Creative Nudge – Salsa Rainbow

Posted on November 27, 2014 by Luana

LatinoCollage_550

from Nov 19 eQuilter newsletter:

This weekend while at the Color Marketing Group's international conference in Orlando, I was enjoying the colorful Cuban, Mexican, and other Latino influences… the colors, the food and the music!

If you like to watch trends, you may have noticed how South-of-the-Border culture has been spicing up colors and design trends in the US. Certainly if you go to Houston for Quilt Festival, you are aware of the Latin flavors in and around the show.

This year there was a great exhibit of quilts from Mexico, including this figurative quilt depicting a Mariachi musician. You can see that there are so many possible motifs that could be brought into a Latino-themed quilt project, including music, food, drink, travel, Frida, and more!

One thing's for sure: these bright happy Salsa colors are setting the pace for this beautiful fabric trend!

The quilt in the center of the above collage:
'Sones de Mariachi' (Mariachi Tunes)
by Elizabeth Rising de Segura
Col Ninos Heroes, Mexico

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Once Upon a Color

Posted on November 27, 2014 by Luana

From Nov 15 eQuilter Newsletter:

This weekend I am writing to you from the Color Marketing Group's international conference in Orlando.

After leaving the zero degree weather in Boulder, my first flight was canceled, then I flew to Washington DC, then went standby from DC to Orlando and arrived at midnight. My bag arrived an hour after me, having been routed through Houston. Ah, the joys of travel!

I gave a short presentation from my photos of the Climate Change March in NYC, and today I was a facilitator for a color workshop. Tonight I'm having dinner with a friend from BERNINA USA, and tomorrow I drive to Sarasota to visit old friends from Hong Kong. (my ex-roommate who was Oscar de La Renta's patternmaker.)

Whenever people hear that I am in the Color Marketing Group, they always ask "What's the color of the year?!"

For once, my opinion overlaps with the 2014 Pantone Color of the Year – Radiant Orchid. I say 'overlap' because I think Purples in general are the big color story of 2014. Radiant Orchid is just one part of that story. Hey, it is not just my opinion! You guys are buying Purple like there is no tomorrow! We can barely keep it in stock!

Well guess what? Purple is my fav color too. Has been since I was in middle school. Also, you don't have to wear a color, for it to be your favorite color. I feel like my favorite color is more an expression of who I am on a soul level – and it expresses my creativity and spirituality. When I am with Purple, I am Happy.

Favorite colors can change from year to year, even from day to day. The colors we are drawn to in our homes, our apparel, and our sewing projects, are an expression of how we are feeling, and what we are craving. If this piques your interest, do some more study into the Psychology of Colors. It is a fascinating topic.

When I tell people about our business, I tell them that I sell Art and Color on fabric. You already know what 'quilters cottons' are, which is why we can sell it to you over the internet. What you are really buying from us is beautiful artwork, stunning textile designs, and a rainbow of colors. Every week we curate a selection of amazing fabrics, and share them with fabric-lovers around the world. We stroke and admire the fabric before we pack it up and ship it off to you… knowing the delight you will also feel when you open that package.

Being able to choose those colors for you is indeed a privilege, and my annual CMG conference helps me to foresee all the upcoming color trends so when you suddenly realize you need and want that color, it will already by waiting for you in our giant fabric warehouse. My pleasure!

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Free Quilt Pattern – Poppy Poetry

Posted on November 13, 2014 by Luana

PoppyPoetry

This stylish quilt design has Red Poppies, Asters and Bluebells on a Black and White geometric and striped background design… from the 'Poppy Panache' collection designed by Ann Laner for Benartex.

It reminds us of Audrey Hepburn's fantastic hat and dress in the Ascot scene of My Fair Lady! Cecil Beaton designed this costume and it is one of the most famous dresses designed for a movie. Bring a little bit of the Ascot Gardens home with this quilt pattern, and you'll be humming the Ascot Gavotte!

The quilt measures 54" x 73", and if you'd like a larger, twin size 73" x 92" quilt, we have scaled it up for you: The Poppy Poetry Twin Pattern.

You may order the pattern as configured, (click through here to see the specifics!) or customize it to your liking with any of our over 20,000 fabrics. Just place your desired fabrics in your Wish List, and these fabrics will appear in the Fabric Selector below the pattern.

This pattern was designed in EQ7, which is available here at eQuilter.

Many thanks to Larene Smith for this Poppy themed quilt 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 – Gratitude and Color

Posted on November 11, 2014 by Luana

ForestCottage_550

This time of year in the US, most of us are making plans for the upcoming Thanksgiving holiday. For many of us, this holiday has transformed from a story about Pilgrims and Native Americans, to a day of Gratitude.

Often we make plans to travel to gather with family and friends, sometimes in a special home with a connection to Nature. Those of us who have traveled to Grandma's cottage on a lake, or a cabin in the forest or mountains, have fond memories each year, as we try to recreate that special feeling of love and simple pleasures.

This beautiful little quilt by Lynn Welsch depicts a "House on Lake Coeur d'Alene". It was at the Houston Quilt Festival as part of the Tactile Architecture exhibit. Doesn't it look like a cozy retreat where one might want to spend a holiday?

