We are excited to share today’s exclusive eQuilter Free Quilt Pattern, featuring one of our favorite wildlife artists – Abraham Hunter. This bird collection has been one of our most popular over the last several months, bringing cheerful outdoor Nature scenes to us just when we need it most!
Cardinals, Goldfinches, Bluebirds & Chickadees perch on the branches of a blossoming Dogwood tree, with a rustic wood bird feeder. If you are an avid birder or Audubon member, this quilt is just for you!
This 59″ x 67″ quilt design uses a large scenic panel, another block panel with small bird vignettes, 3 collection coordinates and 2 Hoffman Hand-Dyes to create this colorful scenic quilt that is so detailed and lifelike, you can almost hear the birds sing!
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.
Last week I had an amazing experience while riding home with Sophie after her violin lesson just outside of Boulder. Sophie is turning 18 next week, so naturally she wants to drive as much as possible…and being a passenger has freed me up to enjoy the scenery. On the way home as we passed the green fields and farms, I suddenly realized there was a team of draft horses pulling a mowing rig in a field! Holy Moly! I rushed home, grabbed my camera, and drove back. I stayed for about a half hour and photographed 2 teams of draft horses who were circling the field and mowing the hay. The sky was blue, the mountains were green and the snowy peaks were shining in the afternoon sun. It was perfect!
Since my traveling days are over for awhile, I’ve been itching to get out and take photos again. Today I went through these photos to see what I got. This week the mountains are hazy with smoke from fires in Southwest Colorado and Arizona. We can no longer see those sharp snowy peaks beyond our green foothills. Boy was I lucky, and I am so glad I went home for the camera!
I called my mom to tell her about what I photographed. She has been in lockdown in her nursing home for 3 months now. As I described the scene in the field, she started to remember a story from her childhood. When she was a kid she lived on a farm in Oregon and went to a one room schoolhouse. She would ride her horse to school bareback, and park her mare in a field across the dirt road from the school. She said, “It’s a lot easier to ride a horse bareback than with a saddle – you can feel the horse and the horse can feel you too.”
So I started to think about making hay while the sun shines, grabbing a camera when you see something amazing, riding a horse bareback instead of walking, and making the best of what every day brings…and for many of us it has been sewing masks or perhaps now working on long overdue quilt projects while the virus has hit the Pause Button in our lives.
It is a blessing to find the good in each day, and find gratitude for those gifts. I wish you all a day filled with blessings.
sharing your Passion for Fabric… Luana and Paul
* The photo collage above includes a photo by Luana, plus fabrics currently in stock at eQuilter.
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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 Lemonade and Mint), 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.
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.
As I write this on Saturday, I am celebrating National Sewing Machine Day! And what am I doing today? Mending a bedspread and curtains. In my great-grandmothers’ times those chores would have been done by hand. We tend to take these machines for granted most of the time, but I can tell you that through the pandemic, there is no entry-level sewing machine to be had. Perhaps now a supply of basic machines is starting to trickle back into retail stores, but I am told that over the last few months every basic inexpensive machine was snapped up. And why? Because of the massive army of sewing volunteers who rose up from quarantine to sew masks and PPE for their communities.
But that is just the start of this tale. I am hearing so many stories of people who lost jobs or were furloughed indefinitely, and decided to sew masks at home. Their friends and neighbors asked if they could buy masks. The demand grew until, they found they had a new business and needed to upgrade their machine pretty fast!
Everyone has their story of this event, but I am gathering stories about sewing and quilting from our friends, customers and industry contacts, about what we have all been doing for the last few months. There are a lot of stories about pulling Grandma’s dusty old machine out of a closet, and learning how to sew again. There are a lot of people out there (male and female, young and old) who have rediscovered the joy of sewing with a machine. Yay! That makes me smile!
(But make sure you clean and oil those babies, and take them for a tune-up with a sewing machine tech when things open up again.)
You have probably noticed that we stopped listing my travel schedule and our classroom schedule at the bottom of the newsletter. We have cancelled all of our events, including our 5-day workshops with Paula Nadelstern and Susan Carlson in October. We all agreed it was the right thing to do. I have no plans to travel in the foreseeable future. When we come through this there will be an explosion of activity and opportunities to get together to sew and make art.
I miss all of you SO much but I am also deeply honored that so many of you chose to use our service for your fabrics and sewing supplies during this time. For those of you who have been rediscovering your Super Power of Sewing for making masks, we are proud to have supplied your heroic efforts at your sewing machines.
I have had many sewing machines throughout my life since childhood, and many years ago I finally got a Bernina and never looked back. I know that all of you are deeply attached to your machines, and those hours we spend stitching bring us so much joy, and so much relief from the troubling times we live in now.
with Hope for the Future, Luana and Paul
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‘Peace’ ‘Love’ and ‘Joy’ are headed to your sewing machine, when you choose this week’s exclusive eQuilter Free Quilt Pattern. This celestial Nativity scene is surrounded by musical angels, set in rich Sapphire Blues and Gold Metallic.
To make this 62″ x 62″ wall hanging you will use 3 panels from the Silent Night collection, starting with an Advent panel that is cleverly cut up to make a pieced inner border. The 2nd panel features large Musical Angel vignettes, and the 3rd panel has the 4 large words in Gold.
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.
Today I realized with a jolt that the Summer Solstice is in 10 days. This is because I stood outside at 8 am and it was still light, and I was genuinely confused. I have lost track of the seasons. We went straight from Winter to Summer this year, and I feel disoriented for so many reasons. Perhaps you do too.
Over the years I have pursued my passions of travel and photography, and wildlife photography has become a particular focus. I don’t know if or when I’ll take another photo safari, but part of what has gotten me through these last couple months is meditation, and returning to some crystalline moments of face-to-face encounters with majestic beasts.
