eQuilter Blog

Creative Nudge – Two of a Kind

Posted on November 14, 2013 by Luana

It is always fun to see how 2 artists handle a similar subject in their work. Here are two photos I took at the Quilt Festival in Houston… with a motorcycle theme.

On the left is Linda Anderson's piece: It is a tribute to her husband's dream of riding Route 66 on his motorcycle.

On the right is Tonya Littmann's piece: It is essentially a self-portrait, with her favorite motorcycle.

Linda's piece uses a light background that is densely quilted with lots of detail.

Tonya's portrait has a hand-painted stripe background.

Both use high contrast to create an eye-popping composition, but in totally different ways. Both use a "posterized" version of an image, to translate a photo to a collage of appliqued pieces.

We have our first few videos up from Houston! Watch for several videos to be posted here in the next week.

I'll be writing to you from Churchill in Canada on Saturday. The polar bears have gathered outside Churchill and are waiting for the ice to freeze.

Weds night I'll be meeting with the Manitoba Prairie Quilters in Winnipeg, and admiring the raffle quilt they made from eQuilter fabrics!

sharing your Passion for Fabric…
Luana

*********
We are accepting comfort quilts for Colorado Flood victims. You can drop them off or ship them to us at:
eQuilter.com
5455 Spine Rd, Suite E
Boulder CO 80301

Please help us to help Libby Lehman!

********************
Would you like to share your enthusiasm for eQuilter ?
Send us your own Testimonial!

See my photo page for travel images, comment on my blog, follow me on Facebook, Pinterest, Instagram or Twitter for more color and design ideas. Quilt show reviews on the eQuilter Video page.

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Color Trends from Palm Springs

Posted on November 9, 2013 by Luana

This week I am writing to you from Palm Springs
in California, considered a mecca for Mid-Century Modern Architecture and
Style. I am attending the Color Marketing Group's International Summit, and
enjoying hanging out with fellow Color Passionistas.

Unfortunately the timing of this conference means I was home for just a few
days after the Houston Quilt
Festival. We have the first 3 videos up,
including the tribute to Libby Lehman. Several more videos are being produced
from Houston, and you'll see those popping up in the next couple weeks. We will
also have a couple clips of Sophie and I on new episodes of Quilting Arts TV.

One of my fellow Color Marketing Group members is Lee Eiseman, who chooses (and
announces to the media) the annual Color of the Year. I saw her after lunch
today and yes, they have chosen the next Color of the Year, which will be
announced soon! She said that in their office, they use a code word for the new
Color of the Year, just in case hackers tried to steal the information before
it is announced. You can see Lee talking about Spring
2014 colors in a video on this page.

It is so interesting to hear designers and product developers talk about color
trends, from other industries' points of view. In the last couple days I've
heard about corporate color choices for cars, cell phones, headphones, $1000
cakes, glass, iPad covers, and more. They talk about things like the coarseness
of the metallic in a paint, or the viscosity of a gloss.

It is also interesting to compare the 2013 color palettes with our top selling
fabrics at eQuilter. When I buy a broad color palette of fabrics at Market, and
then we put them online and track the top-selling colors, often our customers
are choosing very forward colors from our offerings. That tells me that you are
all not just on trend, but often are part of the consumers who are creating a
trend. There is a natural organic and predictable movement in color trends. We
buy the colors that we feel will be important 6 months in the future, and then
our customers come and confirm our color trend projections. I just love how
that works!

Modernism has been a big trend for many years, since Mad Men and similar style
influences have saturated pop culture. Another huge trend driver has been, and
will be, the British period series "Downton Abbey". Julian Fellowes
has signed an agreement to produce DA for many years to come, so we'll be
enjoying not only the upstairs/downstairs soap opera on TV, but we'll also be
enjoying future collections of the Andover licensed fabrics from Downton!

Please
help us to help Libby Lehman!

