When I was a little girl, my grandma would sing ‘Amazing Grace’ while she washed the dishes after dinner. When my kids were little, I sang this to them every night when I tucked them in. Perhaps you have a family tradition around this heart-warming song?
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Today I am headed up to Winnipeg in Manitoba Canada, and Friday I will be on a charter plane going back to Churchill for the 4th time, to photograph the polar bears who live on the edge of the Arctic. I go there to document what is happening to the bears, and the warming environment. I go to see my friend who is the head of the Arctic research center there…and she is a quilter! I go to have a little time with the indigenous peoples who have lived there for generations…and I can only imagine what it took to survive in this frozen wilderness before electricity.
On each trip I have seen a mama bear with one or two cubs. The cubs’ lives are perilous, to say the least. I find that I identify especially with the mother bears….perhaps this is why I find the polar bears so fascinating. Maybe my spirit animal is a Mama Bear?
We have built up a collection of Arcticand North Woods wildlife and scenic prints, because we know many of you have found peace in these landscapes. When I go there, the experience of profound silence is an inoculation against the blaring cacophony of the modern world. As with my quilting, this is a way to disengage with the world for awhile, to hear my own inner creative voice.
It is my pleasure to share my bear stories and photos with all of you. One of these past photos has been made into a quilt, which will be in the Endangered Species exhibit in Houston later this month. If I meet you in Houston, ask for my business card. It has my Polar Bear quilt on the back.
The photo above shows a Mama Bear hunkered down in the willows, with her curious cub popping up to check us out. The background is an icy subzero sunset from my trip last year. The wind was bitingly cold, so we had to take the photo fast before the cameras froze up. The colder it gets the more active the bears become. And therein lies the tale!
sharing your Passion for Fabric… Luana and Paul
eQuilter Classroom:
Nov 11 – Charity Sewing Day – Veterans Day
March 6-8 – MJ Kinman – New Exclusive Pattern & Class for eQuilter
April 13-15 2020 – Susan Carlson
June 1-5 2020 – Paula
Nadelstern
Luana’s Travel Calendar:
Oct 16-22 – Winnipeg
& Churchill, Manitoba Canada
Oct 25-31 – Quilt Market & Festival – Houston
Nov 13-17 – Color Marketing Group – Tuscon AZ
Jan 24-29, 2020 – Tokyo Quilt Festival – 1 day with Lisa Walton’s Japan Tour
Feb 19-22 – QuiltCon in Austin TX
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With Space Tourism on the near horizon, little girls and boys can dream of being astronauts and space pilots as a real possibility. Who knows where Space Travel will go 30 years from now?
This Free Quilt Pattern feeds the imagination of young and old alike, with a large detailed image of a Space Walk and the ISS (International Space Station). eQuilter supports the NASA Johnson Space Center chapter of Engineers Without Borders, and our charity programs have been discussed on the ISS with Mission Control EWB members. How cool is that?
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the pattern as configured, or customize it to your liking with any of our
thousands of fabrics. Just place your desired fabrics in your
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You’ve probably noticed that ‘Old Red Pickups with Christmas Trees‘ are a huge holiday design trend, but this is one of our favorites. The snowy forest landscape and woodland animals, the puppies and wrapped packages, the decorated wreaths and gilded ornaments give this quilt a special extra dose of pure happiness that is bound to bring smiles and giggles of delight.
This 60″ x 67″ quilt design looks complicated, but it is actually very simple, using a central panel plus 3 coordinates with gold metallic. You might want to make a few as gifts, and keep one for yourself!
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the pattern as configured, or customize it to your liking with any of our
thousands of fabrics. Just place your desired fabrics in your
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pattern.
After reaching 83
degrees on Wednesday, our temperature plunged to a record-low of 13 degrees
late Thursday – a 70-degree swing in two days. The last few days have been all
about sweaters, snow tires, soup, and pumpkin-spice-everything…it felt like
we skipped Autumn and went straight to Winter! However the trees have yet to
drop their leaves, but that will happen pretty fast now…despite our 70 degree
temps this weekend. That’s Colorado for you!
Jacqueline de Jonge’s 3 day workshop was in the midst of our weather
rollercoaster, but we got out the snow shovels and salt, and our students were
busy making intricate pieced rainbows, fueled by our French Press coffee and
cookies. Jacqueline’s gracious teaching style gave us all a sense of calm
purpose as the rainbows grew into stars and orbs.
