Happy Mothers Day!

Posted on May 14, 2018 by Luana

To all of our mothers and grandmothers out there, we wish you a wonderful day with your family. We celebrated Mothers Day a little early with one of our staff who is expecting in the next couple weeks: we had a baby shower for Veronica Thursday where she received a lavender and gray baby quilt with blocks made by almost everyone on our staff. We are looking forward to having a new baby in the eQuilter family!

Every year my mom, Sophie and I go to the Mothers Day Tea at the historic Victorian mansion in Longmont – the Hover Home. The docents dress up in fancy hats and period costumes, and we drink from antique teacups (Pinkies extended) and munch on scones and cucumber sandwiches. It is wonderful to have our Mothers Day tradition with 3 generations of women in our family.

This week Leilani from the CU Chapter of Engineers Without Borders, came to pick up the latest batch of quilts for their bi-annual trip to Nepal. You may have seen the photos from their last trip – where the quilts were distributed to mothers who had given birth in the previous six months. Our next Charity Sewing Day is June 23, and I have to say we have a pretty wonderful group of ladies who show up every month and work hard to make these quilts.

Friday we hosted a regional Chromazone workshop for the Color Marketing Group, which was a fantastic experience. In September I will go to DC for the National Steering Committee, so I am getting more involved with the organization’s process of finalizing color palettes. I just love being a part of this Color Tribe – seeing the inside process of color trend forecasting – not to mention the fascinating people who are members of this group!

Sunday Paul and I are celebrating our wedding anniversary in addition to Mothers Day. Those years sure go by fast when you are busy running a business together!

I am anxiously watching that final rush of entries coming in for the Love Your Mother Challenge! The deadline is May 15 and then we will jury for the contest and exhibit. Good luck to you all.

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. If you search for “McComas” on our site now, the products on her supply list will pop up, including her exclusive thread sets. Don’t forget we have a discount at the Hampton Inn next door…when you make your plans to join us.

sharing your Passion for Fabric…
Luana and Paul
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Free Pattern – Mother’s Day Fairies

Posted on May 11, 2018 by Luana

Happy Mothers Day from eQuilter!

This weekend we are celebrating our wonderful mothers and grandmothers, and this exclusive eQuilter Free Quilt Pattern expresses that special love between a child and mother…in this case, a Fairy mother and child.

A delightful central panel depicts Forest Fairies in the Wild Strawberry patch, with a sweet gift from the heart. The digital-printed panel is bordered by Hoffman Hand-Dyes, and a bright Strawberry print for the Heart applique.

You can make this 53″ x 61″ quilt customized by free-motion-stitching heart or flower shapes in the border, using just the right color of solid or variegated thread. If your machine has decorative stitching, you can put a fancy stitch around the edge of the heart applique.

… from the ‘Elves and Fairies’ 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 – Down On the Farm…Up at The Dairy Barn

Posted on May 9, 2018 by Luana

Last month I went to the opening reception of the Modern Quilts/SAQA double exhibit which is at the Dairy Barn Arts Center. (through June 17!)

It was a very interesting experience because I saw most of these same quilts at QuiltCon in February, but hung in a much larger space. (The Pasadena Convention Center) However now it is hanging in a huge old barn that has been converted into a gallery. It was a completely different experience – seeing them in such an intimate space. If you are going to be in the Athens area in the next month, I urge you to go check out this show!

On the drive down to Athens from the Cleveland area, I saw many of the Quilt Barns with big painted quilt designs on the side of big vintage barns. You can get a map and drive around on back roads to see the Quilt Barns. It was much more fun than the license plate game we played as kids, on long road-trips!

My mom grew up on a farm in Oregon. They raised goats for milk. She rode her horse bareback to school. I remember her telling me the stories of her pastoral youth. Those days seem so long ago…and I’ve been doing some digging into the family tree and found deep roots in West Texas. However Sophie was named after my great-great-grandma who came from Sweden. Sophie has a new violin teacher who has invited her to go on a music workshop tour of Sweden this summer, and I am going as a group chaperone. Sophie is turning 16 just two days before the trip, and it will be the first time she’s used her passport. She will be the youngest musician on the trip. We will spend a lot of time north of Stockholm in the countryside, just after the Summer Solstice. I hope to connect with Swedish Quilters while I am there!

Thank you for those of you who are submitting entries to the Love Your Mother challenge! The deadline is May 15 and we are watching the entries come in…the first prize of a BERNINA machine is fantastic but also the juried exhibit will premier in Houston!