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Armadillo and Kaffe Fassett Color Palette

Posted on November 6, 2013 by Luana

Tonight I am getting ready for my next trip –
the Color Marketing Group's International Conference in Palm Springs,
California.

This is a working conference where design professionals gather to develop color
palettes to serve as trend forecasting tools for their respective
industries. I'll be a facilitator for one of the workshops, as a CMG
chairholder. It is a crazy intense weekend with fellow color addicts!

As always, my thoughts are focused on the intersection of what I have recently
experienced, and how that might apply to upcoming trends.

Because so many of you are huge
fans of Kaffe Fassett and his collective of designers, I thought you'd get
a kick out of this quilt by Cynthia Henneke. This is a detail shot of her
armadillo quilt, which was hanging in the quilt exhibit at the Houston Quilt
Festival.

It is a collage of Kaffe
Fassett Collective prints, and the color palette is pretty wild! I have
pulled out a palette of color swatches along the bottom, and I find it pretty
amazing that she used a Southwestern
theme (armadillo) and the colors are so decisively spicy and Latin.

Whether you are working in patchwork or applique,
strip piecing or collage, home dec or fashion, the same color principles are at
work. In this case, I can imagine that Cynthia played around with lots of
fabric combinations before settling on this eye-popping design.

Starting this week, we are going take you on a Color Journey that will wind across a rainbow of hues, exploring the poetry that lies between dark and light, and playing with color
combinations from mystical to modern.

Every week I'll give you a new color palette with which to play, along with my
usual visual creative inspiration.

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Fabric and Quilt Trends for FABRIC LOVERS!

Posted on November 3, 2013 by Luana

(photo above: Sophie getting ready to film a video clip in front of Reiko Nobata's "Believe II")

I have literally just walked in the door from
the airport from Houston, and so my official "Market Preview – Part
2" will have to wait a few days.

What can I say about Quilt Market and Quilt Festival? It is so overwhelming, so
big, and it goes by so fast, you come home and sit on the couch and just
say…Wow!

I am loving how creative quilters and fiber artists are taking the Modern
design aesthetic and making it their own. I see so many modern elements
evolving quickly, as artists use their eyes and hearts to take the next step in
their creative development. I see solids evolving to hand-dyes. I see hexagons
being distorted (in Photoshop?) and used for totally new quilt designs. I see
more and more whimsy and secret elements being inserted into complex
symmetrical applique quilts. You quilters have a fierce sense of humor!

It is great to see a more complex and more sophisticated color sense showing up
both in the new fabrics at Quilt Market, and the quilts in the IQA Houston
show. Next week I am going to the Color Marketing Group conference in Palm
Springs, and I'll be bringing the visual feast of quilt photos to share with my
fellow color-addicts.

We love to keep track of the hot, and up-and-coming trends at Market. After
seeing all the new collections shipping in the next several months, I feel it
is save to declare this the Year of the Fox! The ubiquitous owl fabrics are
still hanging in there, but we saw (and ordered!) a plethora of realistic and
stylized foxes. Yay!

Last year purple was such a strong color, and this year we've seen a lot of
that retro green in shades of Jade and Mint. (Parallel to Emerald Green being
the Pantone Color of the Year) I saw lots of gorgeous Mauve, Heather, Dusty
Lavender, Vintage Lilac, and other soft purple/plum colors that were very yummy
at Quilt Market. Yes, I bought them all! So all you purple-lovers… do not
despair! You are going to have at least one more season to collect your
favorite hues.

If you love metallic on fabric, gosh you are going to have a hard time choosing
between all the opulent collections that will be coming through the pipeline.
Here at eQuilter we just LOVE lots of rich sumptuous metallic fabrics, in gold,
silver, copper and other iridescent and pearlized colors. We order metallic collections
from the highest quality manufacturers, so you are truly amazed when that
package arrives and you unwrap those luxurious gleaming designs.

Geez, can you tell I love fabric? *grin*

Bonnie and I filmed a bunch of videos, so she will start editing next week.
Watch for celebrity interviews, exhibit reviews, and lots of my photos in the
next few weeks!

