Wolves represent the wild free spirit of the Northwoods. This week’s exclusive eQuilter Free Quilt Pattern features our new arctic Wolves panel, with a pack running through fresh mountain snow under the Moon and brilliant Northern Lights.
To make this 61″ x 71″ quilt design, you will start with our Arctic Wolf Pack panel. Then you’ll create layers of ombre borders around the central scenic panel, using the gradient luminosity of the ombre prints to create a three-dimensional effect. This beautiful arctic quilt is a great gift for wildlife enthusiasts who dreams of running wild and free!
PLUS – you’ll receive Free USA / 50% off INTL shipping when you order the fabrics for this exquisite quilt pattern (orders $100 and over, no coupon needed).
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.
Tonight I succumbed to the Chat GPT Action Figure viral trend, and made a funny action figure out of my photo. I’ve had a good giggle today as friends have been making and uploading their own AI “Action Figure” images on social media.
I don’t make my art quilts as a distraction. I make them as an outlet. This week I am finishing a new piece as a tribute to Theia, the juvenile wolf who was run over (“whacked”) by a snowmobile last year. Long ago I knew someone who had a wolf rescue at their mountain home. The wolves and wolf hybrids would leap on the roof of the house and howl at dusk. They were very intense and soulful, and made quite an impression on me. I’ve been very fortunate as a photographer and traveler to experience that moment eye-to-eye with many wild animals in their natural habitat. It is something you never forget, and you come away with the clear impression that this is a sentient being.
Have you subscribed to the blog on my artist website yet? If not, now might be a good time because I’ve started a series of posts about my trip to Japan. Read the Kyoto prologue, and sign up on this page for the next installment!
If you are a fan of Frida Kahlo art, Day of the Dead imagery, or if you have ever loved and lost a cat….the image above might inspire your next quilt. It features a new panel which I call “Frida’s Cat”. The Ombre Rainbow Florals and Butterflies are pretty stunning also. This will be featured in this Saturday’s e-newsletter of new products, but you might want to snap it up now.
Sharing our passion for fabric….. Luana and Paul www.luanarubin.com
Travel/Lecture Dates: April 23-25 – Washington DC (Private Event) April 27- May 3 – Alegre Retreat May 23-26 – Quilt National – Dairy Barn – Athens OH June 18-20 – Quilt Canada – Toronto Ontario
Black cats prowl in a moonlit pumpkin grove in tonight’s Free eQuilter pattern. We love black cats and we celebrate them with these sweet kitties, sitting beneath a Full Moon and festive flying bats.
To make this 54″ x 60″ Halloween-themed quilt design, you will start with a 26″ x 44″ panel. Assemble the clever flying bats blocks with Orange Hoffman Hand Dye & Solid Black. Plus, the coordinating Halloween Kitties with Hats print in the corners is really adorable!
PLUS – you’ll receive Free USA / 50% off INTL shipping when you order the fabrics for this exquisite quilt pattern (orders $100 and over, no coupon needed).
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.
Today was the first day this year that I could walk into my backyard and smell the flowering crabapples, or walk out the front door and smell the blossoming lilacs. Mmmm, heavenly! Last year we had Blue Jays nesting in my Japanese Lilac tree outside the kitchen window. I have heard them squawking outside this week.
But I know for people with allergies (like our daughter Sophie Quinn) it is a miserable time of year. She has a recital next week so she is mostly inside practicing this weekend. I have been in the studio working on a new piece, but this weekend I am going to enjoy the Spring sunshine and have some Spring Blossom therapy. The Hite collection of Hawaiian quilts is on display in Loveland through April 19, so I plan to get up there next week.
On Friday I had a visitor from the Carter Center. You may recall that my portrait of Rosalynn Carter hangs in the Mental Health offices there. She was a champion to combat mental health stigmas in America. Many people still think the Carters’ main nonprofit work was Habitat, but actually their greatest accomplishments were through the Carter Center in Atlanta. So my visitor and I had a long talk about the state of non-profits and human rights in today’s world. This will be a theme in the next artwork I am planning, after I finish the current wildlife-themed quilt.
Are you making plans for Spring Sewing, or are you already up to your eyeballs in a project, on a deadline? Springtime is a great time to visit quilt festivals around the country, and indeed around the world. But this coming week also has many deadlines for Calls for Entry, for exhibits and festivals this Fall. Good luck with your entries!
We are here for all your quilting and sewing needs, so if you have questions or requests, please do contact us and ask for help or information. Now is the time to think about sewing gifts for Mothers Day, Graduations, and Weddings!