Around the quilt image I've added some fabrics that might contribute to an architectural/landscape quilt project, plus the gorgeous door panel on the left which is perfect for Thanksgiving!

Thanksgiving is always extra special at our house because we have 2 birthdays, so there is always a candle to blow out, on top of a pumpkin pie. Because we are vegetarian, we make a special veggie lasagna for Thanksgiving. The table is laden with the gifts of the Harvest, and we count our many blessings.

Thursday I leave for the Color Marketing Group conference in Orlando Florida. It is a working conference where international color forecasters from all different industries gather, to hammer out a color palette for 2016 and beyond. This enables all the participating companies (including eQuilter) to be industry leaders in color trends. I am a CMG chairholder and workshop facilitator, and I'm giving a little video presentation the first day too. Nothing like immersing myself in COLOR with my CMG peers for a long weekend!

Next I come home and start stocking up on the hot new colors for next year! You'll see the results of our color forecasting as we head into 2015.

Yes, the woman who chooses the Pantone Color of the Year will be there. As soon as it is announced in December, we'll be sure to bring you the whole range of new color trends.

In the meantime, please enjoy our collection of the 2014 Pantone Color of the Year – Radiant Orchid.

PLEASE NOTE:
My Quilting Arts TV clip about the SAQA fundraiser collection with Andover is available now, plus 2 African Fabric videos with samples from my trip to South Africa.

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Quilt Market Preview – Part 2

Posted on November 11, 2014 by Luana

As promised, I am following up with the second part of our Quilt Market Preview – to let you know more of our favorite collections at Quilt Market – which you will see arriving here in the next several months.

(Quilt Market Preview – Part 1 – was in the Oct 25 newsletter)

I figure I look at 150,000 fabrics per year, and pick out about 14,000 for our discerning eQuilter customers. We do not buy entire collections sight unseen, but rather, we cherry-pick the fabrics that are fresh and beautiful, trendy or just plain bodacious, so you can just click through the newsletter every week to see our curated offerings.

Real shibori-style tie-dye – Indigo and White
Packmates – colorful Llamas & Alpacas
Night at the Opera by Maria Kalinowski
Ex Libris by Alison Glass – includes printed chambray
Downton Abbey Christmas & Downton Abbey Egyptian
Natural History by Lizzy House
Moonlight Peacock – Hoffman
Gothic Glam by Greta Lynn
Poppy Passion by Elaine Quaehl
New Aboriginal fabric designs imported from Australia
Black & White by Marcia Derce
Vincent Van Gogh from Robert Kaufman
Root & Fly Digitally printed collection by Flora Bowley
Star Trek – The Next Generation
Tea Time by Mary Engelbreit
Family Life by Julia Cairns (African theme)
Church Ladies by Loralie Designs
New Jinny Beyer Palette Colors from RJR Fabric
New Colors of American Made Solids from Clothworks

New and beautiful holiday collections:
Winter Elegance by Jason Yenter
Spellbound and Tinsel from Cotton & Steel
Shades of Autumn and Holly Jolly by Dan Morris
Trimming the Tree by Mary Engelbreit
More How The Grinch Stole Christmas
Holiday Flourish 8 by Peggy Toole

Favorite upcoming trends: Gingham, and Typewriter Keys!

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Free Quilt Pattern – Frozen Fantasy

Posted on November 6, 2014 by Luana

FrozenForeverFriends

If you have kids or grandkids, you probably know that the movie "Frozen" is the biggest thing since Mickey Mouse, and Frozen licensed gifts are at the top of most little girls' holiday Wish List.

This week's exclusive eQuilter Free Pattern is cleverly designed around this stunning panel showing the 2 sisters Elsa and Anna in a winter landscape. The pieced border combines Frozen characters with a beautiful White-on-White star print, and a deep rich pink hand-dye.

This panel is a special purchase for eQuilter, but we can't guarantee how long it will stay in stock! Feel free to swap out the coordinating fabrics to design your own special one-of-a-kind holiday gift quilt. Do you wanna build a snowman?

 

You may order the pattern as configured, (click through here to see the specifics!) or customize it to your liking with any of our over 20,000 fabrics. Just place your desired fabrics in your Wish List, and these fabrics will appear in the Fabric Selector below the pattern.

This pattern was designed in EQ7, which is available here at eQuilter.

Many thanks to Larene Smith for this floral themed quilt 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 – Wild Horses

Posted on November 6, 2014 by Luana

Horses

When I was a girl, I was a horse doodler. I would draw horses all day long…. in class, at home… was totally horse crazy. For my 12th Christmas I got an oil painting set and my first painting was of a ghostly white horse galloping across a cobalt-blue night landscape. The painting hangs over my desk at home.

Naturally, one of my favorite quilts in Houston was this large painted portrait of wild horses, by Laurie Britt.

Because of the size of this artwork, when standing in front of the piece, you feel like you are eye-to-eye with lifesize mustangs! Laurie's fine brushwork has as much detail as any human portrait.