The collage above features a photo of the Dairy Barn Arts Center in Athens Ohio, along with several Barn and Farm theme fabrics in stock now.

sharing your Passion for Fabric…
Luana

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eQuilter Classroom & Event Calendar:
May 10 – Deadline for dropping off Nepal Quilts
May 11 – eQuilter Chromazone – Color Marketing Group @ eQuilter
May 15 – Registration for ‘Love Your Mother‘ Quilt Challenge
July 16 – 20 – Lea McComas Workshops @ eQuilter
July 23 – eQuilter Charity Sewing Day! (Please RSVP)
Coming soon – workshops with Betty Busby (Sept) and MJ Kinman (Oct) @ 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 – Under the Sea

Posted on May 8, 2018 by Luana

Escape to a tropical underwater fantasy in this week’s Free Quilt Pattern, featuring Dolphins, Sea Turtles, Coral Reef Fish…with an island waterfall and brilliant sunset in the distance.

This 62″ x 74″ quilt will transport you to Hawaii, the Caribbean, or perhaps Bali… with a snorkeler’s view of the marine life, in a crystal clear bay with jeweltone waters.

We’ve combined 2 panels (with 3 scenes) and set them in a pieced Faux-Twist border with a Fish coordinate, a Stonehenge texture, and 2 Hoffman Hand-Dyes. Remember that you can play around with your own design and your own hand-dye coordinate colors, by putting other options in your Wish List and then clicking/dragging them onto the Quilt Pattern.

The brilliant colors and digital printed fine details will bring that tropical vibe into any room where you hang this beauty. Your snorkeling or diving buddies will be especially impressed!

… from the ‘Artworks’ collection by Quilting Treasures.

And don’t miss our popular ‘Jungle Giraffes‘ and ‘Moonlit Painted Pony‘ quilt patterns.

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Quilters Just Wanna Have Fun

Posted on May 5, 2018 by Luana

Well another Kentucky Derby has come and gone. My goodness, between May the Fourth (Star Wars), the Derby and Cinco de Mayo, we have a lot of excuses to party this weekend hmm? Today we had another Charity Sewing Day, focusing on finishing quilts before the CU students from Engineers Without Borders leave for Nepal with another batch of donated quilts for earthquake survivors. So we had our own quilting party which included cake, strawberries and a very large can of whipped cream. Our next quilting day will also be on Sophie’s 16th birthday, so maybe you’d like to come help celebrate our Sweet 16 Girl. (Shhh! Don’t tell her!)

We are thinking of all our friends in Hawaii this weekend too…we no longer have family living on the Big Island but a close friend just happened to leave the day before the earthquake and eruption. With volcanoes erupting in Bali and Alaska now, maybe Mother Earth is telling us something? We have a fabric for that! We hope the Bali eruption will not disrupt our Batik suppliers, but last time it did, so we are stocking up on current Batiks for all you Batikaholics.

I am just tickled to see those entries coming in for the Love Your Mother Challenge! The deadline is May 15 and then we will jury for the contest and exhibit. Good luck to you all.

Do you get my Midweek Creative Nudge on Wednesday mornings? Do you get our 2 Free Pattern Newsletters each week? If not you might want to review your subscription options with eQuilter. If you have questions please email or call our Customer Service department. You can review past Creative Nudge and Free Pattern emails on our blog…they are AWESOME!

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 (Her book is in stock now also.) 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

********
eQuilter Classroom & Event Calendar:
May 10 – Deadline for dropping off Nepal Quilts
May 11 – eQuilter Chromazone – Color Marketing Group @ eQuilter
May 15 – Registration DEADLINE for ‘Love Your Mother‘ Quilt Challenge
June 23 – eQuilter Charity Sewing Day & Sophie’s Sweet 16 Party! (Please RSVP)
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 5-12 – London & Birmingham UK Festival of Quilts
Nov 13-19, 2018 – POLAR BEAR Tour

*****
Check out our 170 videos from international quilt festivals, PBS TV, artist and curator interviews on our eQuilter Video Page. Subscribe and catch the latest videos on our eQuilter YouTube Channel.

See my Flickr Photo Pages for travel images, or follow us on Facebook.

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Free Pattern – Sunset Stallion

Posted on May 4, 2018 by Luana

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

Posted on May 2, 2018 by Luana

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

********
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

Posted on May 1, 2018 by Luana

‘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!

Posted on April 30, 2018 by Luana

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

Posted on April 27, 2018 by Luana

 

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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