Our First Exhibition

Mark your diaries and spread the word!  Our first exhibition is being held by St. Patrick's Hospital, Dublin from the 25th May to the 26th June. 

St Patrick's Hospital is a 5 minute walk from Heuston Station.   It is situated on Steeven’s Lane, between Heuston Station and St. James’s Hospital, with bus and Luas services all within a 5-10 minute walk.  There is limited paid parking also available for visitors travelling by car.

The official launch is being held on the 4th June @ 4pm to coincide with National Quilting week.  Hope to see you all there!

Finishing a Hoop!

I’ve always liked embroidery but it never occurred to me to make a wall hanging in a hoop with patchwork fabrics.  When I saw Fiona’s inspiration links for our exhibition in Dublin here on Pinterest, I was immediately taken by the hedgehog and bicycles and thought I had to try this.  I decided to give a patchwork balloon a go and have something to use for a tutorial to show how to finish the back of the hoop. 

Balloon design based on a Machine embroidery pattern from Embroidery Library.com

When you have your art work completed remove it from the hoop and place the back of the hoop down on some fabric or felt that you want to use as backing.  Felt is great as it does not require turning an edge under.  I used some fabric I had on hand for my backing as I didn’t have a piece of felt big enough for my hoop.

Draw a circle around the inside of the hoop and if using cotton cut about 0.5” outside this line.  If using felt cut your circle on the line.

Press the edge under and label your work.  I wrote directly onto the back with a permanent fabric pen.  Put this backing aside while we prepare the top.

Remove any markings (pencil/water soluble pen) and press your top flat.  Place in the hoop and tighten the top screw.  Make sure you have eased out all puckers at the edges until your piece is lying flat.

Trim the fabric around the hoop to about 1” to 1.5” all around.  Take a needle and thread, secure your starting point with a knot or double stitches and sew some tacking stitches all along the circumference. 

When you get all the way around the hoop pull the thread tightly and secure.  It will pull all the excess fabric to the back and leave a clean circular shape at the front.

Place your backing fabric over the back and glue or stitch in place.  Stitching will allow you to remove it later if you wish to make a change or re-use your hoop.  A glue gun is much quicker though!

Slip stitch the backing in place all along the edge and you are done!

I won't lie to you, this was a bit fiddly and I could have done a better job!  If you want to hang up your hoop or hide the top screw just add some ribbon!  These are really fun quick projects and I hope you might give it a go too.  Just the thing to brighten up your sewing space! 

If any member wants to enter a hoop (an inspirational word!) into our exhibition please drops us a line and we will send out the entry forms.  Deadline for items to be in Dublin by May 8th so there is still time!

-Ruth

Bee Blessed update!

Four years ago, Sarah and Judith got together and created Bee Blessed with the intention of bringing like minded people together, to make blocks & donation quilts. Bee Blessed is wrapping up in June and we would like to send a big thank you to them both for allowing us to be a part of this effort.

If you have any blocks made or would like to make, can you please send these to Judith and Sarah as soon as you can? The Bee Blessed group will be finishing the final quilts over the next few months with the last quilts being completed in June.

Thank you ladies for all your beautiful work and sharing your blocks every month with us.

-Ruth

Modern Irish Bee 2015 - April Block

Hello fellow bees. I am delighted and excited to be a bee. I have been thinking about my block since January and I have had one in mind since then. And then changed my mind a dozen times. Anyhow I have decided on this block.

I saw one similar on Pinterest made with a background of low volume squares and really bright triangles which works amazingly. However I am a nosey bee and want to see all your pretty bright or not so bright fabrics.

I have teamed each square with a cream / off white triangle.

When all the blocks come together there are various patterns that can be formed. Squares as above or one directional lines as below.

Its exceptionally quick and easy to do and a great eater of scraps.

Each nine square block measures 9.5 by 9.5 unfinished. So 9 by 9 finished.

So I would like two blocks please, made with 'pretty' colours like purples, pinks, yellows, blues. Mostly patterned with a plain or two if you like. I would like the triangle to be cream or a soft white. But not a bright white.

And this is how it's made.

Two blocks need 18 squares measuring 3.5 by 3.5. Then 18 smaller cream squares measuring 2.5 by 2.5.

Chain piecing is the way to go here and it will be sewn up in no time.

Draw a diagonal line through all the cream squares before you start.

Place the cream square onto the coloured square and sew down the marked line. I sew a needle width below the line.

Take all the squares to the iron and press them open.

Then trim off the bottom two triangles underneath and square up each block as you go to 3.5.


Now all you need to do is arrange them in order and sew them together.

Then decide whether you love your little pile of triangles enough to make something with them or chuck them in the bin without a care.

-Angela

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

Quilt design part 3: Inkscape & QDAD

Have you seen the Facebook Group: Quilt Design a Day?  Known as QDAD this group encourages quilters to spend 15-20 minutes a day playing with colour and shapes to design a quilt.  The intention is not to make these into a quilt though if you come up with something that captures you go for it! 

