Bee Blessed: October

This month's Bee Blessed block is a scrap busting, strip block.  For October's block Sarah and Judith are looking for  Scrappy Stripey Triangles (try saying that 3 times real fast!).  Judith's blocks below have a vibrant happy look to them and they are easy to make.

Block Instructions can be found on Judith's blog here this month. 

-Ruth

The changing of the guard.....

I'm sure you'll have noticed our lovely new header and blog button at this stage (aren't they fab? Miss Anna is the talented lady responsible for designing them and doing all the techy stuff to get them up there too). As well as putting a lovely new face on our blog, officially changing our name from the Modern Quilt Guild of Ireland to Modern Quilters Ireland, the change of name, look and feel also coincide with some behind the scenes changes.

As I'm sure most of you know, Cindy and I (Sarah) started the Modern Quilt Guild of Ireland back in 2012. Our hope was that we would gather together the small, dispersed group of modern quilters in Ireland  into a fun, happy, chatty community through meetups, swaps, bees, online chat etc. We were (and still are!) totally in love with modern quilting and wanted to share that with other like-minded quilters. We also were hoping we might encourage a few people to dust down their sewing machines and get involved.

Happily, two years on, we have created a vibrant group of people. There is lots going on! Swaps, bees, charity quilts, sharing of ideas and inspiration, local meetups and lots of chat, whether it is through Instagram, our chat group on Facebook, or simply lots of email. There have been a number of different meetups, particularly in the last few months, and this is an area that seems to be gathering momentum all the time.

For me, the highlights have been our swaps and our Bees. I have these beautiful spiderweb blocks awaiting assembly in my sewing room at the moment from my month this year - I need to add a few more as this will be a picnic quilt - but it will be done for next summer.  Didn't the Hive members do a good job?

And the other highlight was the Medallion quiltalong Cindy coordinated earlier this year. Lots of lovely medallions made or still in progress from this. I made a baby medallion.

But both Cindy and I have been really struggling to find the time in the last 6-9 months to keep on top of what needs to be done for the MQI. It is growing all the time and it needs fresh energy and perspective. Plus, MQI was never intended to be solely ours - it was always our intention that other people would be involved in the running.

So we are handing over the reins to some fresh organisers, namely Anna, Ruth and Fiona and we are 100% sure they will do a great great job seeing as they are all fabulous! They have already come up with lots of ideas and they are going to be sharing those with you.

For now though, Cindy and I want to thank all our lovely members for their support of us in the last few years and for getting involved. We aren't going away - we will be active members - but we are not going to be involved in the administrative or organisational side for the forseeable future. And wish our new organisers luck! You're in safe hands.

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

Modern Irish {Scrappy} Bee: October Blocks

Hi I'm Tomomi, hive mama for October! This is my very first to do the quilting bee actually so I am very very looking forward to what I am going to get from you ladies!  After nine month going through everybody else blocks, I was bit worried somebody may come up with the same idea as mine. But you didn't! So here you go!

I would like to have bookshelf blocks please :)

My idea came when I saw this beautiful room.  We moved the house last November and got rid of a lot of books but still we have a lot. Yes we are a family of book worms. And now I want to have a book shelf quilt too.  There are some variation of them if you google it, but since this quilting bee is working with scraps, I want to make something like this or this or this.

I like being organised and my book shelf to be organized by genre. To do so, I would ask you to have a theme for each blocks you make. Grown up section, old books, pop section, Jane Austen  section, future section, exotic, or whatever your books collections are. Just no kids section please. Pretty section, maybe.

Only fabric I wouldn't want for the books are whites or very pale unless some bright pattern on it. I am going to ask you to use Kona Ash for the background, so if you can use anything brighter or darker than it, it's fine.

Blocks size : 12.5” H and about 12.5” W. I need you to make them 12.5” high but the width can be between 11” and 13”. I will explain why later. And two blocks please.

How to make blocks.

The short tutorial

Cut up the scraps of fabric for book parts between 2.5” - 1” wide and 6.5” - 11.5” long. Add the necessary length of the Kona Ash as a background fabric on top of each strips to make them 12.5” long altogether.

