Meditation on Peace

Posted on January 13, 2021 by Luana

We were hoping to have a fresh start in the New Year, but apparently 2020 is not quite done with us yet. Hopefully by February 1st we can have that fresh start for 2021. It has been another week where we have found solace in our quilting and sewing, and our fellow creative friends. It would be easy to get sucked into the polarizing and disturbing news the last several days. It takes a conscious effort to step back from doomscrolling.

I found myself escaping into the past, and fantasizing about the future over the weekend. Then I settled on staying settled in the moment, and meditating and praying for peace. I firmly believe that the energy and belief that we bring to each day, is what we create. So I got out my needle and thread and did some hand-sewing and mending, and made each stitch a meditation. For the most part I believe that we are all just doing the best we can in these challenging times, and we need to hold a vision for a coming time when we can come together again based on what we have in common, instead of focusing on what might divide us.

So I invite you to join me in taking up needle and thread over this next week, and making each stitch a prayer….for the safety of our loved ones and our communities….and our country….and our world that we share. It is the prayers that grandmothers have stitched into their quilts for hundreds of years, like a song that echoes in the recesses of our brains. We stitch for love, for peace, for safety, for those sweet quiet moments that hold the songs of our grandmothers.

The globe quilt above was photographed at the Tokyo Quilt Festival in January 2020.

Wishing you health and peace,
Luana and Paul

Online Lecture Calendar:
Jan 24 – India Quilt Festival – Intl Quilt Trends
Jan 29 – Sandra Meech Interview – Visions Art Museum
Feb 13 – Canadian Quilters Association
Feb 21 – The Condor & The Eagle – Film Screening for eQuilter
Coming Soon – SAQA Color Interview

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Free eQuilter Pattern – Little Darlings Woodland

Posted on January 12, 2021 by Luana

Come and enjoy the whimsical world of ‘Little Darlings Woodland’ in
this week’s Free Quilt Pattern, featuring these charming watercolor vignettes of sweet but wild baby animals…with garlands of flowers on their adorable little heads.

To make this 67″ x 67″ quilt design, you will start with a panel with portrait blocks, then piece with 2 Hoffman Hand-Dyes (Pink and Mint Green), and finish with the coordinating Stripe for the border. The ice cream colors of this breezy quilt design make it a joy to construct, and some special little person is going to have enchanting dreams sleeping under this sweet Nap-time Quilt.

…featuring the ‘Little Darlings’ collection by Sillier than Sally Designs for P&B Textiles.

Don’t miss the popular ‘Christmas Eve Pets‘ and ‘Panda Sanctuary‘ quilt patterns!

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.

Click Here for a Video Tutorial of the Free Pattern Designer.
Download Instructions for the pattern at the bottom of the pattern designer page.

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Remember Normal?

Posted on January 11, 2021 by Luana

Sewing in the time of COVID-19 – Week 43

After a week like this all I can say is – thank God I have my quilter friends. You, and this love for sewing that we share, are keeping me going. It was a depressing week. Our friends outside the US ask what the heck is happening to our country, and I have to tell them I don’t understand either. If quilters ran the country we could fix things pretty fast, because we know what is a priority. Love. Family. Respect. Community. Those things only come with PEACE.

The good news is that Sophie signed a lease for her college apartment this week. She will move out of our house and into her apartment in August, for her sophomore year. The even better news is that my mom is through the worst of her bout with Covid, and has been moved from the Covid unit back to her private room. She is happy to be back with her piano.

In case you didn’t notice (above) we now have our own beautiful eQuilter facemask available for purchase. Wear them in public and you will meet other quilters. My nephew wore one while skiing in Vail, and met a cute young lady who is a fan of ours. Ha!

Also for those of you who have bemoaned the disappearance of Silamide Beading Thread, we have brought in a new line of beading thread in a rainbow of colors! Woo hoo! This is a big deal. We’ve been working on this for months. We’ll be adding in more of these products next week.

One of my side hobbies is collecting opera-house anecdotes. It started with a story about an exploding grand piano (from my piano tuner), and now I’ve invested $5 in a used book called “Great Operatic Disasters” which I am hoping will put this week’s events into some kind of context. I started out loving opera for the music and costumes (textiles). Pre-pandemic I loved to sign up for 3-hour backstage tours in the bowels and ateliers of opera houses around the world, and asked my opera-singer friends for stories they don’t dare tell to anyone else. Blame it on “Death at La Fenice” I suppose. Just waiting to see how this latest opera production in DC ends….

with Hope for the Future,
Luana and Paul

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Free eQuilter Pattern – Cool Paisley Cats

Posted on January 8, 2021 by Luana

You know that Blue is a calming color…kind of like petting a purring cat on your lap.
This week’s exclusive eQuilter Free Quilt design brings you beautiful kitties in those soothing cool colors, with shimmering touches of pearlescent white dots in the swirling paisleys.

To make this 65″ x 79″ quilt, you will cut up a black panel and a white panel, for alternating positive-negative feline blocks. Piece together with 5 of the collection coordinates, and finish with the stripe as a border. The only question is…will your cat snuggle on top of this quilt, or under this quilt? There’s only one way to find out!

