Free eQuilter Pattern – Carina Bloom and Blossom

Posted on February 5, 2019 by Luana

We’re bringing you a little Summer Sunshine this week, in our Free Quilt Pattern … full of Peonies and Poppies and jeweltone Hoffman Hand-Dyes! These lush Red, Pink and White flowers are so realistic, you can almost smell their fragrance.

This stunning 57″ x 70″ quilt features floral artwork by one of our most popular artists – Chong-A Hwang is famous for her exquisite blossoms and distinctive color sense.

As we send this out tonight, we are celebrating Paul’s birthday with a family gathering. So we are featuring one of his favorite designers tonight, and you can share in our celebration. Cheers!

… featuring the ‘Carina’ collection by Chong-A Hwang for Timeless Treasures.

And don’t miss the wonderful ‘Northern Lights Shimmer‘ and ‘Ocean Paradise‘ 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.

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Happy Groundhog Day

Posted on February 4, 2019 by Luana

This week we are blessed with the uplifting visions of Laurel Burch, and we see the orders coming in for Sea Goddess already. We’ll be enjoying the beautiful colors and artwork of Laurel in our cutting department this week, and remembering the special talent of Laurel who lives on in her whimsical and open-hearted paintings.

I have posted the first batch of photos from the Tokyo Quilt Festival on my photo page, so I hope you will take a look. I’ve been going to the show for so many years, that I now have a press pass and can get into the show before the crowds descend. About 35K people attend the show each day, and the show lasts one week. Not only that, but the Japanese quilters love to get up close to the quilts to examine the stitches, the embellishments, and the special techniques used…so it is hard to take photos when the show is open! Unlike other shows, there is no tape or rope boundary between the viewing public and the quilts. The visitors get very close but do not touch the quilts – they are very respectful of the amazing quilts on exhibit there.

You may have noticed that I hand-carried copies of the 2 show books again this year. These collector items go fast…if you want one snap it up today!…From my suitcase to your kitchen table.

This is the 2nd year that I’ve met up with a group of American quilters who live in Okinawa. This year we had a nice long chatty breakfast together, and we share an appreciation for the Expat lifestyle. (I lived in Hong Kong for 3 years, in the early 80s.) It is an unlikely place to find a group of quilters, but they have been meeting and sharing their love of quilting there for many years.

My friend Keiko Goke is now designing for Free Spirit, and I got a photo of her in front of her latest colorful quilt. You may recall that the coastal section of her town of Sendai was wiped out by the tsunami in March 2011. Partnering with Mission of Love and many of our customers, friends, and quilt guilds around the country, we gathered and then shipped 2500 quilts for a nearby coastal community that was decimated by the tsunami.

I have another new tradition in Tokyo – for the last few years I have attended a performance at the Tokyo Opera. This year I saw Tannhauser for the first time in person! 4 hours of Wagner, while appreciating the costumes onstage, and the lovely ladies in their silk kimonos in the audience…a visual and auditory feast.

I hope to see many of you this month at the Mexico Quilt Festival or QuiltCon, or if you are local come have fun with paint and fabric collage in our eQuilter classroom with Lynn Koolish’s CQC workshop! (Dates below)

sharing your Passion for Fabric…
Luana and Paul

********
eQuilter Classroom & Travel Calendar:
Feb 14-16 – ‘Love Your Mother‘ exhibit at Mexico Quilt Festival in Mexico City
Feb 20-23 – QuiltCon – Nashville TN
Feb 24 – Lynn Koolish for CQC – in eQuilter Classroom
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
June 27-30 – Jane Tenorio-Coscarelli workshop – eQuilter Classroom
July 11-14, 2019 – Cindy Lohbeck – Shibori, Ice-Dyeing and Ombre Dyeing Workshops @ eQuilter
4 Classes $50 each – $80-$100 Materials Fee

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Creative Nudge – Japanese Garden

Posted on January 30, 2019 by Luana

Having returned home from Tokyo Tuesday afternoon, this week’s Midweek Creative Nudge will be just that….a quick glimpse into the beauty I saw at the Tokyo Quilt Festival. This is a detail of a lovely applique quilt in the Traditional category, that may have been overlooked by some. The artist’s name sadly, was not spelled out on the name tag, so I am including an image of the characters so she will have credit where it is due!

This is about 2/3 of the upper left quadrant of the quilt. I zoomed in a little so you could see some of the detail: the delicate strands of leaves and tiny blossoms, the sprays of flowers in the corners, and the clover-shaped central medallion, embracing shaded roses and starry wisps petite blooms.