Fold the seam allowance to the book side together so the book gets some lift from the background.

Stitch all the strips together to make a block about 12.5” wide. You don't need to make them exact 12.5” wide, shorter or longer, both fine.

Please vary the hight of books especially neighbouring ones, means don't put similar hight books next to each other. And wide colour variation please.

The step by step tutorial.

Cut up the scraps of fabric for book parts between 2.5” - 1” wide and 6.5” - 11.5” long. Lay them in order you like with 0.5” overlapping.

  

Measure and make the total width around 12.5”. I made mines a bit longer to be on the safe side because I usually end up too short.

 Cut one Kona Ash 2.5” wide strip for the background. Measure the length of book strip which is 2.5”, say that was A”. Cut the Kona Ash strip to (13 -  A)” long and stitch it on top of the book strip. That should make the strip 12.5”. Do the same to all the 2.5” books.

Slice the left over 2.5” Kona Ash strip or cut new one to the same width as the next widest book strip. Repeat as above. And proceed to the narrower books. In this way,I Think you don't end up with too much Kona Ash scraps.

Fold the seam allowance to the book side together so the book gets some lift from the background.

When all the books has background attached on the top, stitch them together.  Please verify the hight of books especially neighbouring ones, means don't put similar hight books next to each other. And wide colour variation please.

Alternately, you can make them with this measurement.

Book strips; 2.5” *10.5”, 2.5”*6.5”, 2”*10”, 2*10.5”, 2”*11.5”, 2”*7.5”, 1.5*8.5”, 1.5*7.5”

Background Kona Ash ;  2.5” *2.5”, 2.5”*6.5”, 2”*3”, 2*2.5”, 2”*1.5”, 2”*5.5”, 1.5*4.5”, 1.5*5.5”

I wrote them in order to go together, so don't mix them up! Refert to the pic too. When all the books has background attached on the top, stitch them together whatever the order you like.

The picture is sideways for me to draw easily.  All the measurements are seam allowance included.

  

Please contact me if you find something wrong or difficult in this tutorial. I will help!

Romance Section

Pop Culture Section

Dutch Rose {Swoon} Blocks

Some of the posts I’ve been writing for the blog have involved explorations of techniques (Half Square Triangles) and traditional Blocks (Log Cabins) used in a modern way and while brainstorming the next item I couldn’t get the 8 pointed star block we all know as Swoon out of my head. Some people are all Swooned out and anyone who makes this 80” x 80” quilt deserves a lie down! The popularity of this block though goes back a long way.

While watching Camille Roskelly’s class on Craftsy Pre-cut Piecing Made Simple, I learned that her famous Swoon pattern comes from a traditional Block called the Dutch Rose. Camille found it in an antique quilt, resized it up to a 24” block and simplified the piecing to make it from squares, half square triangles and flying geese.

Traditionally this block is made with diamonds and Y seams and lives in catalogues under the 8 pointed stars with 45 degree diamonds sections!  Barbara Brackman has it listed in her Encyclopedia of Pieced Quilt Patterns as the Rolling Star block from 1932 (page 461 if anyone has this book. You can buy a digital copy from the American Quilter’s Society here).

Jinny Beyer in her book The Quilter's Album of Patchwork Patterns: More Than 4, 050 Pieced Designs for Quilters has the Dutch rose listed by the Ladies Art Company in 1897, making this design 117 years old! Not quite what you would call modern though in modern fabrics it just shines, doesn’t it?

It also goes by Star with Diamonds, Star of the East, Carpenters Wheel, Lone Star of Paradise, Morning Star, Double Star and Twinkling Stars. While having a rummage around the internet I found  a number of ways of making it.  Jinny Beyer has templates for 6”, 10” and 12” on her website here using the traditional method. McCall’s quilting has a 12” version using a specific colour layout and more modern piecing here and Double Nickel Quilts has way of making this block from Charm or 5” squares here. Did you know charms are called Nickel squares? 5 inch, 5 cents, makes sense to me!

My favourite that I found in my exploration is a Double Dutch Rose paper pieced pattern by Piece by Numbers. Definitely on my list to make!

