Classic Roses by Jackie Robinson are featured in this week’s Free Quilt Pattern. These exquisitely detailed fabrics have a timeless style and are enhanced with rich, pearlescent metallic.
Contrasting Rose Bouquet frames are set between coordinating pinwheel blocks, to create a dramatic day/night garden effect. The Hourglass-Stripe outer border frames the quilt and gives the illusion of a marvelous scalloped edge.
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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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This mystical panel displays a majestic Unicorn prancing and playing. The surrounding ocean waves and gray slate coordinate with the heavenly and ethereal theme of this magical design.
Make this stunning 63″ x 53″ quilt as a wall-hanging or lap quilt. Children and adults will cherish their enchanting Midnight Unicorn quilt.
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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.
Sophie and I have
been attending the Sacred Threads weekend event in Herndon Virginia near Dulles
Airport. In addition to seeing the quilt exhibit, there is a concurrent SAQA
event, and Quilt Alliance activities going on during these few days. We are enjoying
visiting with the artists whose work makes up this very special exhibit, on
display through July 28. (My quilt “Chautauqua Sanctuary” is near the
front, if you take the first left turn.)
Friday we went on the DC Textile Bus Tour, which Sacred Threads has organized
for several years. We started out at the fantastic quilt exhibit at the DAR
Museum, with curator Alden O’Brien giving a lively walking tour through the
gallery. This current show is called “A Piece of Her Mind – Culture &
Technology in American Quilts”. I have been to the DAR many times, in fact
I have a 2014 video tour and interview with Alden on our video page
under the “Festivals and Shows” heading. Look for Parts 1, 2 & 3.
Next we went to the National Museum of Women in the Arts. This gorgeous space
was created from an abandoned Masonic Temple. It houses the collection of
Wilhelmina and Wallace Holladay who spent 20 years buying and studying art by
women. There were artworks from the 16th century, to contemporary 21st century
pieces. We were thrilled to see a Faith Ringgold quilt about Josephine Baker in
the galleries upstairs. We had a lovely lunch on the mezzanine also.
Finally we visited the Renwick Museum, a Smithsonian Museum which is just
kitty-corner to the White House. There are always several temporary artist
exhibits in this beautiful building, originally built for the William Corcoran
collection. The most impressive was the Temple from the Burning Man artist David Best.
Established as a sacred space for reflection and prayer, this installation has
massive, incredibly intricate, wooden cutout panels.
There is always plenty of art to be seen in the Washington DC museums, and I
hope this gives you a few ideas for a future trip here. Sunday we are going to
the National Portrait Museum and the Holocaust Museum. Monday I am presenting
my quilt “Mothers of the World” to the International Peace Tech Lab.
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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.
When I was a girl, I loved to spend time with my Great Aunt Temple. She was a rebel painter who loved to paint purple flowers, especially Violets and Thistles, just to rile up the neighbors who thought thistles were weeds. (It is the Scottish National Flower) She thought purple thistle blossoms were beautiful, and I agreed!
Aunt Temple lived in a trailer on an acre of land in Temecula in Southern California. Her acre was planted with fruit trees, and as I remember it, stuffed with a rainbow of annual and perennial flowers. Something was blooming all year round. When I went to visit her, we would squeeze lemons from her tree, make lemonade, and then take a sketchbook and watercolor paints out to her garden. Our intention was to catch some fairies and paint them.
The first time I visited her blooming paradise, she gave me a copy of Cicely Mary Barker’s “Flower Fairies” book with full color plates. I studied them carefully, so I would recognize the fairies when they decided to show themselves. While we were waiting, she would show me how to draw and paint tiny Violets.
In 2009 when Michael Miller came out with their first collection of licensed Cicely Mary Barker “Flower Fairies”, I was just beside myself. I was instantly transported back to Aunt Temple’s secret garden, and those long hot afternoons sipping fresh lemonade in the shade….watching for a little sparkle of fairy dust among the Poppies and Birds of Paradise.
Sophie and I are traveling to Herndon VA this week for the Sacred Threads/SAQA/Quilt Alliance weekend, and we look forward to seeing many of you on the Wash DC bus tour Friday, or at the events Saturday.
sharing your Passion for Fabric… Luana and Paul
**************** Luana’s Travel Calendar: July 18-22 – Sacred Threads & Not Fade Away (VA & DC) July 30 – Aug 6 – Birmingham UK – Festival of Quilts Oct 16-22 – Winnipeg & Churchill, Manitoba Canada Oct 25-31 – Quilt Market & Festival – Houston Nov 13-17 – Color Marketing Group – Tuscon AZ
This week’s Free Quilt Pattern seems to capture that moment in the famous Christmas Eve poem by Clement Clarke Moore – “Now dash away! Dash away! Dash away all!”
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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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The last 4 days have been full of Fun and COLOR with Ice-Dyeing goddess Cindy Lohbeck. I knew what to expect because I met her at the Quilting Arts TV studio a couple years ago, but it was still a thrill to hear the students gasp as she showed her class samples, and later when the students unfolded their class projects.
