eQuilter Blog

This time of year many of you are finishing quilts for those Call for Entry deadlines that are coming up for the Fall quilt festivals. We hope that you have been able to find everything you need to complete those special projects, as you’ve shopped all of our various products and categories over the last few months.

This is also a time of year when we often have groups coming to tour our warehouse. Many of our visitors are surprised to find there are so many products here that they never knew we carried. From basic things like threads, batting and needles…to more artsy creative things like beads, fusibles, and specialty notions….we do hope we have something for everyone. We are excited when new magazine issues come into the warehouse, but often our customers discover a new publication and are delighted that we have back issues.

If there is something you are looking for and can’t find, don’t be shy about calling our Customer Service line. You can also email us, or use our chat service during business hours. Yes we still have real human beings answering your questions here! Deandra is our Customer Service Manager – many of you already know her – and our other office staff may pick up the phone as well. They are all such nice human beings and we feel so lucky to spend time with them here Monday through Friday.

I am so delighted to have several of my quilts traveling in shows now, or being shipped to Fall quilt festivals. I hope you will watch for my work in the next few months.

SAQA Camouflage – opening July 18 at the Desert Sonora Botanic Gardens in Tuscon AZ – “Uncompahgre Fritillary” (Butterfly)

Sacred Threads – currently at the First Presbyterian Church, Flint, MI – “The Children of War”

Festival of Quilts – Birmingham UK – “Kubota’s Dream” (featured at the Kyoto Quilt Festival in March)

Houston Intl Quilt Festival – “250 Years of American Wilderness” and “Invisible Borders”

SAQA Balance – “Stardust Mothers”

I share this to encourage you to enter your quilts, keep track of those Call for Entry deadlines, and celebrate when your quilts are accepted into a show! Once upon a time, as a little girl, I dreamed of sharing my artwork with others. I hope that all your Quilty Dreams come true also!

Sharing our passion for fabric…..
Luana and Paul

Subscribe to my artist website.
www.luanarubin.com – New Blog Post about the Kyoto Quilt Festival!

Travel/Lecture Dates:
June 18-20 – Quilt Canada – Toronto Ontario
July 31 – Aug 3 – Festival of Quilts, Birmingham UK

Visit eQuilter’s Instagram, Pinterest or TikTok pages for Color and Design ideas.

See Luana’s Flickr Photo Pages for travel images, comment on our blog, or follow us on Facebook.

Check out our Video pages for interviews and show reviews.

I have been quilting for for over 30 years – since the early 90s – when I stumbled onto the quilt magazine section at my local grocery store. As those decades have slid by, with millions of stitches passing under my fingers, I have developed more of an interest in the history of quilting. Partially because there are many beloved quilters who have passed into the history of our art and craft…and I remember their inspiration with fondness.

Over the years, despite the fact that I have always been interested in making contemporary quilts, I have also been exposed to more and more historic quilts in exhibits and lectures. One thing that always catches my attention, is that so many of the quilters who precede us…..are documenting the times they live in….and it has made their quilts more precious.

Perhaps in the past we have documented the landmarks in our family history – such as graduations, weddings, babies, summer vacations, special honors, and memorials. When we live in historic times, our attention may turn to events that are larger than our family and our community. Museums are full of quilts about national and global events. When you visit the museum in the basement of the Ford Theater in Washington DC, there is an autograph quilt created in 1864 as a fundraiser for the US Sanitary Fair. It was signed by many well-known politicians, artists, military and religious leaders of the time. Among the signatures are those of Abraham Lincoln, Ulysses S. Grant, and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

I mentioned this awhile ago, but I will remind you to think about creating a historic quilt for America’s Semi-Quincentennial next year. (250th anniversary) I have made 3 so far, that will be displayed at the Virginia Quilt Museum, and the New England Quilt Museum. Your Semi-Quin chronicle quilt will also become part of history, and the story you tell will speak to someone in the future. Be sure to put a detailed label on the back, to record the provenance for future generations.

History is being made now, and your quilt will become part of that history.

sharing your love for fabric,
Luana and Paul

Subscribe to my artist blog here.

Travel/Lecture Dates:
June 18-20 – Quilt Canada – Toronto Ontario
July 30 – Aug 6 – Festival of Quilts, Birmingham UK

Visit eQuilter’s Instagram, Pinterest or TikTok pages for Color and Design ideas.

See Luana’s Artist Blog, Flickr Photo Pages for travel images, comment on our blog, or follow us on Facebook.

Check out our Video pages for interviews and show reviews.

Today I am sharing another one of my favorite quilts from Quilt National, which is on view at the Dairy Barn Arts Center in Athens Ohio through Sept 1st.

