Free Pattern – Sunset Stallion

Capture the spirit of a wild horse in this week’s exclusive eQuilter Free Quilt Pattern. This gorgeous digital panel celebrates the freedom of the mustang on a stunning landscape background, with a dramatic sunrise back-lighting the horse.

This 66″ x 48″ quilt also features a beautiful pieced border using 4 colors of Hoffman Hand-Dyes. This is a work of art you’ll be proud to hang, and the detailed digital printing in the panel is a breathtaking conversation-starter.

… from the ‘World of Wildlife’ collection by the Rubin Design Studio, designed exclusively for eQuilter.

And don’t miss our popular ‘Jungle Giraffes‘ and ‘Moonlit Painted Pony‘ 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 – Artist’s Way

I am sure by now most of you are familiar with the book “The Artists Way” and the concept of a regular Artists Date for oneself. I have been doing this since I was a design student, and thought it was an obvious thing to do as a creative person. Imagine my delight when I read the book long ago and discovered it was a ‘thing’.

Giving yourself a regular creative inspiration outing is a habit, and it flexes creative muscles that might otherwise atrophy. Over the years I’ve expanded my range and have been getting involved in jurying, cataloging, and installing art where possible. This week I volunteered to do some cataloguing work for a fundraiser event at our Wild Animal Sanctuary. Over the years many artists have donated wildlife art to the sanctuary, inspired by the lions tigers and bears who live there. I joined a group of retired school teachers and went through the stash of art (I was the photographer) to prep the stash for a fundraiser event later this year. The plus side was…I got to see LOTS of great wildlife art up close!

Studying color trends is a parallel creative pursuit, and next week the color collaboration is coming to eQuilter! We are hosting a regional color workshop for the Color Marketing Group in our classroom. If you are an art director, designer, or product developer, you should join us for a one-day color trend collaborative workshop. You don’t need to be a CMG member to participate, but you might want to join after you experience the Chromazone. We still have room for color and design professionals to join us on Friday May 11. Call or email customer service for the link to the info/registration page.

We are getting closer to the deadline for the Love Your Mother challenge/contest and it is exciting to see those entries coming in now – the final date to register and upload images for jurying is May 15. I can’t wait to see the rest of the entries!

Last week I announced our 2 workshops with portrait artist Lea McComas. She has just launched a new project called the Border Wall Quilt and is asking quilt artists from both sides of the fence (pardon the pun) to contribute bricks to this project which will become a large installation…to hopefully spark an open dialogue on the topic.

This Saturday we are hosting another Charity Sewing Day, trying to finish more quilts for the May 10 deadline for the next batch of Nepal Quilts. If you are coming, please RSVP with Dana in customer service.

The collage above features a Chameleon quilt from the Tokyo Quilt Festival (see the artist’s name in Kanji characters in the lower right corner) plus several fabrics in stock now. Notice the dense machine stitching in the black background…there were a lot of machine-stitched quilts in Tokyo this year which is a big change.

We hope to see you soon at one of our events!

sharing your Passion for Fabric…
Luana and Paul

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eQuilter Classroom & Event Calendar:
May 5 – eQuilter Charity Sewing Day! (Please RSVP)
May 10 – Deadline for dropping off Nepal Quilts
May 11 – eQuilter Chromazone – Color Marketing Group @ eQuilter
March 1 – May 15 – Registration for ‘Love Your Mother‘ Quilt Challenge
July 16 – 20 – Lea McComas Workshops @ eQuilter
Coming soon – workshops with Betty Busby and MJ Kinman @ eQuilter!

Luana’s Travel Calendar:
May 18-20 – Quilt Market – Portland OR
May 29 – 31 – Quilt Canada – Vancouver BC
June 1 – Opening Reception for Hollis Chatelain – RMQM – Golden CO
June 27 – July 11 – Sweden
Aug 9-11 – Birmingham UK – Festival of Quilts
Nov 13-19, 2018 – POLAR BEAR Tour

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Free Pattern – Botanical Blooms

Tis the season to celebrate the opulence of Nature, as trees and flowers are bursting into bloom in a rainbow of colors – and this week’s Free Quilt Pattern will place you right in the center of a fantastic floral garden!

This 60″ x 60″ quilt combines Flower Vignettes from a panel of blocks, with Hoffman Hand-Dyes and floral coordinates from the collection. This cheerful quilt can be a wall hanging, a table cover, or even a garden picnic quilt for your little ones. The colors really ‘pop’ on the blocks’ black background, with soothing shades of Pink, all set on point in a Trellis configuration.

… from the ‘Botanical Blooms’ collection by Color Principle for Henry Glass & Co.

And don’t miss our popular ‘Puppy Pals‘ and ‘Moonlit Painted Pony‘ 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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That’s A Wrap!

Today I am flying home from a busy couple of days in Ohio. Thanks to host Susan Brubaker Knapp on Quilting Arts TV – can’t wait to see these 2 segments on PBS Create later this year!

