There’s adorable mischief afoot in the Library, in this week’s exclusive eQuilter Free Quilt Pattern. When you make a quilt from this Kitty Panel, you are combining 3 of our favorite things: Cats, Books, and Quilting!
To make this 59″ x 50″ quilt design, first you will start with the 24″ x 44″ digital-printed panel. Add more allover kitty prints, coordinates, and a Hoffman Hand-dye to piece the border with on-point diamonds.
This is the ultimate lap quilt or wall hanging for your favorite Crazy Cat Lady or Feline Fellow. If your kitty jumps on your lap while you are napping under this quilt, send us a photo for our social media!
Order the pattern as configured, or customize it to your liking with any of our thousands of fabrics. Just place your desired fabrics in your Wish List, and these fabrics will appear in the Fabric Selector below the pattern.
We love our magazines, don’t we? We quilters are so tactile…when the demise of print magazines was predicted, we just kept on caressing those glossy pages, swishing through the images, and soaking up all that eye candy on the printed page. There has been a shake-up in the magazine industry for sure, but publishers are surprised at how resilient many creative magazines have been over the last several years…compared to other categories of monthly and quarterly publications.
As a trend watcher, I also like to look at other kinds of magazines, including interior decoration. Recently I read an article about an interior designer who was ‘not afraid of color’ because she painted her walls muted sherbet colors, and mixed textile and wallpaper patterns and colors in her rooms. It made me giggle, because compared to the wild mixing, shaking and stirring we do with our quilts…it was rather tame.
If you are a customer of eQuilter, I’d guess you are truly not afraid of color. You enjoy plunging into the juicy end of the color pool, with hues that evoke flowers, fruits, spices, butterflies, tropical birds, and precious jewels. And you might even like working with contrasting colors that vibrate next to each other. To all of you Crazy Color Freaks out there, I doff my invisible feathered and polka-dotted cap.
Speaking of color, this week we received the gorgeous and much-anticipated Velvet Ribbons from Renaissance, digital printed and designed by Kaffe Fassett, Tula Pink, Odile Bailloeul and Philip Jacobs. I am sure you are aware that we’ve carried fabric collections by these designers and now you can finish off special projects (I am thinking garments or bags) with these deliciously luxurious wide velvet ribbons. Our staff was standing around petting the ribbons today and gushing about how yummy they are…we have an advance limited shipment in house now with more coming in the future. If you don’t have a cat, get a yard of one of these and that will get you through the rest of the pandemic.
…sharing your love of fabric, Luana and Paul
p.s. Check out our brand new (shhh!) Moda Grunge Fat Quarter Packets – in 3 different color combos. Sophie is cutting them this week.
Quilt Calendar: (fingers crossed!)
July 29 – Aug 1 – Festival of Quilts in Birmingham UK “For the Love of Gaia” quilt gallery
Aug 7 – Zoom lecture “Intl Quilt Trends” for Birmingham Festival of Quilts
We suggest this quilt design as a soothing wall hanging, in a meditation or healing space. Bring a little bit of the Outdoors to your work space or private space, and B-R-E-A-T-H-E….
To make this 48″ x 65″ quilt design, start with the 24″ x 44″ detailed scenic panel, then add stone and tree bark textures, and Hoffman hand-dyes, for the lovely pieced border.
Order the pattern as configured, or customize it to your liking with any of our thousands of fabrics. Just place your desired fabrics in your Wish List, and these fabrics will appear in the Fabric Selector below the pattern.
This time of year is the best time to snap up seasonal Christmas and Halloween prints. Our suppliers consider these “one and done” which means they do not reprint most of these holiday designs. Currently we have over 400 Christmas and Winter fabrics in stock, and 190 Halloween and Day of the Dead designs.
Congratulations to Colette Dumont who took the Best of Show award at Quilt Canada this week. I met Colette several years ago – the very first year she entered this event. That year she won the “Best Newcomer” prize….and the Best of Show…what a way to burst onto the scene! Her amazing intricate work is even more mind-blowing when you see it in person.
