South Midlands Branch Kilkenny Irish Patchwork Society

16/08/2024

Well yesterday afternoon (Thursday) was just so, so busy. Started of kinda quiet but BOY! we had just SO MANY LOVELY VISITORS to the exhibition in the afternoon. Our Visitors' book is bulging with names including two independant quilt artists. So flattered that they took the time out to come see our quilts. Each year I wonder what our footfall will be but this year I think we might have broken records!!

THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU all you lovely people from all over the world who congregated in our exhibition space. It was a pleasure to meet you all and we hope that you enjoyed the time we shared together.

10/08/2024

Our exhibition 'Kilkenny Threads' at the Chapter House of St. Mary's Cathedral was very well attended yesterday, our first day of opening.

We had several tourists who had just arrived in Ireland, Kilkenny and came to see the exhibition. We have already filled two pages in our Visitors Book and hope to fill more pages over this weekend with Arts Week in full swing. Viewers' Choice was also popular, particularly when we said that viewers could vote for more than one quilt!! The box of votes is filling up quickly.

The exhibition is open from 10.00am through to 5pm each day. We look forward to seeing you.

09/08/2024

AND OUR EXHIBITION IS NOW OPEN!!!!!!

And its bigger and better than ever.

The Chapter House of St. Mary's Cathedral is full of the most colourful quilts and wallhangings for you to look at.

Open from 10.00am to 4pm today and through to Sunday 18th August. Our exhibition is stewarded by members of the South Midlands Branch of the Irish Patchwork Society who will be pleased to answer any questions you may have.

This year we are also featured in the Alternative Kilkenny Program.

We look forward to seeing you there.

11/12/2023

If you haven't seen the Christmas Tree Festival at St. Canice's Cathedral you need to hurry. The display of Christmas Trees (including those made by the members of the Irish Patchwork Society) closes on Tuesday. Every year the Cathedral is filled with Christmas Trees made by local people. It is always a delightful experience to go and look at what the creative people of Kilkenny come up with every year.

Members of the South Midlands branch of the Irish Patchwork Society made pennants in the shape of Christmas Trees for display.

We hope you like them.

01/10/2023

ARTS WEEK IN KILKENNY – OUR EXHIBITION.
The next exciting project we had to look forward to was Arts Week in Kilkenny. This is a two week festival of all things creative. Our own portion of it is our exhibition in the Chapter House of St. Mary’s Cathedral. Since our first exhibition here it has always been well attended and this year was no different. From the USA: Seattle, Charlotte, L.A., several from Italy and France, a viewer from Tel Aviv, the Netherlands, Malta, Germany, India and Japan. And of course those who came from slightly closer to home such as Castlecomer, Carlow, Kildare, Tipperary, Thomastown and KILKENNY!!!!! Oh, and I forgot to mention the person who came from Hospital!!!! No, not the medical establishment but the town..
The comments they left range from the simple “Excellent”, “Brilliant”, “Lovely” to “Lovely exhibition to see the work of other patchworkers” and, when asked to vote for their favourite in the exhibition, “Impossible to choose the best.”
The winner of the Viewer’s Choice was Brid Dillon O’Riordan’s lovely quilt ‘Alaskan Rainbow’

27/09/2023

We Are BACK!!!!!
We had no meeting in May or June (June was our AGM) and then we slid into Summer.
IPS NATIONAL AGM
Summer was an interesting time for us as the South Midlands Branch had volunteered to host the Irish Patchwork Society’s National AGM here in glorious Mediaeval Kilkenny.
The AGM meeting part went well. This was all down to our Secretary, Lola, who did an exceptional job in MCing the proceedings. Following lunch at the hotel we sat back and enjoyed a presentation by our Guest Speaker, Eileen McNulty, who also ran a workshop for us the following day.