What gives this a glowing character? The Charcoal Ombre background – lighter in the middle and darker along the borders. The colors of the leaves and flowers are not gratuitously bright, but rather, evoke the soft shades of wildflowers.

I’ve wrapped this breathtaking quilt detail in a flowery border with some of our current Early Spring florals. For those of you being hit with the monster Polar Vortex in the Midwest, I send this to you (as you are probably trapped indoors in the snow!) as a reminder that Spring is still, indeed just around the corner.

You’ll find the first photos posted on my photo page, with overall shots of the show. More quilt and detail shots to follow in the next few days and week. I do hope you will enjoy these Japanese quilts as much as I do. It is such a delight to see this show every year, and I love to share with all of you!

Sincerely,
Luana and Paul

****************

eQuilter Classroom & Travel Calendar:
Jan 24-29 – Luana @ Tokyo Quilt Festival
Feb 14-16 – ‘Love Your Mother‘ exhibit at Mexico Quilt Festival in Mexico City
Feb 20-23 – QuiltCon – Nashville TN
Feb 24 – Lynn Koolish for CQC – in eQuilter Classroom
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
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

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Tokyo Quilt Festival

Posted on January 28, 2019 by Luana

Hello from Tokyo Japan!
Today is my second day at the Quilt Festival in the Tokyo Dome – the Baseball Stadium. 250,000 people attend this weeklong festival – about 35,000 each day.

I’ve been visiting Japan since the early 80s (when I lived in Hong Kong), but in those days I was traveling to Osaka to textile factories. I’ve been coming to the Tokyo Quilt Festival for 10 years now, and I can see that the quilts are dramatically changing here in the last year or two. Japanese quilts have been known for their exquisite handwork and detail, but now more and more quiltmakers here are using sewing machines. 2 of the top prizes are Handwork, and Machine Quilting. Every year I visit the Bernina booth, and yesterday they were so busy I couldn’t get in the booth.

The Junior exhibit is an inspiration. The work these young people submit, gets better every year. Several of the quilts have 3-D elements, like little stuffed figures. These kids are amazing!

There are also more Western tour groups here than I’ve ever seen. On my first day I’ve run into quilters I know, from Australia, England, France, Spain, and the US. Last year there were Chinese and Russians too. I am here for 4 days and every day is an adventure.

After my recent trip to China, it sure is nice to be able to drink the water, and to have nice clean Western-style bathrooms. By comparison, this trip is very easy. I wish Sophie could have joined me!

Tonight I went to a big Japanese department store in Shinjuku next to the train station. We wandered around 8 floors and looked at all the unique Japanese products, then went to the top floor which had a couple dozen restaurants. We had traditional tempura and sake, with a beautiful presentation of many small colored ceramic dishes, each with a special single item.

I am of course taking lots of photos, and will be posting them next week. Watch for next week’s Midweek Creative Nudge for more details. I like to make sure every quilt image gives credit to the maker, which often means I have to use Photoshop to paste in the name in Kanji characters. After all the work these quilters put into their masterpieces, it’s the least we can do!

sharing your Passion for Fabric…
Luana and Paul

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Free Pattern – Cottage Grove

Posted on January 25, 2019 by Luana

Gaze through these windowpanes to a vibrant garden full of birds and flowers,
in this week’s exclusive eQuilter Free Quilt Pattern. This special panel designed by Chong-A Hwang gives a sense of depth with lush close-up Daisies, Asters, Zinnias, and Cone-flowers in the foreground, wandering Morning Glory vines in the background, and fluttering Bluebirds in the air.

This generous 61″ x 67″ quilt is cleverly constructed with attic window sashing that gives a 3-D effect, and an engineered blossoming border. The analogous color scheme of Blues, Violets and Leafy Greens really pops against a Black background and is garnished with delicate gold metallic.

You will love working with this luscious collection of designer fabrics – and this quilt is sure to be a treasured comfort for friends and family.

… from the ‘Cottage Grove’ collection by Chong-A Hwang for Timeless Treasures.

PLUS – you’ll receive Free USA / 50% off INTL shipping
when you order the fabrics for this wonderful quilt pattern.
(orders $100 and over, no coupon needed)

And don’t miss the wonderful ‘Dinosaur Lost World‘ and ‘Ocean Paradise‘ 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.

