who were involved in our Sewing day in Galway last weekend. 

A group of us gathered in NUI Galway to spend the day stitching, working on blocks for Bee Blessed, swapping books and fabric, eating home baked goodies, shopping at Pippa Blue, Fluffy Sheep Quilting and Wrap it and generally getting to know each other.

(Click on the photo get a closer look and if you search Instagram with the hastag #modernirishquilters you will see comments and general banter!)

It was brilliant to finally meet people in person and we were spoiled on the day with goody bags!  Thank you to Aurifil and Pilot for our selection of threads and Frixion pens and thanks to all the Irish shops who donated fabric and vouchers - it was wonderful bonus to a brilliant day!

In addition to our day out, our Modern Quilting group have been busy sharing what we've have been up to in September.  Taking part in swaps and markets and making blocks for our Modern Irish Bee!

From Instagram #modernirishquilters

From Flickr Group

From Modern Irish Bee group

Coming up in October for your diaries are the following:

West Cork Quilts Group exhibition 7th -12th October

The Bloggers Quilt Festival @ Amy's Creative Side opens 24th October for 31st November.  Bloggers can link up quilts made this year for prizes and we get to vote for our favourites on 1st November.

I'm sure you don't need reminding of the Knitting & Stitching show in the RDS on 30th October to 2nd November. 

Schoolhouse quilters, Athlone are celebrating 20 years of quilting November 21st to 23rd.

 - Ruth

July - August Show and Tell

Wow, where did the summer go?  Hope all had lovely holidays and for those of us who haven't had ours yet here's to ekeing out that last bit of Summer feeling before Autumn hits us full on.  It may have been quiet around here but some people were busy this summer.  Here's a roundup of the gorgeous projects shared on our Flickr and Facebook pages.

If you guys are on Instagram please tag with #modernirishquilters if you would like to share - we'd love to see what everyone is up to!

Don't forget Sew North Quilters Gathering & Workshops are on this month from the 11th to the 21st September.

-Ruth

June's Show and Tell

Well now that we are into July and the summer holidays have officially started how about some show and tell?  Our Flickr group have been busy with our Modern Irish Bee and Road to Tennesse blocks for Erin, smaller projects like oven gloves, coasters, placemats, cushions and mini quilts were where we were at this month.  Check out these lovely makes on our Flickr group.

If you have anything to share please post to our group on Flickr.  We'd love to see your images!  Photos shared on Flickr, post to our Facebook page automatically and if you prefer Instagram photos please tag with #modernirishquilters so we can all share what we are making!

- Ruth

Join In Our Community

Hello Modern Irish Quilters!  Want to share?

Disclaimer:  Some Rolo's were consumed in the writing of this blog post!

I know it's meant to be your last Rolo but I needed the wrapping intact for the photo, but you get the idea!   Some of the goals of the MQG are Community, Connection, Friendships and we have lots of online forums for sharing.  There's our Facebook page, Flickr group, some of us are addicted to Instagram, while others prefer to Tweet!  Thinking about how we could increase our opportunities to connect with each other how about doing some of these?

• Interested in a Monthly Show and Tell?  Wouldn't it be a great way to share what we are all working on?  We could add photos of Works In Progress, Blocks, Finished items, Fabric pulls etc to our Flickr group. 

1. medallion square, 2. pinwheel-quilt, 3. Birthday present, 4. triple zipper pouch swap, 5. Enchant by Riley Blake, 6. block 4, 7. spider-web-02, 8. Rainbow Wonky Squares Quilt, 9. Scrappy Ironing board cover 1, 10. Scrappy Ironing Board cover 3, 11. Bunny Pouch Tutorial, 12. bee blocks for Anna, 13. for-Anna-April, 14. listentothebirdssing cloud tablemat back, 15. listentothebirdssing cloud tablemat detail, 16. Schooldays Notebook Tote Bag

Join our group here and when uploading a photo click to add to group. Our Flickr group photos and blog posts go to Facebook automatically!  If you prefer to use Instagram, upload and add the hashtag #modernirishquilters.  I'd love to do a monthly Show & Tell Mosaic on the blog!  The above are some of the lovely projects on our group page from the last few months. You do need to have a Yahoo account now to log into Flickr.  It only takes a few minutes to set one up but if you prefer Facebook that would work too!

• Anyone find a great bargain or make a really cool fabric purchase? Spread the joy! We'd love to hear about it.  Find a great tutorial for something we could all benefit from?  Again Instagram or Facebook would be perfect for this! Tag with #modernirishquilters or post to the Facebook page.

• Wouldn't it be great if we could create a directory and promote our talents?  Cindy has offered to create a resources page for the blog.  Any members who run a shop, teach quilting classes or even take commissions for made items please get in touch.  Give us a link to your shop, Facebook page, blog or space on Etsy.  We'd all love to spread the word and maybe do a bit of shopping ourselves!  We'd love to do a blog post and feature a member if anyone is interested in shoing us their shop or sewing space.

• Those of us who blog for no other reason than to blog don't feel left out.  Leave a comment or send an email and we'll update the members blogs info so we can all have a blog hop and see what's happening in our community.

• Now I know it would be impractical to swap books but if you guys are anything like me you probably have a bulging bookshelf with books and magazines spilling off the coffee table, well thumbed through and lovingly kept for just in case!  We'd love a book review, even if it is only a few sentences.   Tell us what book we should buy next!  It could be as simple as a Facebook update, take a photo of the book or item made or inspired from the book and upload to Flickr and we could feature it for a blog post!

• Finally if there are any upcoming exhibitions in your area that you think would be worth a visit please let us know.   There are some national exhibitions coming up in July and August that we will post a reminder for but for this moment keep an eye out on Sew Mama Sew on the 12th May for her big giveaway day.  Lots of blogs will be offering freebies that you may be in for a chance of winning, usually by leaving a comment.  Blogger's Quilt Festival at Amy's Creative Side starts on the 16th with lots of categories of quilts to browse and voting opens on the 23rd for your favourites.

Anything else you guys would like to see?  Please let us know and we'll do our best to include in upcoming posts.  Liz and Fiona have already given us a wonderful post each and we look forward to sharing more  in the coming months in addition to our regular posts from Cindy on Bee Blessed and Modern Irish Bee!

- Ruth