Saturday 4 February 2012

Launching the Modern Quilt Guild of Ireland!

Are you an Irish modern quilter?  Want to join into a supportive community of like-minded people to exchange techniques and inspiration?  Join the Modern Quilt Guild of Ireland


We just love modern quilting.  We love the use of color, the bold fabric patterns, the clean lines. There is something very special about the basic, simple nature of modern quilts that makes it attractive to both beginners and experienced quilters.  To learn more about modern quilting, head over here.

What will we do?  As a guild, we have a great opportunity to thrive as a quilting community.  For example, we could host block/fabric swaps or bees, create charity quilts or have fabric shopping field trips. 

This summer/fall we will hold our first meeting.  There we can decide if we want a quarterly, semi-annual or annual retreat.  We will decide how often we want to meet and what we want to do at these meetings (discussed in more detail below).  We would also like to start small local evening/weekend sewing groups all over Ireland so that talented folks who live near one another can get together with other members of MQGI.

At the first meeting this summer/fall, we will be looking for volunteers who would like to contribute to the board of the MQGI.  It’s going to take a small bit of time from 4-5 individuals to really get things going.  We will need a chairperson, a vice-chairperson, a treasurer, a secretary and a public outreach officer.  If you are interested in any of these positions, email mqgirelan(at)gmail.com.

We are totally open to suggestions, but at our regular whole-guild meetings, we can choose to include any/all of the following activities:
Deal with guild business
Show and tell of member’s projects
Fabric swaps
Host speakers (trunk shows and/or instructional)
Workshops
etc

If they are weekend long meetings we could have free sewing sessions, UFO finish offs or hold workshops in appliqué, fabric dying, improve piecing, quilt labelling, quilting math…what ever we want!

It is anticipated that several guild members will have fabric shops.  At each meeting, we would like to invite those shops to host pop-up shops for all members to have an opportunity to browse and shop to their heart’s content.

It is the goal of the guild to keep fees as low as possible.  Once we decide how frequently we want to meet, where we are meeting and for how long (an afternoon vs a weekend), we can determine an average cost of membership.  


As you know, there are already two wonderful societies within Ireland to support Irish quilters: the Irish Patchwork Society and the Quilter's Guild of Ireland.  MQG is not exclusive to members of these organizations, but instead encourages you to become members of any or all groups!  Sarah is a member of the QGI and Cindy is a member of IPS.  The focus of MQG, however, is specifically modern quilters which makes it unique.

To join in the MQGI please complete the form below.  Please also become a follower of the blog and join the flickr page as these will be the primary methods of communication moving forward.  If we get 10-15 interested people, we will start organizing an introductory meeting.  Hope to see you all there! 


Best wishes,


Sarah (Fairy Face Designs) and Cindy (Fluffy Sheep Quilting)
Founding members and interim organizers

1 comment:

  1. So great to see our numbers are growing....can't wait to meet up and enjoy the banter.

    ReplyDelete