eQuilter Blog

It is a bittersweet time. I am missing Summer already. It is Memorial Day and many of us are missing those lost in the pandemic…but clearly there are those who haven’t had losses yet or they wouldn’t be out in crowds for the holiday.

So many of you have been sewing masks for 2 months now, and you must be exhausted. As long as you keep sewing, we’ll keep stocking and shipping those supplies to you. It no longer feels crazy. Isolating and following all these distancing, disinfecting, and other safety protocols is feeling normal now. I stay home to protect my family, my staff, my community. We have warehouse staff working this weekend and Monday. We are still working long hours, 5 1/2 or 6 days a week.

These are extraordinary times and we are all living this experience together. When we can come together again, I can only imagine the hugs, the joy, the tears.

This last week I heard from an elderly friend who was off the radar for awhile. She just got home from the hospital after surviving the virus. She has a very long road to recovery. I now know many friends with family members who have had the virus, some who have been lost. I imagine with time you will find these people among your friends too. I am going through my email list and checking on friends. Not all have answered.

So this Memorial Day we sew for those lost, we sew for those on the front lines in hospitals, we sew for those fighting for their lives. As with our comfort quilts, every stitch is a prayer. We keep sewing because it’s what we do. We welcome this new wave of sewing volunteers who have dusted off sewing machines pulled from their closets, who are sewing to save lives this Memorial Day.

with gratitude,
Luana and Paul

Stuck inside?

No problem – bring the outdoors into your home with
this gorgeous Botanical Free Quilt Design.

This luscious garden scene is bursting with color, featuring Hydrangeas, Peonies, Cosmos, Anemones, Ranunculus, and detailed Dragonflies.

To make this 43″ x 62″ quilt design you will just need the main panel, the stripe for a border, an allover floral and coordinating filigree. It’s a quick easy project to lift your spirits or bring a little sunshine into a loved one’s day.

…featuring the ‘Dragonfly Garden’ collection by Color Principle for Henry Glass & Co.

Don’t miss the popular ‘Cotton Tales‘ and ‘Backyard Songbirds‘ 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.

Here we are in Mid-May. I imagine that many of you are feeling the same as us here – we are feeling Corona Fatigue – but there is no realistic end in sight. So….it is what it is…and we are now preparing for the long view on the current situation. Our staff is working long hours to get your orders out as fast as humanly possible. If you have an urgent order give us a call, especially if you are making masks. I expect that most quilters have been sewing masks for several weeks now, having discovered that we have a Super Power. Who wouldn’t want to use a newly-discovered super power for the good of all during an emergency? But we all need to take a rest now and then.

I can only imagine the stories you all have, about how you and your families are enduring this historic event. In our family, our older son has been laid off his management job, our middle son has been home sick for over 3 years, and Sophie has finished school without a graduation ceremony. I haven’t seen my mom in person since her nursing home went into lockdown 2 months ago. And yet we are all generally safe and healthy. I know many of you have suffered losses now due to the virus, and we send you our deepest sympathies. We hope that for those of you suffering losses, and enduring longterm stresses, that browsing our images brings you some peace and perhaps a bit of inspiration and joy.

Kathy Price has written to us, asking for help for the Lakota Sioux people who live on the Pine Ridge, Rosebud and Standing Rock reservations, for Migrant Workers in the US who have no food, and for a hospital in Guatemala that has no supplies. She says that her organizers see people dying from starvation every day, and we are sending her extra funds this week because we know she can do more with a dollar than anyone we know. You can help too by making a direct donation. She will not turn away from those in such desperate need. (Kathy was the subject of my quilt in the “Better World” exhibit in Houston last fall.)

We also thank those who are making masks for Doctors Without Borders. They received their first package of 90 masks this week and they send their gratitude! If you send 50 or more masks, or if you live near New York, send directly to their NYC office:

Doctors Without Borders – Facemasks
40 Rector St., 16th Floor
New York, NY 10006

For smaller packages, or if you are local, you can send them to us and we will combine them into a larger shipment to their NYC offices. These masks will be used for their staff and patients for virus protection, in their NYC and other US projects.

Wishing you health and peace in these troubled times,
Luana and Paul

We are all trying to figure out what the ‘New Normal’ is now, as some states start to open up, and lots of people don’t seem to understand why we wear masks and keep social distancing. I hope that the people around you are participating so you can keep each other safe.