If you are a longtime eQuilter customer, you have probably figured out that we really encourage YOUR creativity, and try to offer classes, products and free editable patterns that you can make your own. We love to see the crazy genius creativity that comes out of our classes from our students.
Jacqueline de Jonge’s workshop registration is OPEN now, and those of you on the waitlist were notified yesterday. We expect this class to fill up with a wait list. Jacqueline has quite the international fan club!
Sophie and I will be flying to Dulles Airport (DC)on Thursday, and will be at the Sacred Threads events in Herndon VA on Friday and Saturday including the dinners. We sure hope to see many of you there!
eQuilter is a longtime sponsor of Sacred Threads, Quilt Alliance and SAQA so this is a fantastic triple-header event for us as a sponsor.
sharing your Passion for Fabric… Luana and Paul
********
Luana’s Travel Calendar: July 18-22 – Sacred Threads & Not Fade Away (VA & DC) July 30 – Aug 6 – Birmingham UK – Festival of Quilts
This generous 60″ x 70″ quilt design uses the dreamy Digital-Printed ‘Sea Serenade’ collection, with a gorgeous range of liquid colors that will bring a sense of peaceful magic to any space. The mermaid silhouettes float on contrasting backgrounds, giving the effect of a backlit figure suspended in the ocean.
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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.
Over the last week I’ve been going through a few dozen boxes of family possessions from my mom’s old house, and my grandparents house. As Mom has aged and declined, she has moved to smaller spaces with simpler possessions. I’ve taken on the artwork, the photos, the collected treasures of their lifetimes. This week I finally had to go through everything and make some hard decisions.
This collage above is about the story of my grandma Merle Swanson who was born in Thurston Nebraska. In the family photo, she is the serious kid on the bottom right, with the big bow in her hair. Her mom emigrated from Sweden to Ellis Island in 1880, and died when Merle was one. Her dad married her mom’s sister, they had a couple more babies, then her aunt/step-mom died also. The dad collapsed in grief and the kids were scattered to various relatives.
Merle had a dreamy romance with my grandpa John in Southern California. They would park to watch the sun set over the ocean, and sing duets. They had 2 kids (my mom & uncle) and then moved to Oregon during WWII. There were family holidays at the Oregon Coast and Mount Hood, and later John got a Silver Airstream trailer and they drove all over the West. He was the owner of a fleet of school busses but his hobby was photography.
Merle’s hobbies were ceramic painting, crewel embroidery, and garment sewing. She also had fruit trees and an organic garden and they were vegetarians – ahead of their time in the 50s! I’ve been unpacking and admiring her ceramic paintings this week. My grandpa’s mom was a California impressionist painter in the early 20th century, so I know Grandpa encouraged and supported Grandma’s artistic talents, just as Paul has supported mine. (Paul’s mom was an expressionist painter.)
Everybody in the family was a musician. Grandpa played saxophone, Grandma played piano, my mom played piano, her brother played violin, and everybody sang. Is it any surprise that everyone in our family is also a musician?
So as I dig through files, photos, trinkets and letters…I struggle between not wanting to miss a treasure…and needing to get the job done. I just share this because I know many of you can relate, and those family memories are so precious. Tonight I am going back to the tree I am building on Ancestry, to check dates and think about how these gifts are passed down to us, often from so many generations back that we can’t know where the original seed of creativity was planted. But I can imagine…making a dreary utilitarian item and wanting to make it special and beautiful. How far we’ve come, and yet how things have not changed….
sharing your Passion for Fabric… Luana and Paul
**************** Luana’s Travel Calendar: July 18-22 – Sacred Threads & Not Fade Away (VA & DC) July 30 – Aug 6 – Birmingham UK – Festival of Quilts
eQuilter Classroom: July 11-14, 2019 – Cindy Lohbeck – Shibori, Ice-Dyeing and Ombre Dyeing – Almost FULL Sept 13-15 – Cas Holmes – FRCQ Workshop Oct 8-10 – Jacqueline de Jonge – Enchanting Stars & Dream Flight April 13-15 2020 – Susan Carlson June 1-5 2020 – Paula Nadelstern
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Posted inCreativity, Museum, Music|Comments Off on Creative Nudge – An American Story
You know that the holiday season will be here before we know it, so just imagine this stunning wall hanging on your wall on Christmas Eve. This week’s Free Quilt Pattern features a finely detailed digital-printed panel with a beautiful painting of the Holy Night scene. Baby Jesus is lying in a humble manger, with Mary and Joseph, and the Star shining above.
This 54″ x 46″ quilt design starts with an exquisite jewel-tone panel, adds 2 coordinating Star prints, plus 2 Hoffman Hand-Dyes. The panel includes the Nativity scene with the gentle lambs, the Wise Men, the Angels and the Star of Bethlehem.
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.