14/08/2023

08/04/2023

• JANUARY MEETING 14.1.23
Our Frst meeing of the new 2023 year was enormous fun. After the excesses of Christmas we are all raring to go and make sure that the AGM of the IPS will be really special.
Helen Devane Chaired in Judy’s absence.
South Midlands Branch had been invited to send a representave to a recent Home Economics Conference. Mary Anne Brown had volunteered to go. Mary Anne said that she had talked to quite a lot of people and found that it was an interesting experience. South Midlands IPS might be invited back again next year.
There was a discussion about which shops to invite to the AGM: Threads of Green, Patchwork Plus and The Irish Quilter were suggested. We decided to keep on trend with themes for the AGM challenge. ‘Reduce, Reuse, Recycle’ and ‘Christmas Comes Early’ but we are open to any more ideas.
There followed a discussion about who to invite as a Speaker.
Lola Leacy (Secretary) had attended the National Executive Meettng on behalf of Brid.
Tracy Wardle brought her ‘Row by Row’ quilt that she is offering as a project starting in February.
• February Meetng 11.2.237
Our Chair, Judy, welcomed all members and Aine from The Lismore Quilt Company who is providing our shop for today.
Judy let us know that, as the premises of the Irish Wheelchair Associaon were about to undergo a complete refurbishment we would have to fnd a new home for our meetngs on Saturdays. If we are unable to )nd a premises, it was agreed that we would go back to using Zoom.
Brid read her report from the National Executive. Some of the points were that we should be actively encouraging new members. We need to research suitable grants although Arts grants are not usually for equipment so we need to research other organisations. It was noted that Tomomi is on the Kilkenny Carlow list as a quilting tutor.
There followed a discussion about room hire charges.
For SHOW and TELL Eileen Shortis showed a delighful pink rail fence baby quilt that she had made.
Earlier in the year Eileen had attended a workshop to create a table runner but had used different fabrics and colourways to the original and one square of the pattern for a pretty effect.
Mary Anne Brown showed us a wallhanging called ‘The Road to Crosspatrick’. Mary Anne explained that she felt that sometimes, where we are from is a place in our hearts and not necessarily a geographical locaon. Lola Leacy showed a project she is working on which is a charming country style pincushion. She kindly gave us all copies of the pattern which is from Spain. Anne Waters hadcompleted an extremely useful quilters bag.
The Wall Hangings on an Easter Theme were displayed and voted on, and the winner of the Kathleen Delaney cup was – Brid.
Kathleen Delaney was an important founder member of the South Midlands branch of the IPS. There was very little about needlecrafts that Kathleen did not know. She had been a teacher all her life, not only for sewing, beading and patchwork but also cookery in all its forms. We lost Kathleen to cancer several years ago and it was then we decided to honour her name by presenting a cup for the most outstanding piece made for a challenge.

Kathleen was with us from the beginning of our group in Callan and onwards to our application to the IPS National Executive to establish a group representing the South Midlands. Kathleen is still much missed by those of us who knew her.

There was a short discussion about The Quilt Fare in Belfast 7-9 September 2023. It was mentioned that those who are considering attending should possibly obtain an Over 70s Travel Card for Northern Ireland. Several people were interested in an overnight stay in Belfast.
March meeting.
For Show and Tell for this meeting Frank Whelan showed us his ‘Reduce, Reuse, Recycle’ creation which was a repurposed pair of old jeans transformed into a neat 60’s style cross body bad.

30/12/2022

AND A VERY JOLLY TIME WAS HAD BY ALL OF US

Our venue for the Christmas Party was the Irish Wheelchair Association and, as usual, everyone brought enough food to feed several armies.

After a short meeting we loaded up our plates and enjoyed the feast. We also played a couple of quilting games. We put the Secret Santa parcels under the very imaginative Christmas tree (see pic) and had fun passing the parcels to the rhythm of left and right according to the story.

We were joined by a couple of Santa’s elves (not on the shelves!) and the final picture is us girls.

30/12/2022

OH THE SEWING MACHINE, THE SEWING MACHINE
A GIRL’S BEST FRIEND
IF I DIDN’T HAVE MY SEWING MACHINE
I’D COME TO NO GOOD END.
This is a song from a film called ‘The Perils of Pauline’ made in 1947 and starring a lady called Betty Hutton.
Well I can only say that if someone from 1947 walked into our sewing rooms in the Irish wheelchair association on Saturday 12th November they would have agreed wholeheartedly that the sewing machine is, indeed, a girl’s best friend even more so in 2022. When I walked into the room the sound of whirring sewing machines was almost deafening. Berninas to the left of me and Pfaffs to the right and several other makes and models in between. Everyone was hard at work. There were Christmas table runners and wall hangings, robin-bedecked placemats and Christmas tree bordered throws,
After a short break for everyone to get their wits about them we held a short meeting chaired by Judy Byrne and Lola, our Secretary, took notes. We discussed the arrangements that we would need to make to host the IPS AGM next year in June. A venue has been chosen and a volunteer sub-committee has agreed to meet in January to pool ideas and get the process started. This will be the third time that South Midlands has hosted the AGM.
This was followed by a Show and Tell of completed and part completed quilted items. There were several faces that I recognised who had been members prior to the Pandemic and a few that I didn’t recognise but look forward to getting to know during the course of 2023. We had also had some approaches of potential members through the page. Our last page report was of our trip to Alexandra Palace in London and was viewed over 900 times.
We hope that you enjoy viewing the pictures of the quilts that were shown to us that afternoon. We look forward to gathering another collection of sewers to feature their work from our January meeting.