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Creative Nudge – Crazy for Asian

Posted on January 25, 2019 by Luana

This week I am editing my photos from China and slowly posting more on my photo pages. One of my image folders is “Chinese Art” because everywhere I go, I take photos of art, design and color that are inspiring to me. (And hopefully you too!) This is a collage of photos I took in a big tourist Cloisonne factory store (with their permission) and Asian fabrics that we have in stock now. I am just crazy about these jeweltones and Asian design motifs!

Our industry is going through a drought of Asian fabrics. Since Kona Bay closed, other vendors have also cut back on Asian fabrics. Those gorgeous Japanese prints with delicate metallic outlines and traditional mums, peonies, cherry blossoms, and koi fish ….are seldom produced these days. Apparently our industry went through a period of over-saturation and the manufacturers cut way back…but now there is hardly anything!

When we started eQuilter in the basement of our home, we started with 2 categories: Asian prints and colorful batiks from Bali. Because of my background living and traveling in Asia, I had an affinity for these beautiful fabrics. I still do! So we continue to stock every beautiful Asian collection that we can find. If you are a serious Asian fabric collector, you are probably like me….I can never have enough of these exquisite fabrics!

So here is my weekly visual inspiration for you, on one of my favorite topics. I’ve been talking to our suppliers and asking them to give us these lovely fabrics again. In the meantime if you are an afficionado like me, you know I’ll be aggressively stocking every gorgeous Japanese, Chinese, and other Asian motif that I find.

Next week I’ll be flying to Tokyo to photograph the Quilt Festival again, so we’ll be talking about Chinese and Japanese art for a few weeks! I save up my miles all year long so I can make this trip. Now that we have direct flights from Denver to Tokyo, it is SO much easier to indulge in this annual inspiration.

If you’d like to see my photos from previous years, you can browse my quilt albums on this page. (Scroll down to find Tokyo Quilt Festival 2018, 2017, etc.)

You’ll also see several segments on our video page, where I visit Quilting Arts TV to talk about trends at the Tokyo show and other quilt shows around the world. Enjoy!

Sincerely,
Luana and Paul

****************

eQuilter Classroom & Travel Calendar:
Jan 24-29 – Luana @ Tokyo Quilt Festival
Feb 9 – Charity Sewing Day – eQuilter Classroom – Please RSVP!
Feb 14-16 – ‘Love Your Mother‘ exhibit at Mexico Quilt Festival in Mexico City
Feb 20-23 – QuiltCon – Nashville TN
Feb 24 – Lynn Koolish for CQC – in eQuilter Classroom
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
June 27-30 – Jane Tenorio-Coscarelli workshop – eQuilter Classroom
July 11-14, 2019 – Cindy Lohbeck – Shibori, Ice-Dyeing and Ombre Dyeing Workshops @ eQuilter
4 Classes $50 each – $80-$100 Materials Fee

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Free Pattern – Running Free

Posted on January 25, 2019 by Luana

The romance of the open prairie is calling in this week’s Free Quilt Pattern, with Wild Horses galloping across a grassy plain.

This 53″ x 62″ has a Hoffman digital panel, Hoffman coordinates (Tooled Leather and Belt Buckles) and a Hoffman Hand-Dye. The asymmetric stars are a little bit of that rebellious wild spirit that explored the West.

As always, you can trade out the Cowboy theme coordinates for other themes, like Cowgirls, Native American themes, or small scale Horse coordinate prints. (See the 3 categories below – Cowboys, Horses, and Southwest)

Our unique eQuilter Pattern Designer allows you to put fabrics in your Wish List, then they will appear under the pattern and you can play around and substitute colors or redesign with different coordinates. Just drag-and-drop and see how much fun you’ll have making your own version of this gorgeous Horse-themed quilt!

… from the ‘Wide Open Spaces’ collection by Hoffman Fabrics.

And don’t miss the wonderful ‘Northern Lights Shimmer‘ and ‘Ocean Paradise‘ 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.

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Tokyo and France

Posted on January 21, 2019 by Luana

I hope you caught the Midweek Creative Nudge on Wednesday. If not you can review on our blog! I posted a link to some inspirational photos of art in China, and told about our visit to Sophie’s orphanage.

As always, we thank you for supporting our business and our charity program, which is approaching a total of $1.6 million given to these 7 organizations. At a time when so many children are living in perilous times, and so many endangered species and wilderness areas need our support, rest assured that together we ARE making a difference!

My big news this week is that I will be giving my power point lecture ‘International Quilt Trends’ at the Pour l’Amour du Fil quilt festival in Nantes France on Friday April 26. (Not sure what time yet.) If you are attending this beautiful show, I hope that you can come to see my presentation there, where I will show quilt images and talk about trends from quilt exhibits in Houston, Canada, Mexico, Tokyo and QuiltCon.

