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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Creative Nudge – Lea McComas – Portrait Workshops

Posted on April 25, 2018 by Luana

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

Posted on April 24, 2018 by Luana

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!

Posted on April 23, 2018 by Luana

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

Posted on April 20, 2018 by Luana

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

Posted on April 18, 2018 by Luana

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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Free Pattern – Mountain View

Posted on April 17, 2018 by Luana

Step through a doorway to a pristine mountain landscape in this week’s Free Quilt Pattern, featuring a digital panel with an alpine meadow, a stream, a pine forest, and misty distant mountain silhouettes.

Coordinated prints are set on point in the border, picking up the colors of the Sunset Sky, the Green Forest, and the Turquoise Waters. Finish the pieced border with Alabaster and Thistle Purple Hoffman Hand-Dyes.

This 51″ x 69″ quilt makes beautiful lap quilt (perhaps backed with snuggly Flannel?) or a dreamy wall-hanging that takes you away to an idyllic landscape.

… from the ‘Mountain View’ collection by Ro Gregg for Fabri-Quilt.

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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Fun in Our Classroom!

Posted on April 16, 2018 by Luana

We are just wrapping up our first day of Lisa Walton’s workshop here at eQuilter, and Sophie is here learning how to make a fused quilt. Dana is here (our customer service manager) and she brought the most awesome brownies! The rows of pink crab apple trees are just starting to bud out, so maybe by next week they will start to bloom under our Colorado sunny blue skies. Life is good!

One of the fun parts of this class was to see what other students have made in previous classes with Lisa. When artists get together and are given permission to experiment and play with fabric, it is amazing the depth and breadth of unique interpretations that come into focus by the end of the event.

For 16 years I belonged to a weekly figure painting group. We hired a different live model every week, we would set up our easels around the model, and proceed to put on canvas or paper… our own perspective. The best part was looking at everyone’s work at the end of 3 hours. It is the same in a creative workshop where everyone has the freedom to choose the colors, fabrics, and design for their project. The inventive variety is just dazzling.

Everyone is an artist as a child, but often the passage of time strips away our creative confidence…and we have to start over as adults. My goal is to bring in classes and teachers who reconnect us to that innocent playful joy of creating. I really believe that it is a healing experience to strip away the barriers and play in that very pure place in our hearts. Playing with Color is one of the ways to connect with that subconscious or intuitive part of ourselves. For myself, I love working with Purple, then adding in analogous and complimentary hues. Playing with Purple is like meditation for me. Do you have a personal color that heals and energizes?

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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