I am happy to be turning my clock back an hour tonight: I need the extra hour
of sleep. (end of Daylight Savings is tonight)

Please
help us to help Libby Lehman!

Upcoming Trips:
Nov 7-10 – Color Marketing Group – Palm Springs
Nov 13-20 – Winnipeg & Churchill Manitoba
Dec 9-11 Bernina Ambassador Reunion

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Creative Nudge – Houston Quilt Festival Awards

Posted on October 31, 2013 by Luana

Tuesday was an exciting night here in Houston at the IQA Award Ceremony. Melissa Sobotka took the top $10,000 prize with her gorgeous quilt "Chihuly's Gondola". Christine Alexiou took the eQuilter-sponsored $7500 World of Beauty prize, with her quilt that looks like an illuminated manuscript.

I had taken a quick walk through the hundreds of quilts during Quilt Market, looking to see if I could spot the next big winners.

This piece caught my eye in the Miniature Quilt category, and I was sure it would get first place in that category. Instead it got bumped up, to win the $5000 Master Award for Thread Artistry. It was made by a gentleman from Chofu City in Tokyo – Masanobu Miyama – who was there to receive his cash award very happily.

As you can see on this page with the winners' names and countries, this contest continues to expand its international scope. There are 27 international winners on this page of all the winners. For those quilters whose work is recognized with a prize in this festival, they can feel proud that their work has been recognized in a truly international venue.

One of those winners was our own Dana Chapman, manager of our Customer Service department! We are so proud and excited for her! She took a second place prize in the Wearable Art category.

Bonnie McCaffery is here with me again, and we are producing several videos of the award show, artist interviews, a SAQA show tour, and an art quilt review. (and more!) If you can't wait for the Houston Quilt Festival videos, you can take a look at our videos from the Birmingham Quilt Festival in August, on our video page with over 100 choices!

Wednesday I am flying home, and Thursday Sophie and I are flying back to Houston. (I am going back to Colorado to pick her up) On Friday we will be filming all around the quilt exhibit. She is giving up her Halloween Trick or Treating to come to Houston and make her Kids Quilt Review videos.

I will also be photographing the quilt show and posting over the next week. Watch for new photos on my photo page!

This is the one year anniversary of Hurricane Sandy, and I just want to thank Timeless Treasures for warehousing the donated quilts until they were delivered to hurricane victims. I'd like to especially thank all the quilters who sent in comfort quilts for Hurricane Sandy, the Moore Tornado, and the recent Colorado Floods. You are AWESOME!!!

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Quilt Market Preview- Part 1

Posted on October 27, 2013 by Luana

I am writing to you from Quilt Market in Houston, after my first day on the
show floor. As usual, even though this is my 15th Houston Market (and 30th
Quilt Market since we opened) I still get excited when I walk into the
convention center and start looking at all the creative new ideas that are
being shared on the show floor. We're so excited to meet part of the Downton
Abbey production team, who are here to launch the eponymous collection by Andover
Fabrics.

Last night we helped Quilting Treasures celebrate 206 years of business.
(descended from Cranston and VIP Fabrics) The company president explained to me
that the roller printer was invented in the 1700's in Scotland, Cranston
Fabrics took off shortly thereafter, and they grew exponentially during the
Civil War.

In the 1920's the Rockefeller family bought the company, and more recently it
became an employee-owned business. We met several of their staff whose fathers
also worked for the company. It reminded me that this industry is a family
business, populated by mom-and-pop retailers, and multi-generational family
manufacturing businesses. Let's hope it stays that way!

Although we've only completed one day out of the three-day show, we've compiled
a Sneak-Peek list of some favorite designers and collections so far, which will
ship over the next several months. As always, you can expect to see these
announced in our weekly newsletters, as they roll into our warehouse between
now and next Spring. Can you believe we are almost finished buying all the
fabrics for Christmas 2014? What a crazy business this is!

