Free Pattern – Faithful Friends

Is there anything sweeter than your beloved dog looking up at you with those big brown eyes? We find so much joy and comfort from our canine buddies, and this week’s Free Quilt Pattern will bring a smile to the Dog-Lover in your life.

This 44″ x 64″ quilt has lots of different dog breeds in the main panel and the allover border, plus colorful paw prints and colors. So cute!

This size would be great for a lap quilt, crib quilt, playmat or perhaps the perfect gift for your veterinarian to hang on his or her office wall.

… from the ‘Faithful Friends’ collection by Danielle Murray for Blank Textiles.

And don’t miss our popular ‘Call of the Wild Bison‘ and ‘Wilderness Wolves‘ 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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The Year is Unwinding Fast

The quilting industry lost one of its icons earlier this week. Judy Murrah lost her battle with cancer on Monday, and especially for those of us who knew her as the head of Education in Houston, it is a sad loss. We send our condolences to Judy’s co-workers, family and friends.

The Power of Purple continues to expand, as news of the Pantone Color of the Year spreads throughout the creative tribes and design communities. UltraViolet is the right color at the right time, and we’ve noticed lots of people wearing purple proudly in the last week!

Everywhere I go, I hear people wondering how we got to the end of 2017 so fast! Yes Christmas is in a week, and I know many of you are spending this weekend prepping for holiday festivities. If you are still thinking about gifts for your fellow quilting and sewing buddies, remember that an eQuilter Gift Certificate can be emailed any time between now and Christmas morning!

I am trying to get caught up on posting photos before I leave on my photo safari Dec 26, and I’ve posted some more quilt images from Houston on my photo page.

Hurricane and Earthquake Comfort Quilt projects:
Next eQuilter Charity Sewing Day: Sat Jan 13, from 9 am to 4 pm.
Call to reserve your BERNINA machine!

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Free Pattern – Forest Unicorns

Deep in an enchanted forest, a pair of unicorns prance and gallop, in this week’s exclusive eQuilter Free Quilt Pattern, with our own exclusive Digital Printed Unicorn Panel!

We’ve combined Northcott Naturescapes’ Autumn Forest and Stone Textures to make a lovely contrapuntal color play of warm Fall hues with earthy neutral textures.

This 61″ x 51″ Quilt will cover someone with a special kind of magic as a lap quilt or youth-sized coverlet, or invite these gorgeous mythical beasts into your home as a stunning wall-hanging.

… from the ‘Magical Forest’ 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 – Hot Cocoa Weather

As the year winds down and we are making plans for the holiday season, many of us are hoping for snowy weather to get us in the holiday mood. This year in Colorado we haven’t had much snow yet, in fact today we had smoke from the fires in California. We might get a dusting in a couple days, but what we really need is a nice big dump so we can bake cookies, drink hot cocoa, and send the kids outside to make a snowman….so we can quilt!

We are closing out a bunch of Christmas and Winter fabrics this week, so I thought I’d feature some of those fabrics along with Enid Weichselbaum’s fabulous quilt “Happy Alps” from the Houston Quilt Festival. Enid was inspired by the Alpen-themed travel posters of the 50s and 60s, with their bold colors, simple shapes, and stylized landscapes. This quilt just made me smile, and I can feel that icy wind biting my cheeks when I look at Enid’s winter scenic quilt.

We can see that the Season of Giving is in full swing at eQuilter, because the stacks of donated quilts for Nepal, and Hurricane communities, are really piling up. Soon we’ll be shipping out quilts to Mission of Love, and CU students will pick up quilts to hand-carry to a Nepalese mountaintop. We’ll continue to make, collect and distribute comfort quilts for disaster relief into the New Year. Many thanks to those of you who have generously donated your time to make a quilt for someone in need. That is the true spirit of the holidays.

I have a dear friend whose father was 13 when troops rescued him from a concentration camp at the end of WWII. Now he is nearing the end of his life story, but she has flown home to Israel, to spend Hanukkah with him this week. Whether you celebrate Christmas, Hanukkah, Winter Solstice or Kwanzaa this time of year…we wish you the time to hear those precious stories from the elders in your family…and time to tell your own precious stories to the children drinking hot cocoa around the holiday table.

sharing your Passion for Fabric…
Luana and Paul

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Event & Travel Calendar:
Dec 29 2017 – Jan 5 2018 – Tanzania Africa Wildlife Migration Tour
Feb 22-25, 2018 – QuiltCon – Pasadena, California
Feb 26 – Marty Ornish CQC workshop @ eQuilter Classroom
Mar 1 – May 15 – Registration for ‘Love Your Mother‘ Quilt Challenge
April 5-7 – SAQA Conference San Antonio TX
April 14-15 – Lisa Walton workshop @ eQuilter Classroom
May 11 – eQuilter Chromazone – Color Marketing Group
Nov 14-20, 2018 – POLAR BEAR Tour – Join me in Churchill!