Friday night I attended the opening reception for the Modern Quilt/SAQA exhibit at the Dairy Barn in Athens. (eQuilter is the sponsor for the show.) I had a couple of my quilts from the taping at the PBS studio, and it was fun to share with eQuilter customers who came to the opening. For many at the opening, it was the first time they had seen Modern Quilts, and they were very enthusiastic about the exhibit. If you are in the area, please go check it out!

eQuilter also sponsors one exhibit annually at the Quilt Museum in Lincoln Nebraska. Here is a documentary about their exhibit of Ken Burns collection of quilts! Next month through the summer, we are sponsoring the War and Pieced exhibit, which you probably heard about when it was at the Folk Art Museum in New York City. (May 25-Sept 16)

We are excited to be hosting workshops with Lea McComas, Betty Busby and MJ Kinman in the next few months. Lea’s 2 portrait workshops are open for registration now, and we look forward to seeing many of you. Remember we have a discount with the Hampton Inn close by, and the link is on the bottom of the class registration page.

sharing your Passion for Fabric…
Luana and Paul

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Free Pattern – Snow Leopard – White Lion

 

This week’s exclusive eQuilter Free Quilt Patterns capture breathtaking moments, both filled with majestic moonlit settings. There are two versions:

The Snow Leopard sits perched atop a rocky cliff, while
the beautiful White Lion views his domain at dawn.

We’ve set our exclusive digital panels in a simple but elegant frame of Northcott Stonehenge tonals, coordinating with and accenting the central panels.

This 69″ x 49″ quilt makes a great lap quilt, and will also command attention as a wall hanging in a room or entryway …wherever you choose to hang these beauties!

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

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 – Lea McComas – Portrait Workshops

This summer I am excited to host TWO portrait workshops by internationally-known and award-winning quilt artist Lea McComas! (She pronounces her first name like “Lee”.) I am featuring some of her best known quilts in the collage above. You can take her Thread-Painting Portrait class, or her Applique Portrait class, or come for the whole week and take both! (You can get our discounted rate at the Hampton Inn nearby – details at the bottom of these Registration/Info pages.)

Lea actually lives about an hour from us, and she teaches at Sophie’s high school. She brought her parents to one of our Charity Sewing Days this winter which was a treat. They were a quilt-making family machine! Probably the most time I’ve spent with Lea was when she was exhibiting and teaching at the Birmingham UK Festival of Quilts. We laughed that we had to travel to another continent to spend time together. But now we are going to take advantage of her summer vacation and close proximity, and have her come teach us the secret of how she makes her amazing portraits. We’ll have her book in stock next week, if you want to see more of her work techniques before the workshop. We will also be stocking her exclusive Thread Packets for students and anyone else who wants to work with her Portrait color palette.

When you read this Wednesday morning, I’ll be on my way to the airport. I’m flying to Cleveland to film 2 more segments with Susan Brubaker Knapp who is the host of Quilting Arts TV. You can see recent and past clips on our TV video page.

And since I am going to be in Ohio…
This Friday evening April 27 I will be attending the opening reception for the Modern Quilt and SAQA exhibits at the Dairy Barn in Athens Ohio. eQuilter is a sponsor of this exhibit, which will be up through June 17. If you are in the area, please come to the opening reception and say hi!

sharing your Passion for Fabric…
Luana and Paul

Enjoy artist interviews, tutorials, and quilt festival tours, on our eQuilter Video Page.

********
eQuilter Classroom & Event Calendar:
May 5 – eQuilter Charity Sewing Day! (Please RSVP)
May 10 – Deadline for dropping off Nepal Quilts
May 11 – eQuilter Chromazone – Color Marketing Group @ eQuilter
March 1 – May 15 – Registration for ‘Love Your Mother‘ Quilt Challenge
July 16 – 20 – Lea McComas Workshops @ eQuilter
Coming soon – workshops with Betty Busby and MJ Kinman @ eQuilter!

Luana’s Travel Calendar:
May 18-20 – Quilt Market – Portland OR
May 29 – 31 – Quilt Canada – Vancouver BC
June 1 – Opening Reception for Hollis Chatelain – RMQM – Golden CO
June 27 – July 11 – Sweden
Aug 9-11 – Birmingham UK – Festival of Quilts
Nov 13-19, 2018 – POLAR BEAR Tour

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Free Pattern – Motoring USA

Do you have a passion for the beauty of vintage automobiles? If so, this week’s Free Quilt Pattern will take you back to a time when cars were an expression of style, and going on a road trip was a chance to show off your wheels!

You’ll be cruisin’ on Route 66 and Highway 101 with these detailed car vignettes – cut from a panel of car-themed blocks with artwork by one of our favorite artists – the talented Dan Morris.