Quilt Market, Fall 2014 –

Big Bang Theory (Yes! Our fav geek TV show!)
North American Wildlife 2 by Jody Bergsma
Dazzle by Patrick Lose
Mission Space by Matthew Pridemore
Oz – 75 Years of Wickedness
Witches Brew Ha Ha by Roberta Morales
Draw Near by Janet Wecker-Frisch
Milan by Jinny Beyer
Spring Symphony by Dan Morris
Little Friends by Yuko Hasegawa
Vintage Mickey, Hello Kitty, Curious George, and Peter Rabbit
Globetrotter from Fabric Freedom
Northgate Manor from Maywood Studios
Hyakka Ryoran Cho-Cho from Quilt Gate
Gentle Flowers – Smokey Quartz
Fox and the Houndstooth by Andie Hanna
Botanics by Carolyn Friendlander

Tuesday night I'll be attending the big award ceremony, and telling you more
about the quilts and fabrics being shown here in Houston!

***********************************************

Quilters
love to load up their stash with tons of
COLOR, like a painter loves to load up a palette.

This week, as we are at Quilt Market in Houston (a trade show for retailers
like us) you can shop over 70
new contemporary blenders this week, to load up your color palette with
juicy hand- picked hues.

It is
also a great week for those hard-to-find
whispery pastel batiks, plus a great
new feather texture design.

If you
are an avid collector of novelty and conversational prints, you'll get a
kick out of this
week's Monopoly, Zombie, Cantina
and Wine designs. And Steampunk
fans will love Kaufman's
new 'Time Machine' collection.

Hoffman's
gorgeous Asuka collection has a subtle color story, glistening with silver
and gold metallic.

This week's smorgasbord
of inspiring books and fun
patterns will help you to harvest from your stash and get out that rotary cutter!

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Creative Nudge – Ode to William

Posted on October 23, 2013 by Luana

Textile
inspiration comes from so many places, and I wanted to share one of the
(many!) favorite inspirations from my
recent trip to India.

While we were in Jaipur, we visited a rug factory. One of the rugs caught my
eye and I just couldn't stop looking at it, so I took lots of closeup photos so
I wouldn't forget the details. The more I looked, the more familiar it seemed,
until finally it hit me like a ton of bricks! This traditional pattern, done in
1000 stitches per inch, must have been the inspiration for some of William
Morris' designs!

As we discussed the similarities between his work and the traditional rugs we
were reviewing, the story came out that he did indeed have a connection to
India.

You may recall that I was in France earlier this year. I was thrilled to pick
up a big thick pictorial encyclopedia of Morris' designs, at The Louvre
Bookshop! Yes I carried that and a couple other textile thumper books back in
my suitcase. So I've been studying Morris' work with greater depth over the
last 10 months.

When we started our business, one of my favorite companies was Rose &
Hubble, who did William Morris reproductions. Sadly, that company does not
exist any longer.

Every year, at least one company comes out with a contemporary or repro version
of Morris' classic designs. Most recently we've snapped up Claridge
Manor by Yuko Hasegawa, and the William
Collection from Kona Bay. Yummy! You can find these, and coordinates in our
Art
Deco & Nouveau, Steampunk & Victorian category.

We are still inspired by William, but what inspired William to begin with?

My fellow traveler Pam Holland told me about Morris'
collaboration with Thomas Wardle, who was experimenting with Indian silks
and natural dyes. They played around with Indian block printing, (which we
played around with in Jaipur as well!) and then Morris
stayed in Wardle's town two years working on colors and processes that
would take his own experiments in tapestry, printing and wallpaper even
further.

One of the places you can
study his work up close, is the Victoria
and Albert Museum in London. (My favorite museum in the world…which is
saying something!) You can also visit the William
Morris Gallery in northeast London.

If you are interested in learning more about historic textiles, William Morris
is a great place to start! The topic is deep and broad, and you can spend the
rest of your life wandering through museums looking for vintage textile
designs, but once you get to know William you'll spot his work (and his
inspirations!) in a heartbeat!

