November meeting

Genesis held a group meeting on Sunday November 20th. The main purpose of this meeting was to distribute the fabric from our group dyeing day at An Grianan.

At An Grianan we all dyed 5 metres of fabric, the plan was that 1 metre would then given to each member ensuring that all our pieces for our upcoming group project will co-ordinate.

Here's Ann with one of the fabrics that she dyed for the swap.

Tracy showed this sample that she's working on for her Burren piece.

 
Here's all the fabric that the Genesis group dyed in preparation for our group project.

Our next meeting is Sunday 15th January - it will be interesting to see how much work we'll have done on our panels by then.

Finally I got a post up!!

Contempory Quilting Group at An Grianán

by

Paula Rafferty

Thanks to the wonderful Margaret Mc Crory for the organising. It started as Irish members of the Contemporary Quilting group of the Quilters Guild of the Britain and ended up as eleven quilters, a mixed bunch, our Genesis group being among them. We met for tea at five thirty last Friday evening and then dragged all our bits and pieces into the two rooms.

We had one wet and one dry room. The wet room was a mass of dye buckets and basins as our Genesis group had made plans to group dye some fabrics for use in a new piece, so Tracy started mixing up dyes Friday evening and we got our fabrics soaked and ready for Saturday morning. Tracy Watson, Claire Lynch, Ann Bradshaw, Meg Kenny make up the Genesis group and the wonderful Irene Mac William made up the wet room group. while the dry room was the quiet room as I began to call it. Ann Fleeton, Mary Heseltine, Margaret Mc Crory, Helen Heron and Rose Little.
I went between the two rooms.

Everyone was working on different projects,
I left the dye mixing to the scientists as my adhoc dyeing methods would probably upset them!!!
So on it went for the weekend dyeing sewing and being fed what a treat.

The company was wonderful, I always come away from a weekend like that buzzing with renewed enthusiasm and ideas.

Had the worst drive home ever, very strong wind and torrential driving rain. Felt like the car was going to be lifted by the wind at any moment but got home safely eventually, Had to stop in the Kildare Village for some hot chocolate to keep me going and some retail therapy!!!!!
Got the fabrics washed out and dried Sunday evening but now my problem which one do I keep?
Stuck deciding between two pieces, what a tough life I have!!! May just have to dye some more.
Here's the finished pieces;

My pics from An Grianan

I love this  piece of old linen embroidered tablecloth, I think it took the violet grey beautifully. The subtlety of the dyed embroidered flowers really pleases me, they had been quite bright colors.

This is some old seer-sucker, white, this could be interesting in the context of the Burren.

This sample below is the shade of grey that I'll be sharing out with the other four Genisi, (how bout that for a word?)

This was a piece of turquoise linen

And my new buddy, Ireenie!!

An Grianan weekend

Some more photo's from the An Grianan weekend. Here's Ann holding up one of the fabrics that she dyed:

Tracy and Meg looking very scientific as they prepare to dye fabric

one of Ann's fabric postcards on the theme of the Burren.

After dyeing my fabrics, I spent the rest of the weekend working on my sketchbooks and altered books.

At last I have figured out how to upload photos, so here are a few from last weekend when the Genesis group joined other contemporary quilters at An Grianan for a weekend of total immersion in sewing and dyeing with some wonderful, stimulating company.

Above is Claire, starting to dye fabrics.
above are the dye buckets Meg and I were using along with some space dyed pieces I was working on.
Here is Ann, really delving into some intense space dyeing.
Here is the group of friends at An Grianan, unfortuanely Paula had left by this stage, but clockwise from the left: Claire, Meg, Irene, Ann, Margaret, Ann, Mary, Helen and Rose with Tracy behind the camera.

the weekend was great, the drive home horrendous due to the rain, but well worth it. I felt I'd had a much longer weekend and a very satisfying dyeing session.

Burren research road trip

Burren Field Trip

4 members of the Genesis group took a field trip to the Burren, Co. Clare on Sunday 4th September. The 5th member (Ann) unfortunately couldn't make the trip.