This 66″ x 82″ quilt design will make a small bed quilt or a double-snuggler lap quilt, or hang it on the wall to bring that Retro ambiance into your den. *wink* The good news is – you won’t have to polish these chrome details!

… from the ‘Motorin’ collection by Dan Morris for Quilting Treasures.

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 Earth Day!

This weekend we are celebrating our Mother Earth, and raising awareness about what is happening to our planet. eQuilter is making several donations this weekend to conservation and environmental organizations, in addition to the 2 on our list of charities. (Ocean Conservancy and Rainforest Action Network)

With these donations, this brings our environmental donations to a total of $175,000 out of our overall total of $1.5 million.

In addition, I lead a tour to Churchill every couple years, to help raise awareness about the plight of the Polar Bears. My most recent quilt is called Polar Bear Eclipsed, and tells the story of the toxins that are circulating through the Arctic, which are causing genetic damage to the bears and further affecting their ability to survive. I stay in touch with Arctic researchers to learn more about what is happening there.

We know that many of you are working on your challenge quilts for the Love Your Mother contest and juried exhibit. The deadline is May 15 and we truly thank all of you who are contributing to this important project, to speak up for how we feel about our precious Earth.

Please join me in supporting your favorite environmental and conservation causes this Earth Day. If you want to check out various organizations, you can go to charitynavigator.org for ratings.

Big News: Internationally-known quilt artist Lea McComas is going to be teaching 2 workshops here in July…watch for all the details on Wednesday in the Midweek Creative Nudge email newsletter.

The Registration Page for the Love Your Mother Contest and Exhibit is LIVE, but you have until the May 15 deadline to make a quilt and try for the top prize of a newly introduced model BERNINA 570 QE machine. The juried exhibit will premier in Houston!

sharing your Passion for Fabric…
Luana and Paul

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Free Pattern – Mandala Prism

As our lives become busier and we seek ways to reconnect with a sense of Inner Peace, Meditation and Mandalas have been gaining in popularity…including interest in Zentangle and stitching Mandalas into our quilts.

This week’s exclusive eQuilter Free Quilt Pattern tells a tale of smaller Mandalas spinning within a larger Mandala Wheel. The Colors of the Rainbow are a brilliant focus for your meditation room, seeming to float in space on a Black background.

This is also a fantastic opportunity to practice your free-motion stitching! Imagine how much fun it will be to stitch around these colorful wheels, and perhaps you can stitch in some meditation mantras or positive affirmations with variegated rainbow-colored threads on the black solid background. We hope this quilt will inspire your creativity for years to come, not just while you piece and stitch this Mandala design.

You can make this 78″ x 78″ quilt as a bedspread, or hang it on a wall to bring a psychedelic vibe to your meditation room.

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

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 – Little Women in Tokyo

This week I wanted to show you another quilt, from the Little Women exhibit at the Tokyo Quilt Festival. This quilt by Pachiko Yoshida is titled “Little Women 2018”, and it depicts the 4 sisters with 4 totally different personalities, wearing 2018 pop culture fashions.

There are many influences to be found in this large figurative quilt. First of all the 4 sisters from the novel Little Women are depicted with 4 totally different fashion statements. The original archtype of each sister is there, but they are dressed in Tokyo street fashions, including Harajuku, Cosplay and Schoolgirl outfits.

The Anime artwork influence is also obvious here. The girls are drawn in the Anime style – highly stylized with quirky details. I have uploaded photos of the Little Women exhibit which was wildly popular at the event, to my Tokyo Quilt Festival page. Check out the details on this whimsical quilt!

The quilt by Yoshida is on the right (4 panels), and I’ve added 3 of our fabrics with young ladies, on the left side of this collage. Jo, Meg, Beth and Amy are no doubt inspiring a whole new generation of Little Women readers. What would Louisa May Alcott think?

On Friday April 27 I will be attending the opening reception for the Modern Quilt and SAQA exhibits at the Dairy Barn in Athens Ohio. eQuilter is a sponsor of this exhibit, which will be up through June 17.

sharing your Passion for Fabric…
Luana and Paul

Enjoy artist interviews, tutorials, and quilt festival tours, on our eQuilter Video Page.

********
eQuilter Classroom & Event Calendar:
May 5 – eQuilter Charity Sewing Day! (Please RSVP)
May 10 – Deadline for dropping off Nepal Quilts
May 11 – eQuilter Chromazone – Color Marketing Group @ eQuilter
March 1 – May 15 – Registration for ‘Love Your Mother‘ Quilt Challenge

Luana’s Travel Calendar:
April 26 – Quilting Arts TV
April 27 – Dairy Barn Opening Reception
May 18-20 – Quilt Market – Portland OR
May 29 – 31 – Quilt Canada – Vancouver BC
June 1 – Opening Reception for Hollis Chatelain – RMQM – Golden CO
June 27 – July 11 – Sweden
Nov 13-19, 2018 – POLAR BEAR Tour

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