Fortunately my kids agree that now is not a good time to be out socializing, so I know they are showing their love by keeping our family safe. Sophie is working full time in the warehouse with our eQuilter staff. She and everyone else here is wearing a mask, social distancing, and following all the health and safety protocols to keep us and you safe. We’ve had a surge of orders from all of you sewing at home, so we are all working long hours to get your orders out the door. Thank you for your patience.

Today is Mothers Day, and it is the strangest holiday I’ve ever experienced. My mom is in a nursing home in lockdown, and I haven’t seen her in person for 2 months. This week is Sophie’s last week of high school, and her graduation was supposed to be next weekend. Paul and I are marking our 25th wedding anniversary this week too. However we will be home celebrating quietly to mark all of these events. We feel very fortunate that we are all healthy so we can continue to serve you during this historic time. I know you are all in similar situations.

We hope that you can also have a quiet Mothers Day full of love and appreciation for the simple joys of life. At times like this we focus on what is most important – the loving affection, traditions and sewing skills we have received from our mothers and grandmothers seem even more precious now.

From all of us at eQuilter.com, we wish you a very Happy Mothers Day!

Luana and Paul

How are you all doing?

Who knew that we had a Super Power in a crisis such as this?

Most of us who sew have been involved in the massive Facemask and PPE sewing project going on all across this country and indeed around the world. But many of us are exhausted, and so I hope that our weekly e-newsletter here gives you a chance to rest and enjoy some eye candy amidst the chaos.

This week I have received a flood of emails with cancellations for quilt events through September. I think it is safe to say that nobody knows where we will all be and what we may or may not be doing this Fall. In my 20s I studied Buddhist philosophy, and I must say those concepts are coming in very handy right now. I would guess that for many of us, our connection to a Divine Consciousness is a big part of what gets us through these challenging and very confusing times.

Sophie and I were invited to a House Concert with an internationally-known violinist, and it had to be on Zoom because of the shutdown. She played for us, from her apartment in New York City. After she played, she answered questions about what is happening there. I will spare you the details, but by the end we had joined her in tears. It is hard to fathom how some people are indignant about wearing masks and distancing in public.

Our eQuilter staff continues to work long days to keep mask-making supplies in stock, and to keep up with your orders. Everyone here knows they are part of this nationwide effort to keep healthcare workers and frontline citizens safe. We are still practicing very strict health and safety protocols here, for our staff, and for our customers.

Please do share our Mask-Making info-page with anyone who might be interested in sewing face masks or other PPE for their community. eQuilter is still a collection point for our local sewing volunteers to drop off masks for healthcare and frontline workers in Boulder County. Elastic goes in and out of stock weekly. Contact customer service to be put on a notify list, or search for ‘COVID’ to see what is in stock daily.

sharing your Passion for Fabric…
Luana and Paul

We send out our love and humble appreciation for all of you sewing furiously to provide face masks for those on the front lines.

As you may know, eQuilter gives 2% of sales to charity, and we have raised $1.65 million over 20+ years. We have very close relationships with our charity recipients.

Previously we asked for volunteers to make masks for the Lakota Tribe in Pine Ridge SD, and send masks or donations to Mission of Love. That need is ongoing.

This week I was contacted by Doctors Without Borders, asking for help sourcing masks for their doctors and frontline workers, and the communities DWB is serving in the US:

Doctors Without Borders will distribute these masks to vulnerable people as part of their COVID-19 activities in the US. In New York City, this includes homeless and those with insecure housing. 50,000 people sleep in the city’s shelters each night and for so for them, self-isolation isn’t possible. The organization has sent teams to assess needs in other areas where communities lack access to COVID-19 response services, this includes Puerto Rico, Florida and some Native American communities in the southwest. It is likely that masks will be distributed in these locations too. Click here for more information about their US response.

Facemask shipments of 100 or more can go directly to their New York office:

Doctors Without Borders – USA
40 Rector St., 16th Fl
New York, NY 10006

We are working with a NYC supplier to identify another address to send smaller shipments, so the packages can be processed (opened and bundled) for bulk deliveries to DWB’s offices. Contact us or watch our e-newsletters for that info.

Please do share our Mask-Making info-page with anyone who might be interested in sewing face masks or other PPE for their community. eQuilter is still a collection point for our local sewing volunteers to drop off masks for healthcare and frontline workers in Boulder County. Our buyers are working hard to keep all the specialty fabrics and PPE supplies in stock for those of you committed to the mask-making effort. Elastic goes in and out of stock weekly. Contact customer service to be put on a notify list, or search for ‘COVID’ to see what is in stock daily.

sharing your Passion for Fabric…
Luana and Paul