What's new, Irina?

Hello, I'm Irina and I write about my ever-growing list of projects at El Petit Taller.  I've been asked to tell you about what I'm working on at the moment. One of my many WIPs is a quilt for my son Conor, who has just turned 10 moths, so it's about time he had his own quilt!

I took part in a rainbow charm swap and had been adding squares from scraps, so with a good collection of 5 inch squares I decided to make rainbow stars inspired in this tutorial.

About the design of the quilt... I'm making it up as I go along!  But the idea, so far, is to make a square quilt, with the stars slightly tilted on a white sashing. I'd like to make small wonky stars where the corners of the starry blocks meet. I'm not sure if I'll add a border... I will need to see how the central panel looks like first and if I want to add more starry blocks, so I might ask you for advise when the moment comes!

Oh, and just let me tell you that I consider myself pretty new in modern quilting and I really love being inspired by the work of all the rest of you in the MQGI, so thank you!

Secret Table Runner

Hi, I am Anneliese and I blog at mail from the cheeky monkeys.  I was asked to write something about a project I am working on. It is still a secret but I mailed it today so I think I can talk about it.

Some weeks ago I was so pleased when a friend asked me to make her a table runner. I love to make them. It just takes some days and it is done. The pattern was on me and we decided to use the charm pack from Kate Spain "Serenade" I had at home with a cream solid. Just a little color in the cold winter time until spring finally arrives. (It was only a week ago they had heavy snowfall so it will take some more weeks until the first flowers will make it through!)

I wanted to use HSTs again. After a lot of trimming the most fun is to sit on the floor and play "memory" swapping the HSTs to find the perfect place for each. I think this worked out nice even if I could still be sitting there swapping HSTs. 

I have never done so much quilting on a table runner. I just did straight lines on the cream solid. It was so a lot of work but it was also lots of fun.

This time I finished the table runner with a triangle shape at the ends going with the pattern. Somehow I feel sad letting it go. Especially as the last days were very rainy and grey here in the West. 

I almost used the whole charm pack. There were only some HST left so I made a little mug rug and added this to the parcel. An other surprise as she did not want to see the finished table runner. So you are the first to see it! 

So the table runner is on its way to Austria and I hope it arrives soon! I don't like the time waiting until I hear the parcel arrived safely. I hope nothing goes wrong. 

This was my finish for January! A little distraction from the other projects which are waiting to be completed. Thanks for letting me share it!

Anneliese

What's new, Judith?

Hi there!  I'm Judith from Just Jude.

I've been invited to tell you about a WIP I'm working on at the moment.

I'm currently working on my class projects for next term, which means making class samples and writing up the patterns in advance of the classes.

Next term I hope to teach a new quilt design called 'Baby Bear Paw':



The idea behind this design is to take a traditional block like Bear's Paw, and modernise it.  You can see here when you put 4 Bear Paw blocks together you get a giant star!  This baby quilt will be approx. 49" x 49". 

And because this block design is so versatile, you could easily upsize and create a Mama Bear Paw Quilt (approx. 73" x 73"):

I've quantified the fabric requirements and have decided to use a fq bundle of Savannah Bop which I won at FQ Retreat last June.

I'm very fortunate to be in the position of owning a Sizzix, and the 4.5" hst die has made light work of the cutting out.

Using the Sizzix means the hsts don't need to be trimmed or squared off when sewn together!  How cool is that!

So that's my WIP for today! I hope to have this quilt finished and photographed soon, for the new programme of classes being released next month!



Chilly Morning Inspiration

It's been a while so belated happy New Year to you all! Is it OK to say that? At least we are still in January!

So to kick-start the year I thought I would put together a little collage of recent work members of the Guild have done, as per Flickr.

So if in any case any of you needed motivation to start off with new new projects throw your eyes over these!

Don't forget to upload your work to the flickr group.  We'd also love to hear about what you are making this month, so contact Cindy (fluffysheepquilting(at)gmail(dot)com) if you are interested in writing a little WIP post for our guild blog.  

All the best 

Fi 
(patchworkdelights)

Learning to Quilt in Ireland

Calling Irish Quilters!  Calling Irish Quilters!

Where did you learn to quilt?  Do you have a teacher or shop that is close to your heart?  Or maybe you teach classes yourself?  If so, would you please email us at mqgireland (at) gmail (dot) com with your recommendation.   Please include the name of the teacher, their contact information and even photos of what you made as well as a little 3-5 sentence review of why you think they are great.  We can then make a new directory on our blog to help those new to quilting find a place nearby to learn. 

Thank you!

Mini Quilt Swap

Did you send off your mini quilt to Atlanta?  Did you get one in return?  There are such gorgeous quilts floating their way back and forth across the Atlantic.  I want to be sure we can all see each and every one of them.

If you have a blog, please link up your posts when you write about the mini quilt you sent to Atlanta or the mini quilt you received in the post.  If you do not have a blog, please just email photos with the names of the creator to me (fluffysheepquilting at gmail dot com) and I'll add them onto this post.  This way we all get to join in the fun!

Thanks so much!

It's here....the Modern Irish Bee!!

Thanks everyone for your suggestions on the names for our Bee! Eva and Cindy and I had a little chat about the suggestions and we decided that we liked the "Modern Irish Bee"  - simple and classic.  I did a little button if you are taking part and want one for your blog:

<div align="center"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/groups/modernirishbee/" title="Modern Irish Bee"><img src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7087/7163596998_e1ff7f2289_o.jpg" alt="Modern Irish Bee" style="border:none;" /></a></div>

We had 2 people suggest this name, so we will take the first suggestion who was Judith! Congratulations Judith, will you email me your address details and I will pass them to Eva at Pippablue for your prize to be sent out. Thanks again to Pippablue for sponsoring the contest!

So, I have been working away behind the scenes and I have set up the necessary structures for our new Bee! Woohoo, I'm very excited!!

We are now ready to launch it, starting with the first month in July, and we will be running it through Flickr. We have 12 people who wanted to take part right away, so watch out for your invitation to the Flickr Bee group in your Flickrmail or email today. If you are not a Flickr member, you will need to set up a free account over there to take part.

Over in the Flickr group I have 2 posts set up, one of which you need to read straight away -the "How Its All Going to Work" thread......which does exactly what it says on the tin! This is the basic guide to how the Bee works.  The second thread is about what you need to do when it's your month as Queen Bee and is there for a reference when it comes to your month.

Please please feel free to start threads with any questions you have, for general chat etc. We want the Bee to be about having fun and increasing the social interaction in our little community. So jump in and enjoy :-)

I will take the first month (July) to get us kicked off and so that if its your first time in a Bee, you know what to expect.

I hope you all enjoy it! I can't wait. I'm thinking what I'm going to do for my blocks and what fabric I will use........I'm eyeing my Echo FQ bundle and thinking it might be time to cut into it....but I'm not sure yet :-))

Sarah

P.S. Agnes and Eleanor, I don't have email addresses for either of you, could you email me at fairyfacedesigns@gmail.com with your details please so I can set you up!