NHK has made an official announcement that the Tokyo Quilt Festival at the Tokyo Dome is permanently cancelled. There are plans to try to start a new different quilt festival in Japan in 2022 but no details yet. However the Houston Quilt Festival just announced its 85 instructors who will teach this Fall, so we have something to look forward to in a few months!
We celebrate this very first Juneteenth holiday today, which was only signed into law a few days ago. This weekend we also celebrate Fathers Day, and Sunday is the Summer Solstice…although this week we already have had three days in a row with record-breaking 100 degree weather here in Colorado. Summer came early to the West this year.
We hope that you are enjoying all of these celebrations and are staying cool in the heat. As our bookkeeper Annette said on her way out the door Friday, it is a good weekend to stay in the basement and sew!
…sharing your love of fabric, Luana and Paul
Quilt Calendar: (fingers crossed!)
July 29 – Aug 1 – Festival of Quilts in Birmingham UK “For the Love of Gaia” quilt gallery Aug 7 – Zoom lecture “Intl Quilt Trends” for Birmingham Festival of Quilts Sept 27 – Anchorage Log Cabin Quilters Guild – Lecture. Oct 23-30 – Houston Quilt Market & Festival Dec 4 – Zoom lecture “Intl Quilt Trends” – Quilt Canada Jan 12 – Apr 9, 2022 – New England Quilt Museum (NEQM) “For the Love of Gaia” quilt exhibit Sat, March 19 – “International Quilt Trends” power point lecture – NEQM
To make this 70″ x 57″ quilt design, you will start with our exclusive 30″ x 44″ digital-printed panel, then add the atmospheric blenders and ombre digital prints to make a border.
Order the pattern as configured, or customize it to your liking with any of our thousands of fabrics. Just place your desired fabrics in your Wish List, and these fabrics will appear in the Fabric Selector below the pattern.
Here in Colorado we are in the middle of a 100 degree heatwave, but all that daytime heat releases the most lush deliciously organic smells from the grass, trees and topsoil at midnight when things cool off a bit. I take the dogs out for one last whiz around midnight, and look at the stars, breathing in the green earthy smell. The crickets have not started singing yet, so I enjoy the peaceful silence for now.
As I mentioned in Saturday’s newsletter, last weekend I photographed several raptors at a bird rescue fundraiser event. There were several owls, but this one really captured my heart. She was a Barred Owl, and was looking at us, as much as we were looking at her. She had beautiful brown and white striped feathers on her wings, back, and tail. When you lock eyes with a wild creature, you can perhaps connect with them on a soul level, and that is something you never forget. My Polar Bear portrait which is traveling in the Endangered Species quilt exhibit now, was from a photo I took during one of those moments. I hope you can have a little bit of the feeling I experienced when I locked eyes with this beautiful owl.
Under normal circumstances, I would have been flying to Canada today. Wednesday evening (tonight) is the award ceremony for Quilt Canada, and this year it is virtual. eQuilter is sponsoring the top prize for the Modern Quilt category, and the Art Quilt – Human/Animal category. If you are a Canadian quilter I hope to see you online tonight when I announce these cash prizes. I look forward to celebrating ALL of the awards that will be given out tonight, to celebrate what has been created during the pandemic.
I hope you are all staying cool and enjoying the colors, smells, sounds and flavors of Summertime.
…sharing your love of fabric, Luana and Paul
Quilt Calendar: (fingers crossed!)
June 16 – Quilt National Award Ceremony Online
July 29 – Aug 1 – Festival of Quilts in Birmingham UK “For the Love of Gaia” quilt gallery
Aug 7 – Zoom lecture “Intl Quilt Trends” for Birmingham Festival of Quilts
Black Cats, Spell Books, and Candelit Ouija Boards are featured in this week’s exclusive eQuilter Free Quilt Pattern…a spooky pieced quilt with a witch’s feline assistants sprawled among the magical tools.
Order the pattern as configured, or customize it to your liking with any of our thousands of fabrics. Just place your desired fabrics in your Wish List, and these fabrics will appear in the Fabric Selector below the pattern.
