MILLYPENNY

I recently completed my EQA "Circle of Friends" piece which was made from paper lamination. This year's EQA piece was black & white, with up to 30% of a certain colour (Ireland's colour is orange). ur was orange). I used the left-overs to make these ATC's.

Linda & Laura Kemshall recently had video clips on their DMTV about making altered books. I found 2 old books in second-hand shop in Galway a few weeks ago that I'm using. 1st stage is to reduce the number of pages in the book by glueing pages together, adding stitch to the pages, and then adding gesso or gel medium to the pages. It's taking a while to get the pages prepped as you have to wait for the gesso or gel medium to dry properly before adding colour to the pages. So I've been putting a coat on the pages every time I get a chance, but haven't got very far at the moment. I'm going to use one of the books as a sketchbook for an upcoming quilt project that I'm working on.

Here's another messenger-type bag that I finished recently. It was made using some Japanese Echino fabric that I love. I showed the bag at May meeting of the Midwest branch, so here's a photo of that.

I did a workshop with Ferret back in March. The workshop was "Tulips" using a variation on a stack & whack technique. I got the top pieced together at the workshop so it just needed to be quilted. Finally got this wall-hanging quilted last week ago. But I still have a 2nd quilt from the Ferret workshop to machine quilt...

My quilt "Spring Growth" is currently on exhibit as part of the Mid-West Branch "Branching Out" Exhibition. The exhibition is on in the Old Benetton Building on the corner of Henry Street and Sarsfield Street and runs till Saturday 23rd April.

Haven't got much sewing over the past few days - just finishing up the Spring Issue of the Irish Patchwork Society Newsletter for the printers. Did manage to get a few ATC's done though - they're made using fabric scraps (some from my as yet unfinished "Branching Out" quilt)! Have got a few more postcards done for the "Branching Out" exhibition as well, which I'll be putting in the post next week. Photographs to follow next week.

I'm a member of a small contemporary quilting group called "Genesis". I had the idea of each member taking it in turns to give out small swap bags at meetings filled with various different items. The challenge will be for all members to produce something for the next meeting using items from the bag. For our 1st Swap Bag challenge, I came up with the swap bag contents - which was a pieced of hand-dyed screen-printed fabric, square of metallic fabric paper (from an Arts & Craft Shop) and a stick-on magnet. Finished items are due at our next meeting on the 6th March. I Last weekend I had a go at using up the Swap Bag contents - ended up making 3 items from the contents. I embellished my fabric strip with thread, pieces of the metallic fabric paper, tiny squares of dyed (and used) colour-catchers. Also put the piece under the embellisher to add bits of organza, ribbon etc. When I had the fabric embellished enough I decided to make a fabric cuff - I have thin wrist...