This piece is called “Composition 3″ and is 91.5″ x 90” – by Laurie Paquin of Lansdowne, Ontario in Canada.

The artist describes this work as:
Improvisational design, machine-pieced, quilted on a longarm. This piece is the 3rd in a series that explores line, color, shape and form. Graphic linework and buoyant forms continue to intrigue me.

You will see both bold value contrast and subtle tonal variations in this piece. It is easy to forget that this is made from all Solid fabrics. It is whimsical and full of movement…the eye goes round and round taking in the curved and spiky shapes.

***

We have entered June, with Fathers Day and the Summer Solstice just around the corner. In these early days of Summer, the season stretches out before us into the distance…but we know too well that Fall will be upon us soon enough.

Now we collect vacation fabrics for memory quilts, we pick up school prints for the new school year, and perhaps we are working on a picnic quilt to watch fireworks in the park for Fourth of July.

June is Pride Month and so we have gathered a variety of Rainbow fabrics and other products into this category, but you can find them year-round on our site by searching for “LGBTQ”.

Sharing our passion for fabric…..
Luana and Paul

Subscribe to my artist website.
www.luanarubin.com – New Blog Post about the Kyoto Quilt Festival!

Travel/Lecture Dates:
June 18-20 – Quilt Canada – Toronto Ontario
July 31 – Aug 3 – Festival of Quilts, Birmingham UK

Visit eQuilter’s Instagram, Pinterest or TikTok pages for Color and Design ideas.

See Luana’s Flickr Photo Pages for travel images, comment on our blog, or follow us on Facebook.

Check out our Video pages for interviews and show reviews.

Well, Summer is really here for many of us. For those of you who live in hotter climates, it is a good time to move the sewing machine down to the basement to keep cool. As the years go by I find that I am more sensitive to heat, and it makes me groggy when I am trying to sew. If you are up North you may be staying indoors (quilting?) this weekend due to the smoke coming from Canadian fires.

I spoke to Brandy Maslowski yesterday, who is on her 209th podcast “Quilter on Fire” based in British Columbia, Canada. She used to be a firefighter, so she has an insider’s perspective on these wildfires. Brandy is a consulting editor for Quilting Arts Magazine, and co-host of Quilting Arts TV. You probably know that we are longtime advertisers in Quilting Arts Magazine, and longtime sponsors of the PBS show Quilting Arts TV. In fact last week I was able to visit with the longtime host of QA TV – Susan Brubaker Knapp – while we were both at Quilt National. You can see my QA TV guest appearances with Susan on our video page.

Note that this week we have FOUR new magazine issues, including Quilting Arts and Art Quilting Studio!

In case you missed this last week, we have Caryl Bryer Fallert’s fabulous new book – “A Life in Color” – in stock, both hardcover and soft cover. Her huge exhibit has been touring all over the US the last year, and I bet many of you were lucky enough to see this stunning accumulation of her life’s work.

Boulder has emptied out due to many of the college students leaving town. It is not quite hot enough to have all the tourists from Southern states, who come up to the Rocky Mountains (and our Rocky Mountain National Park) to escape the heat. So it is a nice quiet time in our town right now, with lush green foothills, and the distant snowy peaks…my favorite time of year here. If you are traveling through Boulder, stop by and say hello!

sharing your love for fabric,
Luana and Paul

Follow my artist blog here.

Travel/Lecture Dates:
June 18-20 – Quilt Canada – Toronto Ontario
July 30 – Aug 6 – Festival of Quilts, Birmingham UK

Visit eQuilter’s Instagram, Pinterest or TikTok pages for Color and Design ideas.

See Luana’s Artist Blog, Flickr Photo Pages for travel images, comment on our blog, or follow us on Facebook.

Check out our Video pages for interviews and show reviews.

This weekend I was in Athens Ohio, at the opening of “Quilt National 2025” at the Dairy Barn Art Center. 84 quilts were juried from 659 submissions and 370 artists.

It is a prestigious textile art show that attracts submissions from all over the world. I’d like to share this art quilt by South Korean artist Jungeun Tark.

“Tea-Bowl of Mama” gives the illusion of a 3-dimensional vessel using light and dark values. There is a feeling of peaceful quiet beauty in this art quilt, and the flowing quality is supported by the freemotion stitching.

Artist Statement:
I wanted to express the aesthetics of a tea bowl with fiber. A quilt made with fiber makes a tea bowl with a cold and hard texture, look soft and emotional. Through countless layers of thread on a piece of fabric, I attempt to expand the realm of plastic art through a new attempt at fiber art that started from the sculptural form of ceramics. While I was working on this project, I remembered my mother. What was contained in the tea bowl was my mother’s love, like the morning sunlight.