… from the ‘Cat-i-tude Singing the Blues’ collection by Ann Lauer for Benartex.

Don’t miss the popular ‘Christmas Eve Pets‘ and ‘Panda Sanctuary‘ quilt patterns!

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.

Click Here for a Video Tutorial of the Free Pattern Designer.
Download Instructions for the pattern at the bottom of the pattern designer page.

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Half a World Away

Posted on January 6, 2021 by Luana

One thing that I have learned in my travels around the world (49 countries so far…) is that women are the same the world over.

Mothers, Sisters, Grandmothers, Daughters, and Aunties…we care deeply about each other, and especially for our families and our communities. Time and time again I have visited cultures and communities where the focus is not on possessions, but on family and especially children. During my years working as an import fashion designer in Asia, I met so many women who thanked me for bringing business to their community, so they could feed their children. That left a lasting impact on me, which is expressed through the eQuilter charity program.

One of the communities we support is through Langa Lapu in South Africa. Recently we had another shipment of handmade fabrics that are made by these women, and their products are a crucial support for these mothers and their families. The owner Pru runs a soup kitchen once a week, and also contributes to an AIDS orphanage down the road. So when we bring in another shipment of these very unique products for eQuilter, there are mothers and grandmothers who have spun this fabric into gold to feed their children.

Another group of products like this are the Guatemalan Ikats. These are handloomed cottage industry fabrics with threads that are space-dyed by hand, made on lap looms. Generally the weaver loops one end of the lap loom around a post on her front porch, the other around her waist, and proceeds to work the warp and weft one row at a time in the traditional method. If you look at my photos from Guatemala you will see many of these ladies wearing the traditional Mayan hand-loomed textiles that they wove themselves. To me, these fabrics are so incredibly special. I feel a very personal connection to the women who made these textiles to feed their families, but also to share their beauty with us.

Attention friends in INDIA, Asia-Pacific, Africa & Europe:
I will be giving an online power point lecture “International Quilt Trends” through the India Quilt Festival (in your time zone!), on Sunday Jan 24. You can register to attend here:
https://www.indiaquiltfestival.com/workshop/international-quilt-trends/202

I’ll be giving an online presentation to the WaShonaji guild here in Denver this weekend as well. I have a couple more online talks coming up and I’ll give you information on those soon. During these months which are hopefully the last part of the pandemic, we need to support each other by sharing beauty and inspiration for those quilts yet-to-be-made in 2021 and beyond….

Wishing you health and comfort in the New Year,
Luana and Paul

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Free Quilt Pattern – Rain Blossom

Posted on January 5, 2021 by Luana

Come with us to a dreamy Summer garden, in this week’s exclusive eQuilter Free Quilt Pattern. Watercolor hues flow like a soft rain as seen through a big window. This colorful rainbow is illuminated like a ray of sunshine peeking through an afternoon drizzle.

To make this 68″ x 76″ quilt design, you will combine the large-scale floral, a feathery marble print, 3 Hoffman Hand-Dyes and a Kona Solid Black, to make the window. Frame the quilt with our exclusive Rainbow Stripe to make a brilliant impression!

… from the ‘Rain Blossom’ collection by Chong-A Hwang for Timeless Treasures.

Don’t miss the popular ‘Christmas Eve Pets‘ and ‘Panda Sanctuary‘ quilt patterns!

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.

Click Here for a Video Tutorial of the Free Pattern Designer.
Download Instructions for the pattern at the bottom of the pattern designer page.

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We Made It!

Posted on January 4, 2021 by Luana

Sewing in the time of COVID-19 – Week 42

Happy New Year!
We made it to a shiny brand new year, and although 2021 still has its share of challenges, it is good to have a long weekend to rest and celebrate and make plans for a pandemic-free future. Now that a vaccine is creeping over the horizon, we can start to dream about getting together again someday, at quilt festivals, at exhibits and museums, and in the eQuilter classroom.

Thanks to those of you who wrote about my mother. She was supposed to get her first Covid shot this week, but she tested positive and was moved into the Covid unit in her nursing home a few days ago. She is stable with minimal symptoms so hopefully our prayers are working.

I just found out that our friend Gail Thomas lost her battle with cancer earlier this year. She was an internationally-known quilt artist, but also a professional singer, and author. She was working on designing fairy fabrics the last time I had dinner with her in Houston. You may recall I featured one of her quilts from the Birmingham UK festival in 2019. She had long wavy white hair down to her hips, and you could spot her a mile away in Houston. She was a gentle joyous soul, and will be deeply missed.

On a very positive note, we are starting to see the explosion of creativity that has come from designers and artists staying home during 2020. The last few months as I have previewed artwork – for collections shipping in 2021 – it is clear that designers staying home with nothing else to do but CREATE – is manifesting as a flood of fabric riches for all of us fabriholics. You are seeing it in today’s listing of new collections!

eQuilter has now raised over $1.75 million for charities and non-profits, including a lot of giving focused on those who have suffered during the pandemic. Thank you for supporting our family-owned business, and our commitment to helping those in need. Together, we have truly made a difference in 2020.

