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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.
Next weekend we will
be celebrating our 20th anniversary, since Paul and I started eQuilter in the
basement of our home. Paul and I met in 1995, and we started this business in
1999. We raised our kids in this family business, and the years unrolled like a
Jelly Roll falling off a cutting table. Where did those years go?
Our middle child who has had lyme disease and had to leave college 2 years ago,
is finally getting better and contemplating having a life again. My friend who
had the brain biopsy is now in chemo and radiation. My mom is in assisted
living and slowing down. I turned 60 last November and …can’t deny my bad
knees are getting creakier. So time passes and we all feel the years going by.
I never thought I’d be doing the same thing for 20 years, but then again it has
been a wild creative ride and a dream career. Paul and I count our blessings
and never take anything for granted. We come from entrepreneurial families so
running our own business is in our blood.
Sunday is World Wildlife Day, and we’d like to take the opportunity to point
out 2 of our charity recipients that focus on protecting wildlife habitats and
endangered species:
Ocean Conservancy is based in Washington DC, and their work extends to our USA
shores and beyond. From the Arctic to the Gulf of Mexico, their work includes
projects like building sustainable fisheries and reducing the trash that kills
marine life. I have visited their headquarters in DC 3 times, to learn about
their projects, and share my concerns about the damage I’ve seen in my travels.
The Wild Foundation is our newest recipient, and they are working to preserve
wilderness areas and endangered species around the world. I have spent time
with their foundation’s president, and was particularly impressed with their
program to protect elephants in Mali (hired 600 rangers to fight poachers) and
in China. (educating about the value of wilderness) They were founded in South
Africa, but are now based in Boulder Colorado.
You can read more details about these, and our other 5 recipients, on our charity
page. We do encourage you to learn more about these very carefully vetted
organizations. Perhaps you will find one that you’d like to support personally.
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.
Modern Quilters are forging a new path with colors that dazzle and delight. Yes there are the Modern quilts in two-color solids that make minimalist statements, but the quilts that really grabbed our attention at QuiltCon were the ones that went all-out with experiments of COLOR.
It seems that the most daring explorations of chroma are found in the Group Quilt category, where a palette is set and individuals have their own private color excursions, then somehow all of these personal visions are joined together and bound into one bold statement.
Here are 2 examples, along with a couple photos I took in Nashville on a rainy night on the neon Honky Tonk street.
The top right corner is the Best of Show winning quilt, made by By Leanne Chahley of the Lethbridge MQG in Edmonton Canada. Also pieced by Stephanie Ruyle, Felicity Ronaghan, Kari Vojtechovsky, Melissa Ritchie, Diane Stanley, Marci Debetaz, Debbie Jeske, Karen Foster, Hillary Goodwin
The bottom left quilt was the 2nd place winner in the Group Quilts category. Pieced and quilted by Tanya Munro, Yulia Reshetnikova, Marina Lukovneva, Maria Ismangalieva, Elvira Pustovalova, Olga Repina, Olga Stang, Marina Sokhonchuk, Maria Dzreeva, Evgeniya Milyaeva, Clara Stoikow, Olga Vovchenko, Anna Zhuravleva, Valeria Mezhibovskaya, Marina Surmillo, Elena Smolkina…from Dubna, in the Moscow region of Russia.
When we look at these quilts, we don’t think about Solids. We think about the glorious interplay of hues. However these colors were very carefully chosen from a larger Color Palette of Solids.
Start your own Color Adventure with our huge selection of Solid Colors – over 400 colors in stock now – plus color charts and a wide selection of Pre-Cuts. Our eQuilter Color Palette has a carefully curated selection of contemporary blenders for the creative quilter.
You can see photos from QuiltCon, and other recent quilt festivals, on my photo page. Enjoy!
sharing your Passion for Fabric… Luana and Paul
eQuilter Classroom & Travel Calendar:
Mar 14-17 – Carter Center in Atlanta
Mar 28-30 – ‘Love Your Mother’ exhibit at Spring Quilt Festival in Chicago
Apr 1 – Quilting Arts TV, Cleveland
Apr 12-14 – Jean Wells for FRCQ workshop – in eQuilter Classroom
Apr 23-29 – Nantes France (lecture Fri 4/26)
June 27-30 – Jane Tenorio-Coscarelli workshop – eQuilter Classroom
July 11-14, 2019 – Cindy
Lohbeck – Shibori, Ice-Dyeing and Ombre Dyeing Workshops @ eQuilter – REGISTRATION
NOW OPEN
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 morning I caught
a 6 am flight home from Nashville, after attending the Award Ceremonies and 2
days of QuiltCon. The weather was drizzly and cold but the colorful quilts and
enthusiastic high spirits made up for the weather outside! Each year that I go
to this event, I delight in seeing how the Modern Quilt movement, and this
event, continue to change and grow…often in unexpected ways.
The Best of Show was a colorful and truly fantastic GROUP QUILT, which just
underlines my theory that if quilters ruled the world we could solve all of our
problems. This genius quilt is a study in how to bring creatively independent
spontaneous elements together into one harmonious joyful expression.
Congratulations to Leanne Lethbridge and her group!
One of the other top awards was the eQuilter Machine Quilting Award made by
Marge Tucker from Massachusetts. My BERNINA Ambassador mentor Jeanne and I had
fun admiring Marge’s machine work together. There was a lot of Kantha-style
handwork and stitching at the exhibit, but there was also a lot of masterful
machine quilting which filled up the ubiquitous Negative Spaces in many Modern
Quilts.
One of my favorite quilts in the show was a multicolor Group Quilt from Russia,
which had a similar feel to the Best of Show quilt. You may recall several
years ago I talked about Group Quilts being a strong trend, after a
particularly inspiring Group Quilt exhibit at the Birmingham UK Festival of
Quilts. The Charity Guild Group Quilts which are sent in to QuiltCon from all
over the US, and indeed from all over the world, are a case in point. Now more
than ever, we need to come together to create beautiful synchronicity.
