As many of you will know, I’ve been pretty busy recently launching The Engine House in Castletown (www.eng.im), a new co-working and incubator space for new and emerging businesses in the arts, media and tech sectors. We’ve had a lot of enquiries this week so I haven’t had much time to devote to the weekly news update. However, I am very pleased to be able to share with you some information about the Mannin Quilters, who again impressed me greatly at this year’s Isle of Man Arts Festival. There were some amazing pieces of work. I took a few pictures and have included them here so that you can see how amazing some of these quilts are.
Rose Mary Coase of Mannin Quilters very kindly sent me this information which I hope you will enjoy in lieu of the news this week.
Now we have about 80 members but are still a group of ladies with a shared love of sewing who meet to quilt, embroider, chat, share tips, eat cake (usually home made) and drink tea!
The group is open to anyone who enjoys sewing – you don’t have to be ‘a sewist of a certain standard’ – and they can come along to a couple of meetings to see what we do before joining.
We have two meetings every week – Wednesday afternoon at St Columba’s Catholic Church in Port Erin 1.30-4pm and Tuesday evening at Ballabeg Methodist Chapel 7.30-9pm.
Mannin Quilters has always been involved in community projects. For our Millennium project in 2000, instead of making a big quilt we started making tiny quilts for babies in the Neo Natal Unit (then SCBU) at our local hospital. The parents choose a tiny quilt to brighten up the incubator and when the baby is big enough to go home, the quilt goes with them. We make between 100 and 120 every year.
We also made a cover for the travelling incubator which cuts out noise and light which can be stressful for the baby while in the helicopter flying to hospitals in the UK and then a couple of years ago we accepted the challenge of making new bright covers for the incubators in the Unit.
During the early years of visits from the children from Chernobyl (who came over to the island for a month’s respite care) we made lap quilts – each in it’s own little bag – for them to take back with them. The first year, the children carried them everywhere!
Every 2 years we hold an exhibition of our work where we showcase things made at workshops as well as quilts made at home. We don’t have an exhibition every year as it takes us 2 years to make enough items for a good exhibition – 150 exhibits in 2016 and 148 in 2018.
We also make a group quilt to be raffled for charities, relevant to and chosen by, the group, which takes a year from design to completion.
For the past 3 years we have also made cushions for island ‘Live at Home’ schemes which are given out as presents at Christmas, much to the delight of the recipients.
Mannin Quilters has its own website too: www.manninquilters.org
Charities supported since 2000
2000 – Started making baby quilts for the Neo Natal Unit; Exhibition at Ballabeg; Made a replica quilt for Harry Kelly’s cottage, Cregneash; Made lap quilts for Chernobyl children to take home
2001 – Made 24 lap quilts, each in their own bag, for Chernobyl children – each had a Manx cat or 3 legs on somewhere
2002 – Exhibition ‘Stitches in Time’ at Ballabeg
2004 – Exhibition at Ballabeg – Hospice care £1,000
2006 – Exhibition at Ballabeg – Alzheimers Society / Rebecca House £650 each
2008 – Exhibition at Ballabeg -Parkinsons/Breakthrough Breast Cancer £650 each
2010 – Exhibition at Ballabeg – Robert Owen House/ Hyperbaric / Hospice £500 each.
2012 – Exhibition at Ballabeg – Manx Cancer Care/ Parkinsons £620 each; 50 lap quilts for Hospice
2014 – Exhibition at Ballabeg – Alzheimers/Macmillan Nurses £1,000 each; Made 93 cushions for Southern Befrienders
2015 – Made 64 green jerseys for start of the Tour de France in Harrogate; Made a Manx patchwork quilt for the North American Manx Association homecoming
2016 – Exhibition at Ballabeg – Hyperbaric/Rushen First Responders £1.000 each; Made a new travelling incubator cover for Neo Natal Unit; Made cushions for Laxey and Lonan Live at Home
2017 – Made Christmas bunting for Neo Natal Unit; Made cushions for Western Live at Home scheme
2018 – Raising money for Macular Society Isle of Man and Multiple Sclerosis Society Isle of Man