Of course I will photograph this quilt exhibit and share this experience with you on my photo pages and our eQuilter blog and newsletter.

Right now I am resting up for a short busy trip to the Tokyo Quilt Festival, so I can take photos of the best quilts, and share them with all of you! You can see photos from my previous trips to Japan on my photo page.

Registration is open for Cindy Lohbeck‘s Shibori, Ice-Dyeing and Ombre Dye classes this summer. Lynn Koolish will be here teaching a CQC class next month, and we have Jean Wells coming to do a FRCQ workshop here in April. Our classroom is buzzing – join us for one of our CQC, FRCQ, or eQuilter workshop events in 2019!

sharing your Passion for Fabric…
Luana and Paul


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Free Pattern – Ocean Paradise

Posted on January 18, 2019 by Luana

Escape to the calm clear waters of a tropical coral reef in
this week’s eQuilter Exclusive Free Pattern Design.

A sea turtle glides through the reef with sunlight glittering through the waves above, and colorful fish fill the bottom of this finely-detailed panel from our own exclusive line of digital prints.

This 55″ x 64″ quilt design also features pieced blocks with several colors of Stonehenge textures, plus an outer border with digital full color seashells.

Hang it up on the wall and grab a pina colada, and you’ll be relaxing on your own private sta-cation in no time!

… from the ‘Ocean Paradise’ collection by the Rubin Design Studio, designed exclusively for eQuilter.


And don’t miss the wonderful ‘Northern Lights Shimmer‘ and ‘Dreaming in Color‘ 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.


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Creative Nudge – Crazy for Asian

Posted on January 16, 2019 by Luana

This week I am editing my photos from China and slowly posting more on my photo pages. One of my image folders is “Chinese Art” because everywhere I go, I take photos of art, design and color that are inspiring to me. (And hopefully you too!) This is a collage of photos I took in a big tourist Cloisonne factory store (with their permission) and Asian fabrics that we have in stock now. I am just crazy about these jeweltones and Asian design motifs!

Our industry is going through a drought of Asian fabrics. Since Kona Bay closed, other vendors have also cut back on Asian fabrics. Those gorgeous Japanese prints with delicate metallic outlines and traditional mums, peonies, cherry blossoms, and koi fish ….are seldom produced these days. Apparently our industry went through a period of over-saturation and the manufacturers cut way back…but now there is hardly anything!

When we started eQuilter in the basement of our home, we started with 2 categories: Asian prints and colorful batiks from Bali. Because of my background living and traveling in Asia, I had an affinity for these beautiful fabrics. I still do! So we continue to stock every beautiful Asian collection that we can find. If you are a serious Asian fabric collector, you are probably like me….I can never have enough of these exquisite fabrics!

So here is my weekly visual inspiration for you, on one of my favorite topics. I’ve been talking to our suppliers and asking them to give us these lovely fabrics again. In the meantime if you are an afficionado like me, you know I’ll be aggressively stocking every gorgeous Japanese, Chinese, and other Asian motif that I find.

Next week I’ll be flying to Tokyo to photograph the Quilt Festival again, so we’ll be talking about Chinese and Japanese art for a few weeks! I save up my miles all year long so I can make this trip. Now that we have direct flights from Denver to Tokyo, it is SO much easier to indulge in this annual inspiration.

If you’d like to see my photos from previous years, you can browse my quilt albums on this page. (Scroll down to find Tokyo Quilt Festival 2018, 2017, etc.)

You’ll also see several segments on our video page, where I visit Quilting Arts TV to talk about trends at the Tokyo show and other quilt shows around the world. Enjoy!

Sincerely,
Luana and Paul

****************

eQuilter Classroom & Travel Calendar:
Jan 24-29 – Luana @ Tokyo Quilt Festival
Feb 9 – Charity Sewing Day – eQuilter Classroom – Please RSVP!
Feb 14-16 – ‘Love Your Mother‘ exhibit at Mexico Quilt Festival in Mexico City
Feb 20-23 – QuiltCon – Nashville TN
Feb 24 – Lynn Koolish for CQC – in eQuilter Classroom
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
June 27-30 – Jane Tenorio-Coscarelli workshop – eQuilter Classroom
July 11-14, 2019 – Cindy Lohbeck – Shibori, Ice-Dyeing and Ombre Dyeing Workshops @ eQuilter
4 Classes $50 each – $80-$100 Materials Fee

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