Tonight’s Free Quilt Pattern features our exclusive Fox digital panel, intricately illustrated with jewel-tone colors and mystical, mandala shapes.
To make this 52″ x 70″ quilt design, you will start with the central 25″ x 44″ Mysterious Red Fox panel. You will use 3 Hoffman Hand-Dyes, offset by solid black, to create the coordinating four Fox Paw corner blocks.
This exclusive pattern displays a powerful, contemplative image, and would make a great gift for fox-loving friends!
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.
We are in the middle of a windstorm here in Boulder, with gusts up to 100 mph which is a little nerve-wracking. This is exactly the kind of weather we had a couple years ago when a fire swept into the city and burned 1100 homes in a few hours. It has been a strange week, with earthquakes in Taiwan and New Jersey/New York! I emailed our quilt artist friend Danny Amazonas, and was relieved to know he and his wife are ok after their big tremblor. Friends in NJ and NY were surprised to see their chandeliers swinging Friday morning. Having experienced earthquakes as a kid in California, and in Japan and Taiwan when I lived in Asia, I know it is very unnerving when the floor begins to shake and drop under your feet.
I am putting the last few details in place for my Textile and Costume tour in Italy, the first half of December. Registration is expected to open up next week. If you want advance notice before it opens up to the public, contact customer service to be put on the list.
Sunday I am supposed to drive across the Continental Divide to Grand Junction (in the tail end of a snowstorm) and then down to Gateway Canyon for the Alegre Retreat. The following Saturday I’ll be stopping at the quilt festival in Grand Junction, on the way back home. I am working on two very large pieces during the retreat, and hoping to get a lot of work done in the ‘independent study’ room. Hoping to see the peach blossoms as I drive through Palisade!
This week I was blessed to experience 2 owls hooting back and forth at each other from 2 giant old trees, just after sunset. I could see their pointy ear silhouettes against the twilight sky, and their deep-throated “Whoo-whooooo” calls made my scalp tingle. Those magical moments that Nature brings to us when least expected, are the things that inspire me in the studio.
sharing your love for fabric, Luana and Paul
Travel/Quilt Dates: April 7-12 – Allegre Retreat, Gateway CO May 1-7 – London & Canterbury, UK August – World Wilderness Congress, Rapid City SD December – Textile & Costume Tour – Italy
This gorgeous Ginger Kitty is all ready for a Springtime Garden Party, in this week’s eQuilter.com Free Quilt Pattern. The details in this artwork – the green reflective eyes – the wisps of soft fur and whiskers – the dreamy florals – make this a very special collectible piece of artwork.
To make this 63″ x 63″ quilt design, you will start with our charming 43″ x 44″ exclusive digital panel. You will fussy cut large realistic blossoms for the corner blocks. We’ve used a Turquoise lozenge-shaped ombre border inset to give a luminous quality, set against the Kona Solid Black.
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.
I’ve been on a quest for 35 years. My goal is to fill out my stash with every color, every shade and tint and hue and value so that when I need something for a project, it is (somewhere) on my shelf. Lately I’ve been filling in the last few slots from the eQuilter scrap bin. As I get ready for a weeklong artist retreat, I have a sense of urgency.
As new color trends and unique color combinations catch my eye, I have to review my stash. A little Plum here, a little Marigold there, and maybe a little Deep Teal and Sprout Green too. Am I done yet? Never. That is half the fun of being a quilter, if I dare say so myself. It is the eternal quest for the perfect color. It never ends, but it is a noble quest.
For those of you on a similar quest, we try to help out by cutting our own special collections of fat quarters in house. I am the one who initiates a new fat quarter packet, and chooses the colors that go into these collections that will hopefully scratch that particular chromatic itch we all get now and then.
This week I am featuring another quilt from the Modern Quilt Guild’s festival – QuiltCon. This cheerful quilt (upper left quadrant of collage above) is more fun than a Spring garden, with pieced blocks that resemble an ombre gradient. It illustrates a warm analogous color story that warms us like sunshine and tulips…chirping robins and giggling babies.