Wednesday I’ll be flying to Winnipeg, Thursday I’ll be at the Human Rights
Museum to see Carey Newman’s Witness Blanket, and then on Friday will be on a
charter flight up to Churchill for my 4th Polar
Bear photo trip. I’ll be sharing my experiences on our blog, my Facebook page, and my photo pages. (Did
you see our gorgeous Snowy
Owl free pattern this week?)
Watch for my upcoming announcement about a GoFundMe project for Earthworks and
the International Quilt Museum.
This 68″ x 54″ quilt design starts with our wildly popular (eQuilter exclusive) digital printed panel, and we’ve added in a snowflake print and 2 Hoffman Hand-Dyes to make a simple pieced frame for this exquisite wildlife scene. Makes a wonderful holiday gift for Harry Potter fans and Audubon members!
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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.
One of the great joys of being a quilter today, is that there is something for everyone. Remember the bad old days when traditional quilters and art quilters argued about what was a quilt? Thank goodness those days have passed. Now we are free to explore myriad genres of quilt-making and textile art without too much fear of judgment. The idea of making a quilt for the sake of ‘Making’ has returned, and it makes me very happy.
One thing that unites most quilters is our love of COLOR. The last few days I’ve sat in on the workshops of two very different quilt artists. Over the weekend I was in Barbara Beasley’s animal portrait workshop, making brilliant fabric collages with fusible applique. This week we are hosting Jacqueline de Jonge whose intricate piecing techniques are enlivened with pure saturated jewel-tones.
Both of these quilt artists set their work apart by their use of color (among other things) and they help us to think about quilt-making in a whole new way. What a joy to be able to attend both workshops within the same week!
eQuilter has been around for 20 years now, and our target demographic has always been the contemporary quilter who is not afraid of color. You know we are known for our digital panels and novelty prints, but you should also be aware of our carefully curated collections of contemporary blenders, and our luscious categories of batiks and hand-dyes…all carefully chosen with YOU in mind.
I figure I look at 150,000 fabrics a year, and choose to buy about 14,000 of those. As head buyer, I look for those especially creative and artistic fabrics that will catch your eye and inspire your next project. These 2 artists featured above are an example of how a tonal print or brilliant batik can breathe new excitement into this magical art and craft we call quilting.
The upper part of the image shows Jacqueline de Jonge’s new quilt pattern “Happiness 2.0” which will be released at Quilt Market, and the 3 lively animal portraits on the bottom row are by Barbara Beasley.
sharing your Passion for Fabric… Luana and Paul
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eQuilter Classroom: Nov 11 – Charity Sewing Day – Veterans Day March 6-8 – MJ Kinman – New Exclusive Pattern & Class for eQuilter April 13-15 2020 – Susan Carlson June 1-5 2020 – Paula Nadelstern
Luana’s Travel Calendar: Oct 16-22 – Winnipeg & Churchill, Manitoba Canada Oct 25-31 – Quilt Market & Festival – Houston Nov 13-17 – Color Marketing Group – Tuscon AZ Jan 24-29, 2020 – Tokyo Quilt Festival – 1 day with Lisa Walton’s Japan Tour Feb 19-22 – QuiltCon in Austin TX
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 weekend I am writing to you from the Black Forest, NE of Colorado Springs. Sophie and I are at the CQC Fall Retreat in the woods, and today we were at the one-day workshop with Barbara Beasley, who also lives in Boulder Colorado. Barbara is famous for her fabric collage portraits of animals – particularly her Dogs and Cats.
This weekend we got a detailed lesson on making realistic eyes. In any kind of portrait, the more striking the eyes, the more the personality of the subject (whether human or animal) will jump out at you.
We have just confirmed that MJ Kinman is coming in early March to teach another fantastic class in the eQuilter classroom. This time we’ve asked her to teach a more advanced gemstone piecing class, and in fact we are collaborating on a design idea that will be exclusive to eQuilter! Please mark these dates on your calendar, and we will be opening registration soon.
Jacqueline de Jonge arrives from the Netherlands on Monday, and her workshop runs this week Tues through Thurs. We are excited that she is on her way and will be spreading her fine piecing magic here in Boulder.
Luana’s Travel Calendar:
Oct 16-22 – Winnipeg & Churchill, Manitoba Canada
Oct 25-31 – Quilt Market & Festival – Houston
Nov 13-17 – Color Marketing Group – Tuscon AZ
Jan 24-29, 2020 – Tokyo Quilt Festival
Feb 19-22 – QuiltCon – Austin TX
Using our Pattern Designer, you can put several colors in your Wish List and try out several combinations to design your own unique version of this fantastic quilt!
Browse our huge selection of Ombre color palettes for the coordinates and HAVE FUN playing around with our exclusive Pattern Designer.
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.