I am sharing here 2 portraits of a mother and son Cheetah pair, from my trip to Tanzania in early 2018. I wanted to share this moment with you.
We got up before dawn and took off in the rover out onto the Serengeti. It was our 3rd day on the Namiri Plains. The day before we had come across a wounded Cheetah in the shade of a bush, with another worried Cheetah standing guard. We got close enough that we could see her shallow panting. We worried about her that night.
The next day again we were up before dawn, driving out as the first pink and orange streaks set the Acacia trees into silhouette. We traveled for several hours back to an area near where we had seen the Cheetahs, and then we saw them! Our guide guessed it was a mother and son. He thought her wounds were from fighting a male lion in the area…her attempt to protect her almost-grown young adult cub.
They walked right up to our vehicle where we sat quietly, the sides of the truck open to the elements for easy photography. There was a puddle of muddy rainwater in the tire tracks a few feet beyond my seat. The mother slowly and painfully limped to the puddle, and carefully bent down to lap the water. Her son kept watch with a worried but distant look, scanning the distant flat horizon of the Namiri Plains.
I will never forget the sound of her lapping at the puddle, or how she paused to look up at us. She was likely mortally wounded, and tears ran down my face as she got up and weakly staggered away towards that far horizon with her son a patient shadow.
Our lives are blessed and cursed with moments like this – moments captured in our memory that will be with us forever. Whether it is the day Kennedy was shot, 9/11, or perhaps you have had a moment like this during these recent historic events….we also have crystalline moments of great Joy and Beauty. Whether you find peace through meditation or prayer, it is those quiet moments of introspection…often as we are sewing and quilting…that help us to remember the bittersweet moments of Joy and Beauty, and help us through life’s challenges.
Please take a look at these artful stitched meditations that were submitted, after I asked for ‘Prayers for Peace‘ last week. Perhaps you’d like to make one too. Thank you to the artists who responded with a small work of inspirational art.
sharing your Passion for Fabric… Luana and Paul
* The photo collage above includes 2 photo portraits by Luana, plus a new digital wildlife fabric from Rubin Design Studio.
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Despite the craziness of the world outside, we know that time will pass and before you know it, we’ll be celebrating Christmas. The world will have changed, and we’ll be there to fill the holiday season with light and love. That’s what quilters do.
These adorable kittens are here to give us a smile (and maybe a spontaneous “awww!”) like a Christmas Card from the future. These playful babies are just doing what kitties do – they can’t resist playing with the lights, jumping in the box, and taking a nap in front of the fire.
This 75″ x 85″ bed quilt is made with 2 panels, a stripe, and 3 coordinates from Bob’s collection. We’ve added in a solid black pima cotton to set off those cute cat vignettes.
(Please Note: No kittens were harmed in the designing of this quilt!)
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 67″ x 78″ quilt design uses a central panel, a horse stripe, and a swirling stripe to construct this Horse-Lovers Dream. Take a nap under this quilt and you’ll be riding Wildfire, as that Michael Murphy song goes…(Murphy said in an interview: ‘I do know that there’s a legend that was told around the Southwest about a horse that could never be captured, and that horse represented freedom and escape.’)
If you loved Ann’s Cat-I-Tude and Dog-On-It collections, you’ll appreciate the Dotted Swirls in the sashing and borders that represent the manes and tails of those galloping horses, running wild and free through the dark of night.
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.
As I write this a dark storm is passing over our home, the wind is gusting and the raindrops are slapping the windows. I close the windows and turn on the lights, waiting for the storm to pass.
During this dark and turbulent time in our country’s history, history is being made and for millions of people out on the streets here and around the world, stories are happening that will be told to grandchildren in the decades to come. Just like a storm passing over, we must turn on the lights and illuminate racial injustice. We must ride the momentum of this historic movement to an unprecedented pivot and healing of these deep wounds.
Six years ago I was in South Africa on a quilt festival and cultural tour with 100+ African-American mothers and grandmothers, when the events happened leading to the Ferguson riots. As we visited the historic sites of Apartheid, it had a very emotional effect on all of us. I listened to these mothers and grandmothers (all quilters) talk about what it is like to raise their children in the institutionalized racism of their communities. You may think you know what it is like to grow up and live as a black person in the US, but unless you are living that reality, trust me you can never fully understand. But you can try. And you can listen.
This is not a political topic. This is a moral and human rights issue. When our leaders, and our neighbors express racist views, we can no longer look the other way or remain silent…as a community, and as individuals. Go ahead. Stick your neck out.
I truly believe that humanity is trying to evolve, and this struggle is the darkness before the light. As long-overdue attention is being brought to those persecuted by racial injustice, and violence, we support and honor those who work for peaceful human rights, for black lives, and all who suffer because of systemic racism.
We are looking forward to your contributions to our “Prayers for Peace” challenge tomorrow.
While our country rages and frays, most of us are wondering what we can do at a time like this. To calm and focus myself, I make art and sew. But at a time like this I also pray for peace.
I invite you this week to find refuge in this practice – making art or sewing something creative as an act of prayer – for healing in our country and the world.
I invite you to make a small piece of art that is literally a meditation and prayer for peace. With every stitch, every brushstroke, let it be a prayer for healing and illumination for these troubled times.
Please email a clear photo of your prayer to me on Sunday and I will share them on my photo page next week. Send them to [email protected] and I will send a poem about peace back to you.
The Peace of Wild Things – by Wendell Berry
When despair grows in me and I wake in the night at the least sound in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be, I go and lie down where the wood drake rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds. I come into the peace of wild things who do not tax their lives with forethought of grief. I come into the presence of still water. And I feel above me the day-blind stars waiting for their light. For a time I rest in the grace of the world, and am free
