Aloha from the Black Forest!

This weekend Sophie and I are at a quilt retreat
put on by our state guild CQC. Nancy Chong is here teaching her
traditional Hawaiian appliqu? method. You may be familiar with her Hawaiian
quilt pattern designs from Pacific
Rim, which we carry in our
category of Hawaiian Books and Patterns.

We are out in the woods of the Black Forest, east of Colorado Springs. You may
recall that there was a huge
fire here in June. Our retreat center is untouched, but we couldn't help
but think about the fire as we left the interstate and drove east into the
trees.

Anyway, we are super excited to spend a weekend focusing on Hawaiian quilts!
Paul's parents live in Hawaii, and I've been traveling
to Hawaii yearly, for 19 years. I always make sure to find an exhibit of
Hawaiian quilts when there, so I've seen a lot of beautiful island-inspired
quilts over a couple decades. When I took my first Hawaiian quilt class in the
90's, I had a teacher who threatened to kick me out of class if I didn't use
the traditional solid fabrics. Nancy likes solids, but I see lots of students
are using beautiful batiks, hand-dyes and tonal prints, with some luscious
results. Half of the quilters took the class today, and we'll be in tomorrow's
class. Today I am giving Sophie some lessons in hand appliqu? so she won't be
too overwhelmed tomorrow. It can be challenging even for experienced grownup
quilters!

Many thanks to all of you who have sent in quilts for the Colorado Floods! On
Monday afternoon I will talk to my old friend Cathy who lost her home, studio
and portfolios in the Lyons flood. Cathy has been a leader of the artist
community in Lyons….before it was destroyed
and evacuated. She is going to set up a special distribution for our
quilts, to go to those who had terrible flood losses.

If you are sending or dropping off quilts in the near future, please let us
know so we can set a date that will include your quilts. You can email Dana in
customer service at [email protected]

If you need more time let us know, and we can arrange a 2nd distribution date
for those later quilts. So please email or call by Monday noon so we can make
plans to get your quilts to those folks as soon as possible. I will attend the
distribution and take photos.

You may also recall that last December I went with Kathy Price and Mission of Love down to Guatemala on a
Cleft
Lip/Palate surgery trip. They are on their way down to Guatemala for
another surgery week, supported by the money that eQuilter (and our customers)
donate to their medical and disaster relief missions.

Mission of Love is still planning
to rebuild a home in Moore,
Oklahoma, for a family who lost their home and their 9 year old son. You
can contribute directly via PayPal
on their site.

Now I have to get back to my Quilt Retreat! My fellow quilters are wondering
why I am on my laptop, instead of working on my applique project!