A modification to the four corners of this block gives you the Star of Bethlehem from 1938 also called Jewels in a Frame and the Star of the Magi (ref. Jinny Beyer book above) and the Patterns from History website states there are 14 different star designs that use the Star of Bethlehem name including this one!

Whatever version you choose or whatever name you choose to call them these 8 pointed star blocks are hard to resist. Moda has chosen a simplified version that can be made from Layer cakes (72”) Charms (32”) or mini-Charms (12”) and have given the pattern away for free here. There is a blog hop going on at the moment to showcase new Moda fabrics for Autumn/Winter here if you want to see some lovely versions of this block. I really like this one at Fresh Figs. The layer cake version seems like a great and quick way to piece a quilt top!

If you have any Swoon blocks or quilts to share we’d love to see them on IG (#modernirishquilters) or on our Flickr or Facebook pages.

-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

Modern Irish {Scrappy} Bee: September Block

So, no sleeps now until it is my turn to be queen bee in the Irish Modern Quilt Guild Stash Bee. Big excitement, this is my first time in a bee and to be a bee mama. First though I will tell you a little about myself. I have always sewn and knitted, dolls clothes when I was little, my mum and I used to make things together. Then I progressed to making clothes and altering clothes, that's when I was young and slim. When the children were small and knitting went out of vogue, I took up quilting. That was great for ten or so years, but I felt stultified by the quilting rules and it seemed too fussy as my home became more contemporary. In the meantime I discovered my love of genealogy, gardening, scrap booking  and drinking wine. In between times I read books, lots of books, and baked occasionally.

 Eventually I came back to quilting, I love this modern style and the new clean lines of contemporary quilting. (mind you, my house reminds me of  Oscar Wilde's Picture of Dorian Gray - the house has clean lines but the roof space and cupboards are bursting at the seams). I'm in my mid 50s and married a long long time. Our children are all grown up now, my sons (twins) live in the States and in England and my daughter has come home from England. Alan and I have gone from 5 to 3 to 2 and back again to 3.  I am lucky enough to work part time, in a library (books and talking to people - what's not to like?) so have taken up the sewing again.  So that's me, just to add I have loved being part of this online community and watching what you all sew! Now on to the bee.

After much thought, excitement, trepidation and tossing and turning I have decided on wonky crosses. Not too difficult when the school term begins again with all that entails for most of you, and not too difficult for my first tutorial!

I would like you to do 4 wonky cross squares and one teeny tiny wonky cross as a signature square. For this quilt I would like to you use kona (or equivalent) in a strong bright colour.

Think happy :)
Think LOUD
Think bright

For the wonky cross itself, I would like another bright strong colour, a contrast at least, a colour clash would be brilliant. I would prefer, please, no florals for this. I would love circles, squares, lines or a pattern made from strong lines like my pink wee wander trees. The end result will be bright, modern, cheerful. A quilt to make your heart sing. Now for the method.

Cut a 10.5 square of background fabric and make a diagonal cut from the top to the bottom. Take a strip of 1 to 2" wide of your contrast fabric and sew it to each side of the cut. Leave an inch or so of the strip proud at the top and edge the right hand piece of fabric up slightly.

Next make a diagonal cut from left to right (don't do what I did and fold the fabric and cut - it makes and arrow shape, not what we want at all!) Take the second strip and sew to the first bit and then the second. The tricky bit is to keep the two sides matched up. A little sticking in pins and shuffling around helps.

Don't worry about trimming off the squares, I will do it. Obviously the size of the finished square will depend on the width of the cross. When I get them all I will cut them all to size. I would also like you to make me one small square with a 4" square as the base square, and then sign it. If you really feel the love you please feel free to make more than one miniature square!

I first saw this square on the Bee Blessed blog, and I made 4 squares for Judith and Sarah at the time, and I loved how their final quilt turned out. Judith had kindly allowed me link to their tutorial. If you don't already know Bee Blessed they are a great bunch who make quilts for the needy in the community. Worth supporting if you can, and I know lots of us do.

Well, when I first joined this Bee, as a latecomer, in February, the advice I got was "just breathe". I am still "just breathing", have nearly survived my first year, and hope to take part again next year if you'll have me.

Helen x