Star of the Sea

This post is well overdue, and the emotion has already subsided, but let's say we all gathered here to celebrate the winning of a pretty little award almost two weeks ago!

This is the happy winner:

Actually, this is the happy winner:

And together:

And now the full story. Each year, the participants of the Irish Patchwork Society AGM are invited to take part in in a challenge, where they usually are asked to bring a mini quilt on a particular theme. I took part last year, and the year before. The winner (determined by popular vote) receives the James Lawlor perpetual trophy - a clever and beautiful thing, which is a miniature statue of a quilting lady (bronze, I think) working away on a miniature quilt made by the previous year's winner, this one was made by Linda Cowley:

This year's theme was "Star" and I decided to make a star fish as I was working on my 3D samples and had just made another, little star fish. This one, though is THE star, very bright and unmissable attention-grabber...

... relaxing in the gently lapping waves of a warm sea...

Linking up to:
Off the Wall Friday at Creations by Nina-Marie
Freemotion Mavericks at Lizzy Leonard Vintage Sewing
Finished or not Friday at Busy Hands Quilts
Show off Saturday at Sew Can She

A Great Saturday

I spent a very exciting Saturday at the meeting of Eastern Branch of the Irish Patchwork Society. Bought some bits and pieces form the visiting shop, Fabric Matters, including my beloved YLI variegated threads.

I also couldn't resist a layer cake of beautiful "Shibori" collection by Moda. Wendy had a sample quilt on display made of this collection's charm pack.

I'm planning a quilt for my brother, so this collection of imitation shibori prints in shades of indigo seemed a great choice.

There was a great talk by Ruth Bourke of Charly and Ben's Crafty Corner about modern quilting.

And then, in the afternoon, Ruth held a workshop for us on the Ticker Tape technique, which was very interesting and inspiring. You can see Ruth's quilt of her dog Wilbur made in this technique in her blog here.

As it was just a half-day workshop, we could only start the process, but everybody enjoyed playing with scraps and I'm looking forward to seeing (at least some) finished quilts at the next month's meeting. I made my own pattern of a dragon and had a good start on it. After some more work at home, this is where I am now:

Admittedly she looks more like a dinosaur at the moment, but there are still wings and spines to come. Anyway, you can see she's a girl and I hope she's going to be a good girl. The process is fast and fun and hope to have her finished before I get overwhelmed with my college tasks again.

Linking up to Sunday Stash at Molli Sparkles
Main Crush Monday at Cooking Up Quilts

Christmas Wreath - Crafted Appliqué Style

Just wanted to share my entry to this year's Christmas challenge at the Eastern branch of Irish Patchwork Society.

I made it in express mode, in the last couple of days before the meeting, so no process pics. The background is a kind of ombre-effect log cabin, the image itself - free-hand, little-planned appliqué made using the Crafted appliqué method. I also used some beads for holly and mistletoe berries and poinsettia buds. The size is about 20''.

Here are some other beautiful entries from the challenge:

I was thrilled that my piece took the second place and brought me a beautiful fabric prize!

During the afternoon after the meeting there were some Christmas demonstrations, and I showed some ladies how to make poinsettia appliqué, and I think I'll also make a small tutorial for that here on the blog, too.

Linking up to Linky Tuesday at Freemotion by the River
Let's Bee Social at Sew Fresh Quilts
Crafted Applique Linky Party at Buzzing Bumble

Quilters, Prizes and Sunday Stash

I was very excited to attend the general meeting of the Irish Patchwork Society in Kilkenny on Saturday, my head is still buzzing with all the impressions)))

The greatest treat of the day was perhaps meeting in person some wonderful quilters whose work I  admire and whose blogs I follow: Tomomi Mc Elwee of Slaney HandCraft, Ruth Bourke of Charly and Ben's Crafty Corner and Ethelda Ellis of Ethelda's Quilting Journal (she admitted she doesn't have time to update the blog regularly, but you can google the images of her works - absolutely mind-boggling!). I met lots of other people on the day as well and everybody was really nice and and friendly and the atmosphere was great.

The room was decorated with beautiful quilts by the members of the IPS South Midland Branch:

A huge highlight for me was of course the Viewer's Choice prize for my quilt in the IPS National Exhibition "Evolution" and a trophy for excellence (I don't remember the exact wording) for the same quilt. I was just blown away, as you can see below:

Paula Rafferty (IPS International Rep), the Trophy, me, and the Committee - thanks to Ruth for taking the picture!

Everybody's favorite part of the morning was the raffle with great prizes and voting for the challenge, which was a mini quilt on the theme "Witches and Castles". Choosing from all the lovely pieces was a challenge in itself:

The winner is the quilty witch with a sewing machine - very cute! Mine is in the lower right corner and you can read about it here.

After that came a really nice dinner, which was as much about talking as about eating and a visit to the shops, which is where the Sunday Stash comes in:

Reds and Greens are mostly for a Christmas project, and Yellows and Blacks for a little sunshine-in-the-dead-of-winter project I'm not telling you about yet ;))

The afternoon talk was given by a great textile artist from Anglsey - Dorothy Russel. The topic was "The butterfly has two wings", which related to tradition and innovation in her creative work and what she said and showed us was extremely interesting and very inspirational. I didn't take any photos of her quilts, as you can find much better quality shots on her website - do go over there and have a look, they are stunning (though I can testify that viewed in real life they are even more stunning). On Sunday Dorothy was giving a workshop on the "New York beauty" block, but I wasn't there.

After the meeting was over I still had some time before my bus home to run around Kilkenny, which is a lovely town with a huge imposing castle and some wonderfully crooked streets with colorful shopfronts:

I'm linking this post to Sunday Stash at Molli Sparkles and Main Crush Monday at Cooking Up Quilts.