Image from Facebook

The idea is to flex your creative muscles and by training them a little every day make them stronger!  By spending a short time, maybe during lunch break or waiting for the pasta to cook you can see what influences you in your likes and choices, develop new concepts, be inspired by what others are creating and generally just have fun!  Anyone who is a member of the Modern Quilt Guild will have access to Anne Sullivan's talk in the Resources section where she describes how QDAD came about and how her design aesthetic has changed and grown simply from playing with shape and colour a little bit every day.

Image from design seeds

An inspiration image is used to suggest a colour palette for your design and a new image is posted each day.  The group started using Design Seeds but has expanded to allow users to suggest a colour palette too.  You are not limited to this palette but can add or remove colours.  It’s there to prompt you and make it easier than looking at a blank page!

One of the programs that the QDAD group uses to make their designs is a free program called Inkscape.  Like Touchdraw, that we explored in the last post, Inkscape is a vector graphics program that allows you to manipulate shapes independent of each other, move them around, group them, scale them, rotate them and colour in any colour you want. Unlike Touchdraw, Inkscape is free!  It is available for Mac, PC and Linux and can even be installed as a portable program on a hard drive or SD card and moved from computer to computer if you have more than one!

There is a little bit of a learning curve with Inkscape and I find Touchdraw much more intuitive.  Having said that it is possible to make some really fun quilt designs with it and use it to help re-size or scale up quilt designs, or even colour in, as in this rainbow version of the Dutch Rose block.  (We explored the Dutch Rose aka Swoon block here some time back if you want to see more of this gorgeous block!)

Image from Inkscape Help

Like Touchdraw, you have tools to make basic shapes: squares, rectangles, circles, stars, hexagons but there is no short cut triangle from the main menu.  I find it easiest to draw one.  To do this the first thing to do when opening Inkscape is to open File/Document properties.  I turn off the border options as I don’t want to be limited to an A4 or letter sized workspace.  I also click on default units as inches.  Next go to the grid menu and change spacing to a 0.25 or 1/4” and major grid line every 4 steps.  Make sure visible is ticked to turn the grid on.


Next click on the pen tool or hold the shift key down and press F6.  Then draw a triangle on the grid.

Click on any of the colours on the bottom of the screen to fill your triangle as a solid shape.  You can now build your block or design and change colour really easily.

Grouping shapes together works the same as in Word and Touchdraw and you can add backgrounds or binding the same as in previous software tutorials.

Once grouped, if you click on a block you select the whole block and can move it or scale it.  Holding the control key and pressing D makes a duplicate copy.  To change the colour of a shape in a grouped collection hold down the control key and click on the shape in the group you want to just select that shape. You can then change the colour and play with colour combinations or different background colours.

To scale a block accurately in Inkscape you need to turn off the stroke (outline around each shape, grey in the black background block above.  For some reason Inkscape grows the shape by a very small amount when you add an outline.)  Select Object/Fill and Stroke to open the menu and click on X to turn it off.  You can then pull on the corner handles or insert a size in the top bar in W for Width and H for height.

Here I made my 16" block 36", duplicated it 3 times and arranged them all so that there is a 4" space between them.  I didn't like the corner squares so coloured them white the same as our background.  Click on each shape twice will allow you to rotate the blocks (or use the drop down menu Object/Transform).  I like this with the warm yellow/orange colours in the centre and the cooler colours on the outside.

Adding a background square, sending it to sit behind our existing blocks (Object/Lower to Bottom)  and colouring it in simulates binding.

I like this 4 block version but how about a giant Dutch Rose block?

Scaling up to 72" and adding a border could make another fun bed sized quilt project.  To determine what size squares to cut I could take the 72" and divide by 8 (the Dutch Rose is an 8 x 8 block) or just click into the group holding control and clicking on a shape gives me the square dimensions of 9".  This is the finished size to I need to add on 1/4" seam both sides and cut 9.5" squares.  For the triangles to get a 9" finished block I need to cut 9 7/8" squares (for lots of ways to make Half Square Triangles see this earlier post!)

So what do you think?  Want to make a giant Dutch Rose quilt?  Anyone up for a Quilt-A-Long?

I hope you have a look at the QDAD page and if you are tempted to try a quilt design a day, we'd love to see them!
-Ruth

Bee Blessed - March Block

Morning all, just a quick reminder of this months Bee Blessed block.  This month Sarah and Judith are looking for Scrappy Canvas Blocks. 

Image courtesy of Just Jude

If you would like to make some blocks using any 2 colours and donate them to Bee Blessed  please see Judith's blog for the tutorial.  I can imagine lots of scrappy colour in this one, won't it make a great quilt?

This weeks quilt design software post will be delayed to next week - sorry still working on it (spent all last weekend in a workshop at the Limerick Quilt Centre!)  Tune in next week for Inskscape.

In other news the Find a Teacher page has been updated to include other resources.  Thanks to all who responded to our questionnaire.  If you want to add your blog, shop or facebook page to the Resources section please drop me a line.
-Ruth