There was a time when a painted art quilt like this caused quite a controversy. Some argued that painted quilts were not really quilts. Now there is a whole category of Painted Surface Art Quilts in the IQA show, thanks to pioneering artists such as Hollis Chatelain. Last week, Laurie's piece took First Prize in the painted category, after winning awards in previous regional shows.

For all you horse-lovers who are not ready to paint horse portraits, we've made a collage of the horse quilt in the center, and eQuilter horse fabrics all around. We love the Laurel Burch fantasy horses, slathered with gold metallic.

The other night I heard an owl hooting outside my window, and I thought of the lyrics of that Michael Martin Murphy song:

"By the dark of the moon I planted
But there came an early snow
There's been a hoot owl howlin' by my window now
For six nights in a row
She's coming for me I know
And on Wildfire we're both gonna go

We'll be riding Wildfire…"

PLEASE NOTE:
My Quilting Arts TV clip about the SAQA fundraiser collection with Andover is available now, plus 2 African Fabric videos with samples from my trip to South Africa.

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Posted on November 6, 2014 by Luana

from the 11/1 newsletter:

Quilt Market Review
*

I am mulling over all the fabric and color trends that we saw at Quilt Market, and all the fabulous quilts on exhibit at Quilt Festival. It was great to meet so many of our customers for the first time, on the show floor.

It is so interesting to track the movement of the Modern quilt trend, and the parallel fabric trends. The basis of this design aesthetic is simplicity, which means it is relatively easy to replicate, which means the trend is likely to cycle to the next thing rather quickly. There is certainly more to explore in the Modern design trend, and it is already mutating by blending with other parallel design trends to create a new vision.

We find that the market has been over-saturated with simple flat artwork in the fabric collections, so we are inclined to look for what is fresh and new, rather than continue to buy designs that have now been replicated many times over. It is nice to see the return of more creative artwork and more original design concepts, which will ship to us in the coming months. I for one really like to support talented artists who are creating lovely lush paintings and illustrations to inspire those of us who like to cut and sew!

If there was one trend that we will see from the big quilt exhibit, it has to be Red and White! The four-story-high circular gallery of Ruby Jubilee quilts from the last 40 years, was an experience in itself… like walking through a cathedral. I have noticed a lot of red quilts in general over the last year … including intricate multicolor floral appliques on red backgrounds.

Doubtless there will be many quilters who return home from Houston, to start their own Red and White quilts.

I continue to be amazed at the technical mastery that evolves every year, in Pictorial and Figurative quilts. Abstract quilts seem to be more intriguing every year as well. We still ooh and ahh over the mind-blowing intricacies of the symmetrical technical quilts that obviously require hundreds or thousands of hours of meticulous work, but we are also deeply moved by the emotions being expressed in the representative art quilts.

Yvonne Porcella's retrospective was a beautiful tribute to a powerful creative force, and the Mexican quilts reminded us of the colorful waking giant just to the south of Houston. Watch for Mexican and Latin American quilters to take center stage more often in the next several years. One of the top prizes this year was won by a pair of Brazilian quilters.

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Free Quilt Pattern – Pandora’s Garden

Posted on October 31, 2014 by Luana

PandoraGarden

This week's exclusive eQuilter Free Pattern gives you a peek through a garden gate, to a sunny bed of poppies, calla lilies and golden dahlias!

Luscious florals and abstract watercolor coordinates are from the 'Pandora' collection by Chong-A Hwang.

You may order the pattern as configured, (click through here to see the specifics!) or customize it to your liking with any of our over 20,000 fabrics. Just place your desired fabrics in your Wish List, and these fabrics will appear in the Fabric Selector below the pattern.

This pattern was designed in EQ7, which is available here at eQuilter.

Many thanks to Larene Smith for this floral themed quilt 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 – All About RED

Posted on October 31, 2014 by Luana

RedQuilts

This week I am writing to you from the Quilt Festival in Houston, celebrating 40 years with their "Ruby Jubilee".

When you enter the quilt exhibit area, you will see the winner of the eQuilter-sponsored "World of Beauty" award, plus the other top prize-winning quilts. Be sure to look for the banner with our eQuilter Rainbow Logo, and the beautiful quilt made by Kyoko Yamauchi from Japan.

You also can't possibly miss the giant Red and White quilt display, (photo above) which is four stories high! It is an amazing display of vintage and contemporary quilts, from three centuries. I've heard people say that walking through this circular space created by the hanging quilts, is like walking through a cathedral.

Today I am going down to NASA to meet with their chapter of Engineers Without Borders, to discuss our next project in Africa. eQuilter is an ongoing sponsor of the NASA chapter of EWB, which means we sponsor a bunch of rocket scientists who use their engineering brainpower to solve problems in developing communities in Africa, and around the world.

Wednesday evening I'll be attending Preview Night, then filming videos with Bonnie McCaffery Thursday morning, and flying home Thursday afternoon. That way I can spend Halloween at home with Sophie!

PLEASE NOTE:
My Quilting Arts TV clip about the SAQA fundraiser collection with Andover is available now, so click through to get a preview of this fantastic collection by 6 SAQA artists, shipping to stores (and eQuilter!) in December.

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