Travel/Lecture Dates: April 23-26 – Washington DC – Private Event April 27- May 3 – Alegre Retreat – Gateway Colorado May 23-26 – Quilt National – Dairy Barn, Athens OH June 18-20 – Quilt Canada – Toronto Ontario
Our Serenity Wolf panel is the feature of this week’s Free Quilt Pattern. This captivating portrait captures the wisdom, loyalty & intensity of the wolf’s gaze, emerging from a summer forest.
To make this 59″ wide x 67″ high quilt design, you will start with the 36″ x 44″ digital-printed panel. Piece the wild paw-print blocks and borders with three warm Hoffman hand dyes.
This beautiful Lap/Nap quilt or wall hanging is a great gift for wildlife enthusiasts who dreams of running wild and free!
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.
This week I am still basking in the glow from the SAQA conference in St Petersburg, Florida. There was a fantastic lineup of speakers, friends from all over the world, and lots of FUN. Just what I needed. I got there one day early so I could go on the SAQA Sunset Cruise, to soak up some of those Florida ocean vibes. (the photo above was taken at sunset)
I hope that you too can attend some inspirational quilt events this year, to keep those creative juices flowing. I actually had a big breakthrough in the studio today…my first day back from this trip. Sometimes you need to go away for awhile, and then come back with a fresh eye on a project. Whether it is a local guild show, or an international quilt festival, hangin’ with the Tribe is always good for the quilter’s soul. On this trip we got to see Hollis Chatelain‘s latest piece, during her presentation “How to Infuse Art with Emotion”. A very powerful work of art, needless to say.
Many thanks to all the SAQA volunteer members who worked hard to make this in-person conference happen! There was a theme of PINK Flamingos and some group dancing to Sister Sledge’s “We Are Family” with inflatable flamingo pool floats…and general silliness. I got a bobbling flamingo headband for future goofiness. Maybe I’ll wear it for my next Zoom meeting.
I have been to Florida many times because I have an old friend there. My roommate from Hong Kong retired there, and it has been awhile since I could visit her home, which is basically a museum filled with textiles, art and antiques from the years spent in Hong Kong. Her collection of exquisite silk embroideries are framed and hung around the house, but this time we brought out her treasure chest of ikats, batiks and more antique silk embroideries. I think she had fun too, because I am probably the most enthusiastic admirer of her Textile Treasure Trunk. Her collection of beaded, embroidered and sequined designer evening gowns were stored in the closet of the guest bedroom, so I had something to admire at bedtime also. Yummy!
When I first met her, she was running the sample room and managing the patterns for Oscar de la Renta. Her background in New York included managing Halston’s runway shows, and she worked for Christian Dior before that. Needless to say she has a lot of good stories to tell. I was working for a Los Angeles silk dress company that was produced in the same HK factory, and eventually I went to work for the HK-based company. We’ve been friends for over 40 years. Crazy how the years fly by!
Travel/Lecture Dates: April 23-25 – Washington DC (Private Event) April 27- May 3 – Alegre Retreat May 23-26 – Quilt National – Dairy Barn – Athens OH June 18-20 – Quilt Canada – Toronto Ontario
Tonight’s Free eQuilter Pattern features our exclusive Tabby Moon panel, a magnificent celestial fantasy scene with our tabby cat resting on a crescent moon in the clouds.
To make this 52″ x 52″ quilt design, start with our Tabby Moon panel, add the gold hand dye accent, piece the cloud borders with our Majestic Clouds & Midnight Sky prints, then add the solid black & starry borders.
This quilt’s recipient will have fun making up bed-time tales (tails?) about this classy kitty. Meow!
PLUS – you’ll receive Free USA / 50% off INTL shipping when you order the fabrics for this exquisite quilt pattern (orders $100 and over, no coupon needed).
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.
This morning we started the day with a presentation by Elin Noble, who told us about her month-long artist residency in Denmark. During her residency she went on long walks, gathering plant material for her dye experiments. She shared her process of cooking the plants, dyeing the fabrics, and then creating a darker color with iron-dyeing. She also walked along the beach to gather rocks, that she would later use to weigh the Lightweight Silk Organza while stitching by hand.
She showed us a photo of a beautiful natural-dyed yellow silk organza coat using the Korean Bojagi technique. ‘The Apple Tree on the Abandoned Railroad Line’ was the name of the exhibit that resulted from 2 artist residencies. She showed us several series of yellow-dye experimental projects, including Cheesecloth, and the subsequent patchwork collages in which she uses Mistyfuse. Two beautiful translucent patchwork layers of cheesecloth collage were fused into one work of art.