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Free Pattern – Home Sweet Home

You’ll be doing the Cakewalk back in time…
to Grandma’s Kitchen, with this week’s Free Quilt Pattern!

This charming 55″ x 55″ quilt features Aprons, Cherry Pie, Rolling Pins, an old-fashioned enamel stove, Cupcakes, a slice of Chocolate Cake, Wooden Spoons, and other delightful details that will take you right back to that moment licking the spoon sitting on a high stool at Nana’s kitchen counter.

We love that Retro color palette, and the saucy borders featuring vintage aprons and an endless selection of cake and coffee pots. Just yummy!

… from the ‘Home Sweet Home’ 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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Exciting News!

We got some fantastic news this week – our “Love Your Mother” quilt challenge has been accepted as a juried exhibit for the International Quilt Festival in Houston for November 2018. I am so excited!

Our top prize for the challenge is a gorgeous new BERNINA 570 QE machine which was just introduced in Houston last month. We are also negotiating for other venues…stayed tuned for more exciting news…and we hope you will send us an entry in the Spring!

More exciting new:
The “HerStory” book has just arrived in our warehouse. This exhibit about women who have changed history/herstory, garnered a lot of press in Houston this year, and the exhibit will be at the Road to California show next. You’ll see my Rosalynn Carter portrait in the lower left hand corner of the cover, and inside the book. Congratulations to the talented artists who contributed to this project, and to the project organizer (and book author) Susanne Miller Jones.

Have you heard?
The 2018 Color of the Year was just announced, and I think it is my fav one ever. The color is UltraViolet, and you’ll see interviews about the color with Lee Eiseman from Pantone, in the LA Times, NY Times, Time Magazine, etc. As a matter of fact I just had lunch with Lee last month at the Color Marketing Group symposium in Portland Oregon. We are putting together a group of UltraViolet products for those of you who are also excited about the Annual Color.

This is a color that we ALWAYS keep in stock, but we are hoping that our suppliers will come up with MORE Purple and Violet and Amethyst fabrics in the very near future. Violet is the color of Hope, Creativity, and Spirituality….which is why we struggle to keep it in stock.

I’ve decided to carry Renaissance Ribbons again, and we’ve kicked off our ribbon program with 35 designer jacquard ribbons that are fantastic trims for garments, pillows, handbags, and yes quilts.

Hurricane and Earthquake Comfort Quilt projects.

Next Charity Sewing Day: Sat Jan 13, from 9 am to 4 pm.

Many thanks to the 20 quilters who came out to sew today, and thanks to Blakeman Sewing for providing those beautiful BERNINA machines for our classroom!

sharing your Passion for Fabric…
Luana and Paul

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Free Pattern – Magical Dragon

Long ago and far away….a mystical lady posed with her friendly Dragon
for this week’s exclusive eQuilter Free Quilt Pattern!

Forest creatures peer from a snow-covered forest, with a shimmering Winter landscape and a castle high on a mountain peak in the background. The Dragon mistress is part of this digital-printed fantasy landscape, illustrated by Liz Dillon who obviously has a very creative imagination!

Start with the main panel, add the castle scenic print, with Hoffman Hand-Dyes to add a saturated counterpoint to the finishing of the borders.

This 50″ x 57″ quilt would make a stunning large wallhanging that will add enchantment to any room, or use it as a nap or lap quilt to bring magical dreams to anyone lucky enough to sleep under this spellbinding scene.

… from the ‘Artworks’ collection by Liz Dillon 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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For Wild Hearts

This time of year I feel like I should be up in Churchill with the Polar Bears. My next trip there is a year away, (please join me!) but I find myself going through photos from previous trips, and thinking about the stories that unfolded on the snow and ice.

In 3 weeks I will be leaving on this year’s wildlife photo safari, to Tanzania Africa. It just so happens that today I was visiting the offices of The Wild Foundation (wild.org), and we discussed the plight of endangered species around the world, and what we are all doing to help. I am so humbled by people like wild.org’s president Vance Martin, who has spent his whole life fighting for Nature. He is flying to Africa this weekend on an elephant emergency.

Because of our charity program, I have met some truly incredible and inspirational people over the last several years, who dedicate their lives to helping children in need, indigenous peoples, threatened eco-systems, and communities in heartbreaking situations. Every time I sit down with another one who shares their passion for their cause, I am so grateful that our company is a vehicle for helping those on the ground, to do their work. So I must thank you again, for supporting our partnerships with these amazing organizations.

Next month we will reach another great milestone – $1.5 million raised for charity. It is still hard to comprehend…what we have accomplished with your help. Don’t ever think that there’s nothing anyone can do to help save the world, save the children, save the environment, or wherever your heartstrings are tugging. YOU are capable of incredible things, and when we join hands and hearts, yes we can make a change.