You may know that in March 1999, Paul and I started our business in the basement of our home. We started out specializing in Asian imported fabrics and Bali batiks. My years living in Asia, and having family members in Hawaii, gave us a special appreciation for these beautiful fabrics. Adopting a baby from China deepened our love of Asian fabrics.
Today we still have a special place in our hearts for these categories, but they are much harder to find, and keep in stock. So when we have a week like this, with Hawaiian Batiks,Island prints, Asian Florals, Asian Blenders, and Japanese magazines, it brings a smile to our faces. Since many of our suppliers have cut way back on these categories, we have to dig a little deeper to locate these products, and some of them are exclusive to eQuilter. If you share our love of Asian and Island fabrics and are not quite ready to travel, take a little vacation in our carefully curated Asian Department.
This weekend I had a photo op, to take images of raptors with a local non-profit called Hawk Quest. Many of you know Gail Garber who is the executive director of Hawks Aloft in Albuquerque, and also a brilliant quilt artist and teacher. In fact she is a fellow Bernina Ambassador. The raptor rescue world is a small one – like the quilting world – and so the guy who runs Hawk Quest of course knows Gail. (Hey Gail – Dan says hi!) Anyway I had a fantastic photo session with several owls, a bald eagle and a kestrel. Maybe you will see them in our exclusive fabric line one day.
July 29 – Aug 1 – Festival of Quilts in Birmingham UK “For the Love of Gaia” quilt gallery Aug 7 – Zoom lecture “Intl Quilt Trends” for Birmingham Festival of Quilts Sept 27 – Anchorage Log Cabin Quilters Guild – Lecture. Oct 23-30 – Houston Quilt Market & Festival Dec 4 – Zoom lecture “Intl Quilt Trends” – Quilt Canada Jan 12 – Apr 9, 2022 – New England Quilt Museum (NEQM) “For the Love of Gaia” quilt exhibit Sat, March 19 – “International Quilt Trends” power point lecture – NEQM
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Posted inAnimals, Japan|Comments Off on Asian Imports and Raptors
To make this 53″ x 64″ quilt design, you will start with this Rubin Studio exclusive 29″ x 44″ panel, then piece Northcott clouds and Stonehenge textures to create the diamond border. This quilt makes a special gift for Bird-Watchers and Harry Potter fans!
Order the pattern as configured, or customize it to your liking with any of our thousands of fabrics. Just place your desired fabrics in your Wish List, and these fabrics will appear in the Fabric Selector below the pattern.
It has been a great year to make quilts, read books, bake sourdough bread, and maybe adopt another cat. We know that many of you are bookworms and cat lovers….but how many of you are that exquisite combination of bookaholic and crazy cat lady? (or laddie)
At our house, my stacks of books are often referred to as the Tower(s) of Doom. But I am an avid reader on several topics, and there is often at least one of our 3 cats nearby when I settle in with the evening’s opus. I do collect antique travel books, but my Tower of Doom includes an eclectic range of topics from textile history to indigenous botany and beyond.
Recently I came across the term “Epistolary Book” and had to look up the meaning. It is a book based on letters or diary entries. That sent me off on a exploration of literary terms and I share these with you now for our mutual amusement:
Lectiophile – the love of reading.
Librocubicularist – someone who reads in bed.
Logomaniac – one who is obsessed with words.
Sesquipedalian – one who likes to use long words.
Vellichor – the strange wistfulness of used bookstores.
Bibliosmia – the enjoyment from smelling old books.
And why is there a hint of a vanilla scent in antique books? Lignin, which is in all wood-based papers, is closely related to vanillin. As it breaks down, the lignin gives a hint of the vanilla scent in the aging pages.
When you combine your love of quilting and books and cats, you get an evening snuggled under a book-themed lap quilt, reading an epistolary volume, with a warm purring kitty on your lap.
…sharing your love of fabric, and books, and cats…. Luana and Paul
Quilt Calendar: (fingers crossed!)
June 13 – Zoom Lecture “Intl Quilt Trends” – Quilt National/Dairy Barn
July 29 – Aug 1 – Festival of Quilts in Birmingham UK “For the Love of Gaia” quilt gallery
Aug 7 – Zoom lecture “Intl Quilt Trends” for Birmingham Festival of Quilts