Heather Akerberg is the quiltmaker for this piece, which she titled “Multitudes”. Karen McTavish also helped with the machine quilting, and Heather added some hand quilting.
Heather writes: “Our unique experiences, thoughts, beliefs and memories all inform who we are at any given moment. We are multitudes. Utilizing simple shapes, this quilt explores how our identities are layered and varied. Using shifts in value and hue, vibrancy and depth are created. ‘Multitudes’ was constructed using a mix of foundation paper and traditional piecing with a mix of shot cotton and quilting cotton, mostly from my scrap bins.”
You can see a larger image of this quilt on this page.
If you have not subscribed to my artist blog yet, follow this link to see my latest process post about a Fierce Mama Bear art quilt, made for the SAQA Spotlight auction.
Sharing your love of fabric… Luana and Paul
* Quilt by Heather Akerberg is set im a collage of Fat Quarter images, available now at eQuilter.com
Travel/Quilt Dates: April 7-12 – Allegre Retreat, Gateway CO May 1-7 – London & Canterbury, UK August – World Wilderness Congress, Rapid City SD December – Textile & Costume Tour – Italy
Behold the green eyes of this mystical kitty, who sees all and knows all, in this week’s Free Quilt Pattern. This mesmerizing portrait captures the intensity of this cosmic cat’s gaze, surrounded by marbleized colors and opulent embellishments.
To make this 71″ wide x 55″ high quilt design, you will start with our exclusive 28″ x 44″ digital-printed panel. We have used 3 analogous colors of Paula Nadelstern’s “Poured Color” marbled prints, combined with Kona Solid Black, to construct the pieced border.
As a wall hanging, this is a real conversation piece for the true Ailurophile. (Cat lover) Or use this as a Nap quilt or small bed coverlet for fantastical feline dreams. The jewel tones of Emerald, Peridot and Citrine really ‘pop’ against the solid black in the pieced frame. This just might be your cat’s favorite new quilt!
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.
Well, the time has come to clear out our Artisan Chocolates for the season, and I know from experience they go fast. Place your order now for 30% off. If you order 5 chocolate bars and a spool of thread, we won’t tell anybody. Or, you can order 5 spools of thread and one bar of chocolate for a low-cal dopamine hit. *giggle*
I want to make sure you don’t miss these special new products this week:
This week I am busy prepping for a one-week art quilt retreat in SW Colorado – the Allegre Retreat which was founded by Katie Pasquini Masopust. I met her 20+ years ago at Art Quilt Tahoe. I am finally going to check off this bucket list item, and hopefully get a lot of work done there. I am not in a class, but I am doing an independent study retreat. One of the teachers is Susan Carlson, who we had scheduled to teach here in 2020, but had to cancel (along with Paula Nadelstern) because of the pandemic. Sigh…..
Today I was out at the Wild Animal Sanctuary in Keenesburg, gathering signatures for a ballot initiative to ban Trophy Hunting of Big Cats in Colorado. On the walk back to my car, I saw the new residents: beautiful silver foxes who were rescued from a fur farm. eQuilter is a “Founder” – we have donated to their huge wildlife refuge in SE Colorado where lions and tigers and bears live in outdoor acreage after being rescued from horrendous abusive situations. They have started a Horse Refuge for mustangs that are rounded up destined for a tragic demise – but are saved at the auction and sent to the refuge to run free again.
If you would like advance notice of my Textile & Costume tour in Italy in early December, contact Customer Service and they will put you on that list.
sharing your love for fabric, Luana and Paul
Travel/Quilt Dates: April 7-12 Allegre Retreat May 1-7 – England August – World Wilderness Congress December – Textile/Costume Tour – Italy
Celebrate the arrival of Spring with this adorable collection of baby animals, in this week’s Free Quilt Pattern. Each block is a sweet portrait of a little baby animal, featuring a bright-eyed lamb, fuzzy pink piglet, soft yellow chicks, carrot-nibbling bunny, curious calf, and sassy kid. (goat)
To make this 63″ x 69″ quilt, you will start with two 24″ x 44″ Barnyard Babies block panels, piecing blocks to make 3 rows in the central section. Join blocks with coordinating blender. Use matching Barnyard Stripe to create border, with outer border of blue blender. Finish with coordinating red paisley print for the binding.
