eQuilter Blog

One of the things that inspires and amuses me
most about Life, is how sometimes things just magically come together, and
something wondrous happens. I ask a question and the answer appears a week
later. Put out a request to the Universe and it comes to me in a totally
unexpected way. State a goal and then see the bricks being laid down one at a
time on the intended pathway. Wonder about what happened to an old friend?. and
run into that person in an out-of-context situation. Does that happen to you
too?

Last weekend I got the urge to go to a local coffee shop, and was delighted to
hear some live music (2 acoustic guitars) playing there. I got my soy latte and
sat down with Sophie, then noticed out of the side of my eye that there was a
knitting group in the corner. Well of course I had to go see what they were
doing! As I approached I recognized an old friend from my oil painting days. I
hadn't seen her for years and had been recently wondered what happened to her.
We used to go out in the summer and do plein air painting in the Boulder Iris Gardens, and up in the mountains. We were together in a weekly figure painting group for 15 years.

As we chatted, one thing led to another, and it turned out we will both be in
Hawaii at the same time, and my friend Bonnie is staying with an artist who I
idolized when I first moved to Boulder from New York in the 90's. I never got
to know Sandy, but I admired her work in galleries and went to a couple
lectures that she gave. She was at the peak of her career, and one of the most
famous artists in Boulder. Now 20 years later, through a serendipitous meeting
at a coffee-shop knitting group, I'll be visiting her studio and having lunch
on the beach in a couple weeks. Who'da thunk?

I had another fun connection yesterday, when I visited Rocky Mountain PBS to pick up donated comfort quilts for Colorado Flood victims. The quilts were sent by Nancy Zieman, donated by viewers of her Sewing With Nancy show on PBS. They asked me to be the middleperson – to pick up the quilts and distribute them to those in need.

Many thanks to all the "Sewing with Nancy" quilters who sent their
colorful quilts to us in Colorado! It was part of a huge on-air fundraiser
event put on by Rocky Mountain PBS recently.
We are thrilled that they thought of us, when deciding where to donate these
lovely quilts!

I had a delightful visit with Elizabeth at PBS, and told her about our charity
program and our comfort quilt projects. As we came to the end of our coffee
chat, she revealed that she grew up in the family business in the garment
district of New York. Her dad (and her grandpa) have run a business selling
embellished fabrics to the trade, which includes not only fashion houses, but
also costumers for Broadway musicals, Operas and Ballet. I went home and looked
through my business cards and yep, sure enough, I've shopped at her dad's store
recently, and also when I worked on 7th Avenue as an import fashion designer. I
love when that happens!

In case you missed Ditch New Years Resolutions Day on Friday, or Thesaurus Day
on Saturday, we will observe Martin Luther King Jr's birthday Monday, and go directly to National Hugging Day on Tuesday. Our son Sam turns 17 on National Pie Day this week, and we wish him a Sweet Seventeen!

This week some twenty-something friends were complaining to me about how fast Christmas came up this year. *Snort!* I told them, it only gets worse. It is hard to imagine that the end of the year comes faster every year, but that seems to be what most of us experience. Wasn't it just a couple months ago that I was making my list of goals for 2013?

Today we recorded our kids and their music teachers playing a Christmas song for you all, and I'll have it up on our video page this weekend. Ruby wandered into the performance and kind of stole the show….

I want to personally send out a thank you to all of you who have sent us messages in the last week – too many to respond to individually – but we just love hearing how many of you love and depend on the service that we provide. It is important to support your local quilt shops, but we are here for you if you don't have a LQS, or if you need something special that is not available in your area.

Although we feel very lucky to have a job where we work with gorgeous colorful fabrics every day, we know it is because of you that we can do this kind of work. When we carefully choose hundreds, actually several thousand fabrics at Quilt Market, that will ship to us over the next several months, we are always thinking of YOU. Often when previewing new collections, we get a little breathless, giggle and exclaim "Oh! The quilters are going to LOVE this one!" …. and, you DO.

The cherry on top is that our mutual love of fabrics can raise so much money for our charity program, which hit $1 million last year and is still going strong. Our charity program was inspired by the loss of our daughter Hanna, 18 years ago on Dec 22. On that day I swore that somehow, some good would come from our loss, and that is how we decided a couple years later to donate a percentage of sales to a group of charities, many of which directly support families living in extreme poverty or dealing with disasters. We directly support several programs that help orphans and children living in dire circumstances, and we've been told several times from the organizations that we've saved the lives of hundreds or thousands of children with our contributions.

We couldn't do it without you, so I thank you for supporting our business and our charity program, and you can share in this great accomplishment. The total raised is now at $1,153,000.

Many thanks to all of you who have rushed comfort quilts to us this year, and over the last 12 years since we started our quilt relief program on 9/11. Recently 6 quilt groups sent 10 special memorial quilts for Sandyhook Elementary which are to be displayed in the Newtown Community Center. eQuilter and Mission of Love have worked together to distribute over 15,000 donated quilts over the years… and again I must give you our most humble thanks for allowing us to distribute these bundles of love to those most in need.