We wish you blessings of health, peace and creative abundance in 2021.

with Hope for the Future,
Luana and Paul

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Free eQuilter Pattern – Peacock Flourish

Posted on January 4, 2021 by Luana

Celebrate the New Year with the rejuvenating and inspiring symbolism of the Peacock,
in this week’s exclusive eQuilter Free Quilt Pattern….featuring the jewel-like artwork of Ann Lauer.

Is the Peacock your Spirit Animal?
These shimmering proud birds represent spirituality, freedom, self-expression, dignity, love, elegance and beauty…think of the feeling you get when a peacock gracefully glides past, then spreads its feathers to share its breathtaking splendor with us all. Let us hope that 2021 will share its gifts of healing and grace with the world, as the Peacock shares its magnificent plumage.

To make this 59″ x 77″ quilt design, you will start with the central 24″ x 44″ panel. Then add 4 allover coordinates from the collection plus a Kona Solid Black. Finish with the graceful Feather Stripe to make the border. The collection and this quilt give the impression of an opulent Jewel Box, enriched with generous Gold Metallic accents.

Happy New Year!

… from the ‘Peacock Flourish’ collection by Ann Lauer for Benartex.

Don’t miss the popular ‘Christmas Eve Pets‘ and ‘Panda Sanctuary‘ quilt patterns!

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.

Click Here for a Video Tutorial of the Free Pattern Designer.
Download Instructions for the pattern at the bottom of the pattern designer page.

Luana and Paul Rubin

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The Wings of Hope

Posted on December 30, 2020 by Luana

“Hope” is the thing with feathers –
That perches in the soul –
And sings the tune without the words –
And never stops – at all…

– Emily Dickinson

As 2020 draws to a close…

This year will be remembered for generations, and stories will be told by our children to their grandchildren, about the pandemic that swept the world and affected the lives of almost everyone on the planet.

But from loss and suffering comes strength and courage and human ingenuity. Periods of great inspiration and creativity have followed historic periods of strife and grief. The Human Spirit grows an armor of tenacity and resolve after enduring the flames of our greatest challenges. Humanity rises like the Phoenix to reclaim the joy of our precious day-to-day existence. It is the simple things like ….quiet afternoons with a needle and thread….that fill our hearts and heal our souls.

So I can only look to the coming year with HOPE and acceptance, because as much as we desire to have our questions answered, and as much as we crave normalcy, the world around the corner will be a new normal that we will embrace because it will clearly be better than 2020.

My sweet mother is now in a wheelchair in a nursing home. Yesterday they called to say she is scheduled for her Covid vaccination on January 4th. But late today I received another call that she has tested Covid positive, and has been moved to the Covid unit although she is asymptomatic. For those of you who believe in prayer, you are welcome to send her a prayer. I cannot visit her or talk to her, so that is all I have. So many of you have endured the same challenges this year, and many more will face this in the next few months until the world can get a grip on this pandemic.

In the meantime we have each other, we have our quilting to bring us solace, we have our friends via Zoom, we have our dogs and cats, and we have our personal strength that rises to these occasions. We have learned about ourselves, our communities, our leaders, and we’ve learned about things we didn’t want to know….and these things have made us more fierce, more compassionate, more generous, and hopefully more patient.

That’s what Life is all about. Learning. And this year has been a whopper.

Wishing you health and comfort in the New Year,
Luana and Paul

* The photo of the yellow bird in the center was taken at the Botanic Gardens in Christchurch, New Zealand…after the earthquake destroyed parts of downtown. You can see more photos of New Zealand and other travel and quilt festival photos on my photo pages.

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Free Quilt Pattern – Tiger Kingdom

Posted on December 29, 2020 by Luana

2020 may be going out like a broken bird, but 2021 is roaring in like a Tiger…and you can
bring the spirit of this Big Cat into your creative space to lend an aura of a fierce Visionary.
(Or, maybe your spouse is a Tiger King addict!)

To make this 51″ x 68″ quilt design, you will start with the electrifying 24″ x 44″ digital printed panel, and the detailed and very realistic Tiger Fur stripe. We’ve added in 2 Stonehenge textures plus a Hoffman Hand-Dye for an Earthtone color story.

Kaufman has produced 2 other panels that can be easily swapped out in this quilt design – the Lion or the Leopard. Each one is a stunning and very dramatic Big Cat portrait, and we’ve stocked up on all 3 so you can make one of each for a triptych that will enchant the Crazy Cat Lady or Tiger King Fan in your life.

… from the ‘Animal Kingdom’ collection by Robert Kaufman Fabrics.

Don’t miss the popular ‘Big Hugs‘ and ‘Bunny Meadows‘ quilt patterns!

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.

Click Here for a Video Tutorial of the Free Pattern Designer.
Download Instructions for the pattern at the bottom of the pattern designer page.

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