For
more of my photos of India, visit my photo page.

*********

We are accepting comfort
quilts for Colorado Flood victims. You can drop them off or ship them to us
at:
eQuilter.com
5455 Spine Rd, Suite E
Boulder CO 80301

We will have another distribution in early November. We are focusing on the
evacuated community of Lyons, and also local teachers who lost their
homes/possessions.

Please note if your group is making a memorial quilt for Sandy Hook
Elementary, we would like to receive them by mid-November latest. This is
for distribution on or near the one-year anniversary of December 13. We have a
contact there who will distribute them to families in the school and community.

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Creative Nudge – Prickly Kitty

Posted on October 16, 2013 by Luana

Why is it that our pets
know that the one way to really get our attention, is to take a nap on a current
sewing project?

This is Sophie's in-process project from Nancy Chong's Hawaiian
Quilt workshop from the CQC retreat this last weekend. Sophie chose the
Ulu Breadfruit design, and an eye-popping batik/
hand-dye
combination. We picked out one of Nancy's
traditional designs, folded the fabric into eighths and cut out the
applique like I used to cut paper snowflakes
as a kid. So much fun!

Then the applique " snowflake"
is pinned and then basted onto the background. Right now this project is stuck
at the pinning stage because there is
a big kitty who is doing the feline version of sleeping on a bed of nails.
Ha!

If we can get the kitty to move, we'll baste the applique to the background,
and then begin the long process of needle-turn
applique. Sophie got some very nice personal attention from the teacher, and
therefore really wanted to be able to master the needle-turn
technique, but ended up in frustrated tears until she decided to do what
worked: finger-turn and finger-press the 3/16" edge of the applique,
before stitching.

I told her – don't feel bad! I've seen grownups in tears in some quilt
workshops too! When we got home the family asked her if she had a good time.
"I had a great time!" she responded. "I want to go back next
year!"

Tonight after school, she had her practice applique block out and was doing
her applique practice stitching with a look of quiet determination on her
face.

*********

We are accepting comfort quilts for Colorado Flood victims. You can drop them
off or ship them to us at:
eQuilter.com
5455 Spine Rd, Suite E
Boulder CO 80301

We will have a distribution in the next week, (before I go to Houston) and
another one in early November. We are focusing on the evacuated community of
Lyons, and also local teachers who lost their homes/possessions.

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Aloha from the Black Forest!

Posted on October 12, 2013 by Luana

This weekend Sophie and I are at a quilt retreat
put on by our state guild CQC. Nancy Chong is here teaching her
traditional Hawaiian appliqu? method. You may be familiar with her Hawaiian
quilt pattern designs from Pacific
Rim, which we carry in our
category of Hawaiian Books and Patterns.

We are out in the woods of the Black Forest, east of Colorado Springs. You may
recall that there was a huge
fire here in June. Our retreat center is untouched, but we couldn't help
but think about the fire as we left the interstate and drove east into the
trees.

Anyway, we are super excited to spend a weekend focusing on Hawaiian quilts!
Paul's parents live in Hawaii, and I've been traveling
to Hawaii yearly, for 19 years. I always make sure to find an exhibit of
Hawaiian quilts when there, so I've seen a lot of beautiful island-inspired
quilts over a couple decades. When I took my first Hawaiian quilt class in the
90's, I had a teacher who threatened to kick me out of class if I didn't use
the traditional solid fabrics. Nancy likes solids, but I see lots of students
are using beautiful batiks, hand-dyes and tonal prints, with some luscious
results. Half of the quilters took the class today, and we'll be in tomorrow's
class. Today I am giving Sophie some lessons in hand appliqu? so she won't be
too overwhelmed tomorrow. It can be challenging even for experienced grownup
quilters!

Many thanks to all of you who have sent in quilts for the Colorado Floods! On
Monday afternoon I will talk to my old friend Cathy who lost her home, studio
and portfolios in the Lyons flood. Cathy has been a leader of the artist
community in Lyons….before it was destroyed
and evacuated. She is going to set up a special distribution for our
quilts, to go to those who had terrible flood losses.

