Miriam Gogarty

from Dublin, Ireland, is visiting Ontario with the Irish patchwork Society. She is a member of the learningfa group as well as some post card groups. I would love you to take a trip into their flickr album and check out the beautiful Irish quilts made by their members.

Miriam is the designer of "Emma's Tree" which I discussed on my blog this past week.
she is the one without a wall hanging inthe picture of her class and their wonderful 'Irish Landscapes" I understand they took Miriam and a few friends on a tour around and the
weather was good - I hope the trees were still showing their beautiful colors. Miriam has
become such a good friend.

Verona's quilt

My friend Verona from Revelstoke just sent me this picture of her latest work in progress.
She does the most beautiful work and we exchange pictures each time we finish something. This quilt is my absolute favorite of all the pictures she has sent.
She is going to put red and blue borders on this quilt.

She is such a good friend. How fortunate I am with my friends.

She organizes the Big Sky retreat in Olds, and
there is lots of room if any of you would like to attend a June retreat. I can vouch for how well it is run and what fun we have. It is in Olds Alberta at Olds College. The work room is well lit, lots of room and each of us can have either a single room or share one with a friend. The girls who attend are great and the atmosphere is wonderful. I would strongly recommend it. There are lots of people from all over who come each year. Some from BC. some from Oregon, Boston, Atlanta, Manitoba, and lots from Calgary and Edmonton.
If you are interested in attending email me at painterlady2@shaw.ca and I will send her your request - She will then send you information on the retreat. I would love to meet some of you there.

Emma's Tree

Hi everyone! The girls in the learningfa group have taken on a project to make 2
"Emma's Trees. One of our Irish Members, Miriam, designed and made a
tree in memory of her
daughter Emma who died of Cancer a few years ag0..

The trees are quite simple to make and we decided to make two
each, one for
ourselves and one to give to someone else. People from all
over the world
are making these in honor of Miriam and Emma.

I just finished my first tree, and have not decided to make it
into a square
wall hanging, or leave the tree as is. It worked up very quickly
and I am ready
to cut squares for the second one tomorrow. I used two
fabrics, a blue
snowflake pattern and a navy blue sky pattern which has
stars on it.
Once I got it put together I used silver thread to highlight
the squares.

Miriam's trees are hung, as is, but I am thinking of putting
mine on a
square wall hanging and decorating the border with thread
painted
Christmas decorations. I haven't decided for sure yet. I
would love to
have some idea whether you think this should be left alone
and hung
as is , or whether I should make a square wall hanging with
pointsettias and
pine cones and needles around the edging.