We had a great day back at the Burren - luckily we missed most of the showers, apart from our last stop of the day where we got soaked!

Lots of photographs were taken as research for our next group project which is going to be a group quilt, to enter into next year's Festival of Quilts competition.

We visited holy wells, portal and wedge Tombs, ancient churches and abbeys etc. so covered a lot of topics.

And also passed a very interesting garden near Carron.

Festival of Quilts

At the Festival of Quilts 2011, the Irish Patchwork Society had a stand to celebrate their 30th Anniversary. Quilts were selected from their recent Branching out exhibition. Two Genesis quilts were selected "Spring Growth" by Claire Lynch and "Genesis: First Growth" - the 1st Genesis group quilt.

Paula Rafferty was also one of the designers representing Ireland in this years Fashion Sans Frontier event at FoQ

Genesis Meeting 31st July 2011

Genesis had a group meeting on 31st July 2011.
Swap Bag 2 projects were supposed to be finished on this date, however only Claire and Tracy had finished theirs! Swap Bag 2's contents were organised by Tracy, it consisted of blue and white organza.

Tracy made a book cover using the fabrics:

Claire made 4 postcards (2 fabric and 2 paper based) and a book cover for Meg (not pictured here).

Plans were made for a field trip in September to the "Burren". This is get photographs and inspiration for our next group project.

Ann, Meg and Paula are to have Swap Bag 2 items finished for the 4th September. Paula will have Swap Bag 3 ready for this date.

Branching Out Exhibition Opening

The Irish Patchwork Society is currently holding it's "Branching Out" Exhibition in the Botanic Gardens in Dublin.

Here's Meg with her piece "Breathe In, Breathe Out, Interior, Exterior Spaces"

And here's the Genesis group quilt "First Growth":

And here's one of Meg's fabric postcards made for the postcard exhibit:

Swap Bag 2

Genesis members are now working on the contents of Swap Bag 2. This swap bag was made up by Tracy, and contains a piece each of white and blue organza and piece of blue sari ribbon.

Genesis First Growth Group Quilt on exhibit

Our first group quilt "Genesis: First Growth" is now on exhibit as part of the Mid-West Branch "Branching Out" Exhibition. The exhibition is running from the 18-23rd April in the Old Benetton Building, corner of Henry Street and Sarsfield Street, Limerick.

Four of the 5 Genesis group members also have pieces hanging in the exhibition:
Paula Rafferty with Elementals 3:

Meg Kenny with Breathe in, Breathe Out Interior, Exterior Spaces:

Claire Lynch with Spring Growth:

Tracy Watson with Mermaid Quilt: (photographed behind glass so image is a bit blurry)

Genesis: First Growth

At yesterday's meeting, we worked on finishing our "Branching Out" Group Quilt.
Each member made an A4 piece which had to incorporate the challenge fabric. The piece has to be ready for April 18th, which is the deadline for handing pieces up for the exhibition, so the pressure was on. The 5 pieces were already quilted, so it was decided to frame each piece with white fabric and then black fabric which would give the illusion of framed pieces.
The quilt top was sewn together and basted at the meeting. Meg is now going to finish the quilting, then it will go to Paula who will add the facing and sleeve, Claire is to make up the label.

We decided to call the piece "Genesis: 1st Growth" - very apt as it is our 1st group Genesis quilt. Think we all learned a lot from doing a group quilt - the next time (if there is one!) we need to start months in advance and not leave ourselves 5 days to complete a piece!

Ann:

Tracy:

Paula:

Claire:

Meg:

"Branching Out" Group Quilt

The group is currently working on a group quilt to enter into the upcoming "Branching Out" IPS exhibitions.

We decided to each make an A4-sized piece which we join up together to create our 1st group quilt. The pieces all had to incorporate a blue/green fabric donated by Paula.

At last Sunday's meeting, three of the group have their piece nearly completed. Even using the challenge fabric, the pieces are all totally different in style and overall colour-choice.

Paula is going to sew up the 5 group pieces to complete our quilt in the next few weeks.