We have put up a project page for the Hurricane and Earthquake Comfort Quilt projects.
Please click through here for all the details, and we will update in the future as needed.

Our last Sewing Day of the year is this Sat Dec 9, from 9 am to 4 pm. Many thanks to Blakeman Sewing for providing BERNINA machines! Please RSVP to Dana in Customer Service if you are coming, so we can be sure to have enough machines!

sharing your Passion for Fabric…
Luana and Paul

(*the photos above are from my last Polar Bear tour to Churchill in Canada.)

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

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Event & Travel Calendar:
Dec 9 – Charity Sewing Day at eQuilter
Dec 29 2017 – Jan 5 2018 – Tanzania Africa Wildlife Migration Tour
Feb 22-25, 2018 – QuiltCon – Pasadena, California
Feb 26 – Marty Ornish CQC workshop @ eQuilter Classroom
Mar 1 – May 15 – Registration for ‘Love Your Mother‘ Quilt Challenge
April 5-7 – SAQA Conference San Antonio TX
April 14-15 – Lisa Walton workshop @ eQuilter Classroom
May 11 – eQuilter Chromazone – Color Marketing Group
Nov 14-20, 2018 – POLAR BEAR Tour – Join me in Churchill!

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Free Pattern – Call of the Wild Bison

They say the Spirit of the Bison still roams the high plains, and this week’s Free Quilt Pattern gives us a composite image of the Buffalo Spirit being one with the land.

The central panel has a dreamlike collage with the details that can only be found in a digital-printed fabric…with the figure of the Bison superimposed on a wintery mountain landscape in the background.

We’ve combined Northcott Stonehenge textures with Hoffman Hand-Dyes for the pieced border (top and bottom) for this 49″ x 61″ quilt. This makes an atmospheric wall-hanging for a Western-themed room, or consider backing with snuggly Flannel for a cozy fireside lap quilt.

The Buffalo also happens to be the mascot for CU Boulder, if you have a CU student or alumni in the family!

… from the ‘Call of the Wild’ collection by Hoffman Fabrics.

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 December!

We’ve received some really special and very personal testimonials in the last week or two, and I just wanted to give a special thank you to those of you who have taken the time to send us those very kind messages. We love you too!

Tonight we have a Sneak Preview of my clip from an upcoming Quilting Arts TV episode, talking about “The Golden Hour” ….the SAQA fundraiser group by Andover, and also the big trend of Digital Printing in our textile industry. It is great to be back on the show with Susan Brubaker Knapp. You can see all the previous visits to Quilting Arts TV on this page if you scroll down. If you go down far enough you’ll see Pokey!

Did you know our daughter Sophie had a few appearances on QA TV? You can see them on this page. She is so grown up now (a sophomore in high school) so she doesn’t have time to travel to TV studios anymore – ha. However we are planning for her to come to Quilt Market in Houston next Fall. She will finally be old enough to attend the trade show. Look out Houston!

We had a very special visitor on Friday – Leda Huta who is the executive director for the Endangered Species Coalition in Washington DC. We gave her a tour…she and her daughter had fun with all of our wild animal fabrics…and we talked about the importance of keeping the Endangered Species Act in place.

The ESA was signed into law 12-28-73, and has saved more than 200 animals from extinction. An impressive 99% of the plant, animal and insect species that have been protected under the ESA are with us today despite their brushes with extinction, including American icons like the bald eagle, the California condor, and the Florida manatee.

However hunting, destructive fishing practices, waterway pollution, habitat loss and widespread use of pesticides continues to ravage threatened species’ populations. Leda and I talked about working together in the future, toward our shared goal of protecting these endangered species.

Hurricane and Earthquake Comfort Quilt projects.

Next Charity Sewing Day: Sat Dec 9, from 9 am to 4 pm. Thanks to Blakeman Sewing for providing beautiful BERNINA machines! Please RSVP to Dana in Customer Service if you are coming, so we can be sure to have enough machines!

sharing your Passion for Fabric…
Luana and Paul

********
Event & Travel Calendar:
Dec 26 2017 – Jan 8 2018 – Tanzania Africa Wildlife Migration Tour
Feb 22-25, 2018 – QuiltCon – Pasadena, California
Feb 26 – Marty Ornish CQC workshop @ eQuilter Classroom
Mar 1 – May 15 – Registration for ‘Love Your Mother’ Quilt Challenge
April 5-7 – SAQA Conference San Antonio TX
April 14-15 – Lisa Walton workshop @ eQuilter Classroom
May 11 – eQuilter Chromazone – Color Marketing Group
Nov 14-20, 2018 – POLAR BEAR Tour – Join me in Churchill!

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