Tag Archives: Valerie Larkin

WHAT started as a pastime reviving old craft skills has helped to weave a unique Clare Quilt, which could raise up to €20,000 for three charitable causes. Before the onset of Covid-19, Valerie Larkin enjoyed visiting places of interest throughout the county that she had only read about. Ms Larkin thought it would be an interesting project to try to make a quilt that showed places of historical interest, lessor known sites, Irish dancers, musicians, fiddles and harps. “I felt wouldn’t it be great to have a tapestry for Clare,” she recalled. Measuring ten feet by six feet, this beautiful quilt, which was featured on RTE’s Nationwide, was created by women living in the four corners of Clare during lockdown last year. It consists of individual handmade squares, created using many different mediums including appliqué, embroidery, felting and quilting. Depicting some of Clare’s historical sites, lesser-known places, music, dance and sports culture, it is a unique record for what locals …

A GROUP that has been working to capture the fabric of County Clare will feature on tonight’s edition of Nationwide on RTE1. The Clare Quilt Project has drawn in women from all around the county in a co-operative effort over the past six months. Members of the group each contributed a square to the patchwork quilt that artfully represents the best of the Banner. The group was initiated by Valerie Larkin who was involved in the project to make the largest knitted blanket in the world for a Guinness Book of Records attempt four years ago. One of the contributors Bernie Callinan told The Clare Champion, “That project was done in The Showgrounds in Ennis, it measured about 21,000 square feet, through that record has been broken since. “It was knitted squares that came from all over the world, they were all put together. It took about two to three years and actually the pope came to Ireland the day it …