You may also recall me mentioning a year ago about the activist quilts by the
Social Justice Sewing Academy. This year their quilts in the Youth category
were the talk of the show, and I was lucky enough to spend some time with their
organizers. I’ll be sharing photos from the Mexico City quilt festival and
QuiltCon on my photo
page this weekend.
Now I need to go get ready for Lynn
Koolish‘s CQC workshop in our eQuilter Classroom tomorrow morning. Hope to
see some of you there!
This morning I caught a 6 am flight home from Nashville, after attending the Award Ceremonies
and 2 days of QuiltCon. The weather was drizzly and cold but the
colorful quilts and enthusiastic high spirits made up for the weather
outside! Each year that I go to this event, I delight in seeing how the
Modern Quilt movement, and this event, continue to change and
grow…often in unexpected ways.
The Best of Show was a colorful
and truly fantastic GROUP QUILT, which just underlines my theory that
if quilters ruled the world we could solve all of our problems. This
genius quilt is a study in how to bring creatively independent
spontaneous elements together into one harmonious joyful expression.
Congratulations to Leanne Lethbridge and her group!
One of the
other top awards was the eQuilter Machine Quilting Award made by Marge
Tucker from Massachusetts. My BERNINA Ambassador mentor Jeanne and I
had fun admiring Marge’s machine work together. There was a lot of
Kantha-style handwork and stitching at the exhibit, but there was also a
lot of masterful machine quilting which filled up the ubiquitous
Negative Spaces in many Modern Quilts.
One of my favorite quilts
in the show was a multicolor Group Quilt from Russia, which had a
similar feel to the Best of Show quilt. You may recall several years
ago I talked about Group Quilts being a strong trend, after a
particularly inspiring Group Quilt exhibit at the Birmingham UK
Festival of Quilts. The Charity Guild Group Quilts which are sent in to
QuiltCon from all over the US, and indeed from all over the world, are
a case in point. Now more than ever, we need to come together to
create beautiful synchronicity.
You may also recall me
mentioning a year ago about the activist quilts by the Social Justice
Sewing Academy. This year their quilts in the Youth category were the
talk of the show, and I was lucky enough to spend some time with their
organizers. I’ll be sharing photos from the Mexico City quilt festival
and QuiltCon on my photo page this weekend.
Now I need to go get ready for Lynn Koolish‘s CQC workshop in our eQuilter Classroom tomorrow morning. Hope to see some of you there!
sharing your Passion for Fabric… Luana and Paul
********
eQuilter Classroom & Travel Calendar: Feb 24 – Lynn Koolish for CQC – in eQuilter Classroom Mar 9 – Charity Sewing Day – Please RSVP Mar 14-17 – Carter Center – Atlanta Mar 28-30 – ‘Love Your Mother‘ exhibit at Spring Quilt Festival in Chicago Apr 1 – Quilting Arts TV, Cleveland Apr 12-14 – Jean Wells for FRCQ workshop – in eQuilter Classroom Apr 22-29 – Pour Lamour Du Fil – Nantes France (lecture Fri Apr 26)
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Posted inArt, Quilts, Travel|Comments Off on QuiltCon in Nashville
With Mothers Day just around the corner, we are thinking this would be a great gift for a New Mother, a Grandmother, or someone who is just extra sweet and lovable!
This 60″ x 65″ quilt is a quick and easy project, using a Panel plus 3 coordinates: a painterly Rainbow Stripe, a solid Kona Black, and a Hearts print. The colorful panel is just bursting with Joy and Love, saying more can words could ever express.
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.
Having just returned from the Mexico City Quilt
Festival, I am enjoying the colors and culture of Mexico and Latino culture. The folk
arts and crafts, the music, and food are such a deep rich well of creative
inspiration. From Mariachis to Margaritas, and from Tacos to Tequila, a Mexican
restaurant with a Mariachi show is a good place to start!
I have always appreciated the folk arts and textile arts of Mexico and
Guatemala, and then there are design influences like Day of the Dead and Frida Kahlo. Lately
other influences are creeping in, like Succulents and Cacti. The richness of
these cultures are also expressed in the Colors of Cuba, which has a parallel
but unique Spanish/Latino flavor.
As the quilt movement in Mexico progresses, it is fun to see how the local
culture is expressed in their quilts. In the center of this collage is a detail
from Sonia Flores Ruiz award-winning quilt, “Casa De Las Comadres”.
Notice the Mexican yarn-dyed stripes, the 3-D braided hair, the paper-cut
banners that read “Mi Casa” and “Tu Casa”. (The border
collage is related fabrics we have in stock now.)
On my last day there, we had an embroidery class from an indigenous textile
artist who rode 8 hours on a bus to come teach us her native folk art. She told
us how traditionally they would raise the sheep, spin the wool yarn, and dye
the yarn with natural plant and bug (cochineal red) colors. However the
specialized sheep which their people have raised in the mountains for
centuries, are dying off because of climate change. Now she has to take a bus
that is 3 hours one way, to buy the wool to spin and dye the yarn.
I brought down 17 quilts made by our Charity Sewing Group, to donate to mothers
and children at the Migrant House in Monterrey. This is a charitable organization
that helps families escaping poverty and violence in Central America. Many
thanks to the quilters who contributed time and quilts to this effort!
Tomorrow I am flying to Nashville for QuiltCon. Yes this schedule is crazy, but
these 2 events are one week apart!
sharing your Passion for Fabric…
Luana and Paul
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Posted inCharity, Quilts, Travel|Comments Off on Creative Nudge – Mi Casa et Tu Casa
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.