Elin has been inspiring us to use natural dyes for a long time. I have a book by Elin that I bought as we were launching eQuilter. It is still on the shelf in the basement of our home where we started the business.
Our kids grew up in the business so they took turns having textile-themed projects for Science Fair. They all did one science fair about natural dyes – experimenting in several different plant sources – from berries to leaves from our garden. They dyed cotton, silk and linen … then wrote about the differences of absorption.
Their 2nd science fair project was doing the Burn Test. You should all know about this also, so you can differentiate 100% cotton from cotton/poly blends, or fake cotton. (100% polyester) The information is all online these days, but essentially, synthetics melt and natural fibers turn to ash. If you think about it, polyester is made from petroleum, and essentially melts into a bead of plastic. Yuck!
I have had a love affair with natural fibers since my first job in the fashion industry. I was fortunately that my first job in L.A., and my second job in Hong Kong, were designing silk garments. Working in Asia, I learned all about silk production and different types of silk textiles. In fact I am visiting an old friend from Hong Kong on Monday, before I fly home.
Now I am brimming with creative juice and ready to get back in the studio!
Travel/Lecture Dates: April 23-26 – Washington DC – Private Event April 27- May 3 – Alegre Retreat – Gateway Colorado May 23-26 – Quilt National – Dairy Barn, Athens OH June 18-20 – Quilt Canada – Toronto Ontario
Today I am sharing another quilt from the Kyoto Quilt Festival.
This quilt by Taiwanese quilter Tsui Hua Chen is about “Taking a Stroll”. Notice that instead of a binding to finish the edge, the border is made up of a continuous strip of scrappy log cabin roses linked together.
Today April 2nd I am off on a ‘stroll’ as well….attending the SAQA conference in St. Petersburg in Florida. SAQA stands for Studio Art Quilt Associates. Over the past 35 years, SAQA has grown into an international community of over 4,000 artists, curators, collectors, and art professionals. I am proud to be a JAM (Juried Art Member) of SAQA, and I consider them my tribe. If you are interested in art quilts, check us out! Wherever I go in the world, I find SAQA members.
Travel/Lecture Dates: Apr 3-6 – SAQA Conference – St Pete, Florida April 23-25 – Washington DC (Private Event) April 27- May 3 – Alegre Retreat May 23-26 – Quilt National – Dairy Barn – Athens OH June 18-20 – Quilt Canada – Toronto Ontario
A few weeks ago after I returned from Japan, I started a new project. I try to learn a new technique, or advance a new skill with each new project. So invariably, there is always a day about halfway through when I stop and say to myself – “What was I thinking? This is a disaster!”
Fortunately I know from experience that if I just keep working, I can push past the doubt, and get to a place that fills me with joy and anticipation. I suspect this is why so many of us have a pile of UFOs from our early years of quilting. We become bored or frustrated, set it aside rationalizing that we’ll get back it later….and 10 years later we find it in a dusty stack.
May I suggest that if you have blocks or a half-finished quilt in a pile somewhere, fish them out, and donate them to a charity sewing group, or a classroom. No need to feel embarrassed….just let it go and move on to your next creative challenge.
As March wraps up, and Spring begins to blossom all around us…you may find yourself blossoming with new ideas and energy as the sunlight returns to fill our work spaces with light.
Speaking of sunlight – if you struggle with making color choices indoors – now is a good time to take those fabrics outside to give them a 2nd look in natural light. Just don’t leave them outside because they will fade under that dazzling light!
March 29 is National Mom and Pop Business Owner Day. Today we celebrate indie-owned businesses run by intrepid couples who run their family businesses as a team. Many quilt shops are run by some combination of a husband and wife team. Everyone brings their talents to the table and with that Yin/Yang energy, somehow everything gets done. When Paul and I opened eQuilter 26 years ago, we pooled our talents and experience, to create a new kind of business. Today there are plenty of online retailers, but our team’s passion for fabric, design, and customer service is the special sauce that keeps our customers coming back for more!
Travel/Lecture Dates: Apr 3-6 – SAQA Conference – St Pete, Florida April 23-26 – Washington DC – Private Event April 27- May 3 – Alegre Retreat – Gateway Colorado May 23-26 – Quilt National – Dairy Barn, Athens OH June 18-20 – Quilt Canada – Toronto Ontario
