Auld Sod, New Love: A Quilter Tours Ireland

Dingle Bay, Ireland

From the Editor: Our guest blogger is quilter Penny Barnes of Pieces of Me (pennybarnes.blogspot.com), who with her husband, Don, is leading the Anam Cara tour, a creative-based ten days of travel in Ireland in May 2014. Penny shares how Ireland and some of its quilty people have opened up a new vista in her life, inspiring her to host a travel experience that other creative types would savor. And in a future print issue of Generation Q, she’ll write more specifically about the Irish quilting community.

By Penny Barnes

Have you ever travelled somewhere for the first time, but had an overwhelming feeling that you were “home,” even though your passport definitely didn’t show that little stamp of proof?

That very thing happened on my first trip to Ireland in 2012.  Standing there, looking out over the deep blue sea with a towering green mountain  behind me, the hair on my arms stood on end and my heart started doing flip flops. I felt my DNA shift. I knew I would return. I simply had to.

Now, the landscape of the Emerald Isle may have captured my heart, but some quilty friendships I made during that visit cemented the connection. You know how we quilters are…we search for like-minded souls wherever we go, and Ireland is truly as rich in creative energy as it is in spectacular scenery.

This soulful connection with Ireland, as well as our growing relationships with many in the Irish quilting community, have inspired me and my husband, Don, to host the Anam Cara—Soul Friend Journey Across Ireland, May 15-25, 2014, for Brack Tours. We want to help others experience Ireland in the same way we have, and to explore their own creativity in such a timeless and beautiful place.

The words Anam Cara (which means “soul friend” in Gaelic) refer to the Celtic spiritual belief of souls connecting and bonding. When you are blessed with an Anam Cara, the Irish believe you have arrived at that most sacred place…Home.

The Anam Cara tour is a blend of activities and sight-seeing, including a fabric dyeing class by a leading Irish quilter, photography, visits with local quilting shops and quilters and exploring the beautiful sights that inspire Irish quilters. (You can read more here about the tour.)

To prepare for the tour, Don and I returned to Ireland last fall.  We spent several days with my friend, Nikki Foley, owner of The Sewing Shed in Castlemaine, The Sewing Shed is a quaint little quilt shop overlooking the sea on the road to Dingle, offering a variety of fabrics and notions, as well as kits and classes for all levels of quilters.

Nikki Foley and Penny Barnes

The Sewing Shed, Castlemaine

She also hand-dyes fabric and designs patterns, including original kits like her Céad Míle Fáilte wall hanging.  PIC??? (Céad Míle Fáilte translates to a “hundred thousand welcomes” in Gaelic.) These kits, with their wee bit of Irish flair, are especially popular with international customers.

A custom design by Nikki Foley, author, teacher, quilter and owner of The Sewing Shed, Castlemaine, Ireland.

For the most part, we drove ourselves around, and that was extremely frightening.  As hard as it was for Don to be driving on the “wrong” side of the road, let me just say that sitting on the “driver’s side” with no steering wheel or brakes was (at times) terrifying.  Don announced early on that I needed to be the guide because it took all of his concentration to drive on the left even though I was chanting “LEFT! LEFT!” as he drove. It was my job to watch the signs.  Let’s just say we missed quite a few turns.

Nikki was able to take us out to the Dingle Peninsula for a day.  There is something so magical about that stretch of Irish coast. And we had a great day for it! The sun was shining, the sky and sea were the same shade of blue, and rainbows hovered over the mist-covered mountains.

We visited Kilmalkedar Church, a Romanesque church dating back to the first half of the 12^th century.  Celtic crosses mark the cemetery surrounding the grounds. It’s impossible to stand on this sacred ground overlooking the sea and not feel the spiritual energy here. As quilters, Nikki and I found inspiration for a quilt we plan to create together.  How about you…can you see the makings of a great quilt here?

I also got to spend a day at her shop, hanging out with a class of advanced quilters. Well, wherever quilters gather, you can bet there will be laughter (good craic, as the Irish say) mixed with lots of show and tell and idea-sharing. The quilting camaraderie is like none other, and it doesn’t matter what country you come from. And of course, it’s always fun to see what other quilters are up to. I really enjoyed seeing all the quilts and projects. There was a traditional flavor to much of it, but there was an indescribably different flair, maybe a mark of regionality that gave the quilts a look of their own.

And I always learn from other quilters. Here are two great tips I got from Nikki’s students.

1. When making a quilt with a lot of colors, make a numbered color chart from scraps of your fabrics.

2. How about adding your photo to the label like Maura did to this quilt she was giving as a gift?

Quilting, more often referred to as “patchwork” in Ireland, has become much more popular over the past few years.  Ireland boasts  a couple of national guilds, The Irish Patchwork Society and The Quilter’s Guild of Ireland,  as well as a relatively new Modern Quilt Guild of Ireland, which is currently more of an online community, with several members writing regular quilting blog posts and tutorials.

As Don and I traveled on to the coastal city of Galway, I connected with Cindy Coleman, owner of the Fluffy Sheep Quilting blog (http://fluffysheepquilting.blogspot.com) and an online shop with lots of fabrics for the modern quilter. In Cindy’s company, I attended a meeting of the Irish Patchwork Society  – Western Branch.  I met many welcoming quilters, including two more shop owners–Linda McMulkin, owner of Rags for Linda, near Galway, and Lynn Naughton, owner of Seams Sew Simple in Roscommon.

The limitless reach of social media makes it fairly easy to stay in touch with my new-found Irish quilting friends, but I can’t wait to return and introduce more people open to the creativity and friendship in the Emerald Isle!