Sharing our passion for fabric…..
Luana and Paul

* The wood panel backdrop is a digital-printed quilt backing from Rubin Design Studio.

Subscribe to my artist website.
www.luanarubin.com – New Blog Post about the Kyoto Quilt Festival!

Travel/Lecture Dates:
June 18-20 – Quilt Canada – Toronto Ontario
July 31 – Aug 3 – Festival of Quilts, Birmingham UK

Visit eQuilter’s Instagram, Pinterest or TikTok pages for Color and Design ideas.

See Luana’s Flickr Photo Pages for travel images, comment on our blog, or follow us on Facebook.

Check out our Video pages for interviews and show reviews.

This weekend I am writing to you from Athens Ohio, as I attend Quilt National at the Dairy Barn.

Congratulations to Anne Smith from Wales in the UK, who won the International Artist Award sponsored by eQuilter.

This is one of the most competitive and prestigious shows in the world, so it is such a pleasure to be here at the opening with many of the artists in attendance. Art quilts come in from all over the US, and this year there were quilts from 23 other countries … a truly international exhibit!

It was obvious this year that many of the artist had thoughts and emotions to express in their work, about the state of the world. I reached out to several of these artists who are making art that is similarly inspired by the events and issues that are also inspiring/informing my own work.

Friday night was the award ceremony, and then the Dairy Barn hosted a dinner for the artists and sponsors. Today (Saturday) I went into the gallery before it opened to the public, to get photos of the quilts. Then we had a gallery walk where each of the artists in attendance, stood in front of their work and talked about their inspiration and process. I had already walked through the exhibit twice, but hearing the verbal artist statements was a deep plunge into the richness of each artist’s story.

I am not getting much sleep, but I am having lots of fun photographing the show and hanging out with artist friends. I’ll be posting photos and sharing them with you soon. Watch this space!

sharing your love for fabric,
Luana and Paul

Follow my artist blog here.

Travel/Lecture Dates:
May 23-26 – Quilt National – Dairy Barn, Athens OH
June 18-20 – Quilt Canada – Toronto Ontario

Visit eQuilter’s Instagram, Pinterest or TikTok pages for Color and Design ideas.

See Luana’s Artist Blog, Flickr Photo Pages for travel images, comment on our blog, or follow us on Facebook.

Check out our Video pages for interviews and show reviews.

This week I am excited to share that my art quilt “Invisible Borders” will be exhibited at the International Quilt Festival in Houston this October, in the debut of a new artist exhibit group:

Soul Stories: Threads of Existence

We are visionary art quilters, weaving the threads of ancient myths, archetypes, and cosmic energies to illuminate the sacred narratives of the human soul. Through our collaborative creations, we offer a portal to the mysteries that connect us all, inviting the world to journey with us through the divine tapestry of existence.

Our exhibit will travel to a museum and other venues in 2026, and beyond. I am honored to be part of this collaboration of 20 fiber artists.

On the top of the above collage, I have shown a detail of my piece “Invisible Borders”, which tells the story of what happens when a wolf family passes over the border of a National Park like Yellowstone, into unprotected territory. You can see the full piece on my Gallery Page.

In addition I will have a 2nd piece “250 Years of American Wilderness” in the Landscape category at Houston Quiltfest. It celebrates the history of our National Parks and public lands, and honors the park rangers and caretakers of these precious resources.

This quilt will travel to a Semi-Quincentennial museum exhibit in 2026. This is the 3rd Semi-Quin piece I have made for museum exhibits opening in July 2026, for our nation’s 250th birthday. You can see this also on my Gallery Page.

Hopefully you are also making your own historic Semi-Quin quilt to document this moment in our nation’s history. We have plenty of topics to potentially put in a quilt that will become part of history. What would you wish to document in such a quilt? Imagine for a moment…what would you like to express to viewers 50 years from now, at a 300th anniversary exhibit of historic quilts?

I have included a beautiful new Forest quilt backing, and 2 exclusive Wolf-themed panels, in the fabric collage above. We hope you like them!

Sharing our passion for fabric…..
Luana and Paul

Subscribe to my artist website.
www.luanarubin.com – New Blog Post about the Kyoto Quilt Festival!

Travel/Lecture Dates:
May 23-26 – Quilt National – Dairy Barn – Athens OH
June 18-20 – Quilt Canada – Toronto Ontario

Visit eQuilter’s Instagram, Pinterest or TikTok pages for Color and Design ideas.

See Luana’s Flickr Photo Pages for travel images, comment on our blog, or follow us on Facebook.

Check out our Video pages for interviews and show reviews.