If you are sending or dropping off quilts in the near future, please let us
know so we can set a date that will include your quilts. You can email Dana in
customer service at [email protected]

If you need more time let us know, and we can arrange a 2nd distribution date
for those later quilts. So please email or call by Monday noon so we can make
plans to get your quilts to those folks as soon as possible. I will attend the
distribution and take photos.

You may also recall that last December I went with Kathy Price and Mission of Love down to Guatemala on a
Cleft
Lip/Palate surgery trip. They are on their way down to Guatemala for
another surgery week, supported by the money that eQuilter (and our customers)
donate to their medical and disaster relief missions.

Mission of Love is still planning
to rebuild a home in Moore,
Oklahoma, for a family who lost their home and their 9 year old son. You
can contribute directly via PayPal
on their site.

Now I have to get back to my Quilt Retreat! My fellow quilters are wondering
why I am on my laptop, instead of working on my applique project!

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Creative Nudge – Plum Dandy

Posted on October 10, 2013 by Luana

I am a Purple Person. I have always loved Purple,
Plum, Violet, Amethyst, Berry, Eggplant, Mauve, Heather, Lilac and Lavender.
This time of year I am really happy to drag out my plummy lipstick, purple
corduroy pants, and heather sweaters. It's like comfort food. But no calories.

My best friend in junior high was a purple person. Back then nobody wore
purple, at least not in my town. Only people who were a little hippyish wore
purple. I admired my friend for her bravery.

But then movie 'The Color Purple' came out. We became aware of Jenny Joseph's
poem "When I am an old woman, I shall wear purple…" which was
written in 1961, but became popular in the 1980's. The Red Hat Society
followed, and then it seemed like we were
all wearing purple.

In color psychology, the color purple is associated with creativity. It was
long associated with royalty, and also represents spirituality.

Tyrian Purple, mentioned in texts dating back to 1600 B.C., was produced from
marine mollusks. It took 12,000 shellfish to extract 1.5 grams of the pure dye.

Rome, Egypt, and Persia all used purple as the royal standard. Purple dyes were
rare and expensive; only the wealthy had access to them. Emperor Aurelian
forbid his wife buy a purpura-dyed silk garment, because it cost its weight in
gold.

In an election year, purple represents a state that is evenly balanced between
both political parties. It is a mix of cool blue and hot red, and the blending
of the two represents peace.

My childhood friend who wore purple in junior high is now a law professor and
medical ethics consultant, but she is the most stylish and humorous academic I
know. She is not a quilter but she
loves cats so much, she could be a honorary quilter. We
traveled to Spain together a few years ago, and she was amazed when groups
of quilters came to meet us in the different cities we visited. What did we
wear on our trip? Purple of course!

What is *your* comfort color?

eQuilter has just received a shipment of Oliver
Twist hand-dyed threads, including lots of luscious purple, plum and
lavender spools, and hanks of yummy green, teal, charcoal and sunset orange
silks. We are expanding our line of Oliver Twist threads, thanks to the
enthusiasm of quilt artists like Marianne
Williamson.

We are accepting comfort quilts for Colorado Flood victims. You can drop them
off or ship them to us at:
eQuilter.com
5455 Spine Rd, Suite E
Boulder CO 80301

Namaste….
Luana

p.s. the photo above was the sunrise over the sacred River Ganges, on our last
day in India.

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Creative Nudge – Two of a Kind

Color Trends from Palm Springs

Armadillo and Kaffe Fassett Color Palette

Fabric and Quilt Trends for FABRIC LOVERS!

Creative Nudge – Houston Quilt Festival Awards

Quilt Market Preview- Part 1

Creative Nudge – Ode to William

Creative Nudge – Prickly Kitty

Aloha from the Black Forest!

Creative Nudge – Plum Dandy

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