Fans of Game of Thrones, Harry Potter, and other fantasy series will be fascinated by the attention to detail in this incredible artwork curated by Jason Yenter. Celtic knots, flames, and dragon portraits have made this one of our most popular digital-printed collections…just now back in stock but it won’t last long.
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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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A few hours ago I got back from my Churchill Polar Bear trip. The last thing we did before heading to the airport in Churchill, was to go on a ride through the Boreal Forest with the sled dogs. Because there was no snow, we rode on carts with wheels, instead of sleds. The dog owner/trainer said that yes, a couple times of year he will will find that a polar bear has found its way into the dog yard and napped with the dogs. He said none of his dogs have ever been eaten by a polar bear, which is kind of amazing considering that the bears have not eaten for several months and are very hungry, this time of year.
These dogs are born in the winter, and live their lives outside in the Sub-Arctic weather. They love to PULL, and when they know they are about to go on a sled run, they howl with excitement. Just like a Border Collie has to herd something, a sled dog has to pull something. You can see this in my top photo.
On our way out of Churchill, we saw this sled puppy who was going in the belly of our plane. There is no vet in Churchill so he was being sent to Winnipeg for treatment. Then on my flight from Winnipeg to Denver, there was a Golden Retriever on board as a service dog in training. All these dogs sure made me miss my own doggies at home!
I am home for 2 days, and then we will be leaving for Quilt Market and Quilt Festival on Friday. I hope to see many of you at the Tuesday night awards, where Sophie and I will give the cash awards for the best Animal Quilts!
If you are coming to Festival, please look for the FIVE quilt categories/exhibits sponsored by eQuilter this year. In addition to the IQA Animal category, we are sponsoring 4 other special exhibits. You will see them listed in the front of the show book, and I will tell you more about them in the next e-newsletter.
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 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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Posted inAnimals, Pets, Travel|Comments Off on Creative Nudge – Born to Pull
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.
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.
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.
Have you ever been on
a trip where you hope for bad weather? Tonight I am writing to you from
Churchill on Hudson Bay, where the temperatures are hovering just above
freezing. They should be below the freezing mark. We are hoping for lousy snowy
arctic weather and bone-chilling wind this weekend, because that’s what the
polar bears like! Polar bears come out to play when the ponds and bay start to
ice over. If it’s -30F, we’d see a lot of happy bears, but it is still pretty
warm here.
Thursday I was out and about in Winnipeg. (or should I say… Oot and
aboot!….eh?) I had a free day to go to the Human Rights Museum (one of my
favorites) and the Winnipeg Art Gallery. One of the new policies I see all over
Canada, is to acknowledge when a building or an event is being held on the
traditional lands of one or more indigenous tribes. I was first exposed to this
at Quilt Canada in Ottawa last summer.
The city got the other end of that crazy storm we had in Boulder a week ago,
but it was a heavy wet snow in Winnipeg and there was severe damage to the
city’s tree canopy. There are branches all over town, power was out for
thousands, and in some cases I saw big old trees snapped in half.
Lately I’ve been reading history books when I travel, and on this trip I am
reading “The Woman’s Hour” which is about the struggle for Women’s
Suffrage 100 years ago. Did you know that the women who fought for the right of
women to vote, were consider radical fanatics? Did you know there were women in
the US who fought against the Women’s Vote, long after Europe’s women won the
right to vote? It is hard to imagine today, how a woman could argue against her
own right to vote. I know of 2 quilt exhibits in the next year that are
celebrating the centennial of the 19th Amendment in the US, so I want to read
up on the topic. My daughter is chomping at the bit to vote next year, and I
don’t want her to take this right for granted.
I’ve brought a pile of quilting books/magazines up here to Churchill. My friend
who works at the research center is also a quilter, and it is almost impossible
to get quilting supplies up here. However there is a long tradiiton of sewing,
beading and embroidery among the local indigenous people – the Inuit and the
Meti. At the museum here today, we heard about how precious needles were before
metal needles became available. The needles were carved from bone, and it was
not unusual for more than one village to share one precious needle. Sewing was
a utilitarian activity in these remote villages, and yet they managed to
produce artful beading and embroidery that transcended basic needs. Today we
still consider our sewing tools precious, but aren’t we lucky we have so many
choices now?
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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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
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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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Posted inAnimals, Travel|Comments Off on Creative Nudge – Spirit Animal is a Mama Bear
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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pattern.
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.