This a fun Nap/Lap quilt for a retired farmer, maybe a wall hanging in the barn, or a delightful gift for a new baby. Also makes a great gift for your vet who will be delivering some of these baby animals this spring!
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 week, for you avid Midweek newsletter readers, I am giving you a little sneak peak of a beloved collection we just got back in stock: Caryl Bryler Fallert-Gentry’s “Gradations” which is 24 different color combinations of Ombre prints.
If you have ever played around with gradient prints, you know that every cut of these fabrics yields several different colors and/or values, so one colorway is like 4 or 5 colors or shades. Gradient prints have been embraced by Modern Quilters for the luminous quality they add to a quilt. Contemporary quilters love them because they give a 3-D effect.
We’ve cut all 24 colors into 5″ strips and packaged them in-house for a palette-stretcher precut that will expand your color options in a heartbeat.
Today I am featuring this delightful quilt from the Maximalism exhibit at QuiltCon. As you may recall, I wrote an article about Maximalism awhile back, so I was excited to see this batch of quilts!
This quilt is by Linda Hungerford, and is titled “Feelin’ Groovy“. (center image in the collage above.)
Linda writes:
“An abandoned box of already-pieced quarter circle, and triangle-in-a-square blocks triggered this design that needed more. So, to meet a Central Florida MQG Challenge of using half-rectangle triangle (HRT) blocks in a quilt, I made two sizes of them using only stripes and solids.”
Part of what makes this busy quilt so fun and eye-catching is the juxtaposition of Solid Brights with Black-and-White stripes. For those of you who have attended my trend lectures, you know this Black-and-White-and-Color trend is ongoing and mutating. As a result, we have been expanding our selection of Black and White stripes because they are so fun to work with – give it a try!
If you are looking for more gradient prints, go to our Color Palette and scroll down – there are 4 different color categories of these Ombre fabrics.
Today’s exclusive Free Quilt Pattern captures the spirit of freedom with a bald eagle decorated in the American red, white, and blue posing proudly against a star spangled frame.
To make this 65″ x 72″ quilt design, you will sew American Stripe strips between blue hand dye strips, and attach American Spirit Frames to the corners. Sew solid black borders, which accentuate the patriotic colors, along with a red hand dye binding.
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.
Just in case you missed the Wednesday e-newsletter, I now have photo albums up for both the DAR Museum opening of “Sewn in America”, and QuiltCon exhibits.
For many years I’ve been researching a very unique Textile & Costume tour in Italy, and right now I’m putting together a holiday season trip (including Christmas Markets) around the 2nd week of December. I’d like to give our avid eQuilter fans first crack at this amazing tour, so if you’d like to have a 48 hour advance notice to reserve a place when registration opens, contact Customer Service and get on the list! This is not a tour for those of you who have never been to Italy before. It is more an in-depth study (and celebration!) of textile history and costumes. It is going to be AWESOME. There just might be some wine tasting involved….
This morning I attended a live streaming performance of Gounod’s ‘Romeo et Julette’ from the Met in New York. It was a gorgeous costume piece, with 18th century style, written by a 19th century French composer. The costume designer Catherine Zuber did a fantastic job. I know that many of you are not only avid quilters, but also costume (and opera) aficionados…because if you love textiles it is hard not to love costumes and historic fabrics.
There were several transmission interruptions during the first half (the image on the screen froze) and during the intermission the executive director of the Met came on and apologized, saying they were having severe thunderstorms and torrential rain which interrupted the satellite transmission….and he blamed it on climate change. I see there is still a flood watch in place. Oh the times, they are a changin’…..
For those of you who attended the online SAQA webinar on embellishments, we are highlighting our Milliner needles this week. We also carry the Perle 8 cotton embroidery threads in gorgeous color collections, and those handy heavy-duty thimbles that are beloved by handwork experts. Enjoy!
sharing your love for fabric, Luana and Paul
Travel/Quilt Dates: April 7-12 Allegre Retreat May 1-7 – England December – Textile/Costume Tour – Italy
