Quilters, Engineers and Rwanda….

Posted on November 15, 2012 by Luana

Last Friday I went to an Engineers Without
Borders gathering for CU Engineering students, professors, and EWB
donors. (like us!)

Here is a link to a video showing one of the projects that
eQuilter is directly supporting in Rwanda, with the CU student chapter, and the NASA Johnson Space Center chapter of EWB.

Andrew Maier
has also visited our offices recently to tell us more about the Rwandan
Orphans Project. I thought you might enjoy seeing the smiling faces of
some of the children we are helping there!

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*Hurricane Sandy – 5000 Quilts* – URGENT UPDATE

Posted on November 15, 2012 by Luana

Please help to spread the word –

donated Hurricane Sandy quilts need to be shipped directly to Timeless Treasures.

They need to be clean, new or like new, no odors or no animal hair.

Do not pass on info about this relief project without the Project LINK! Thanks!!!

http://www.equilter.com/cgi-bin/webc.cgi/quiltrelief.html

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Join us for a very special concert and benefit for Hurricane Sandy relief!

Posted on November 12, 2012 by Luana

For our friends in Colorado – we are
sponsoring a fabulous concert with some very special musicians – to
benefit Hurricane Sandy victims. Thurs Nov 29 at The Academy, a historic
building 2 blocks from Chautauqua Park. Hope to see you there!

SandraWongNyckelharpa

http://www.sandrawongmusic.com/calendar.html

Thursday, November 29th, 2012

The Academy

From Trondheim to Colorado –
7pm

970 Aurora Ave.
BoulderColorado80302
US
Price: Free – donations for hurricane S

From Trondheim to Colorado- A rich and diverse evening of music
from many corners of the world (Norway, Sweden, Appalachia, Africa, and
beyond), Jazz and Originals. Kirsti Huke from Trondheim, Norway
(voice, guitar, piano) Sandra Wong (nyckelharpa, violin) Greg Harris
(vibraphone, piano, percussion and Ghanian Gyil) John Gunther (flute,
saxaphone) Charles Parker Mertens (bass)
Admission is free, accepting donations for Hurricane Sandy Relief.
Sponsored by Louise Pearson, eQuilter.com and Terry Myrwang Holum.

http://www.myspace.com/kirstihukequartet
http://www.myspace.com/kirst ihuke
www.sandrawongmusic.com
www.myspace.com/sandrawongmusic
gtannerharris.tumblr.com
www.vibequintet.blogspot.com
http://music.colorado.edu/faculty/john-gunther/
https://portfolio.du.edu/pc/port?portfolio=cmertens

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Hurricane Sandy – 5000 Quilt Challenge – Update

Posted on November 10, 2012 by Luana
***

Many thanks to all of you who are working on quilts, or who have just shipped out quilts for our massive Hurricane Sandy quilt relief project.

The link for this project is on the LOWER LEFT of the eQuilter Home
Page, in case you need to pull up the information on a mobile device.

Please read through the guidelines carefully before sending us a question or before shipping a quilt.

The Timeless Treasures
warehouse is preparing for the huge wave of packages to start arriving
this coming week.
Their staff will be processing all of the thousands of packages –
opening, sorting, safely storing, then staging to send them out to our
trusted organizations who will personally distribute the quilts.

The owners of Timeless are still without power, as are most of our
industry contacts on the East Coast.
We hope to get as many bed-sized quilts out to the hurricane victims, as
SOON as possible, but the project will go on for three months and
perhaps beyond.

Mission of Love is gearing
up to take a truck full of relief supplies to the East Coast, and we are
about to post a challenge grant so you can donate to MOL via Paypal to
help fund this part of our relief effort – watch for details on Facebook
and my Tuesday night Creative Nudge enewsletter.

Victoria Findlay-Wolfe is also helping us to identify distribution points in the NYC and metro area.

There are MANY relief efforts well underway now, and I want to be clear
that ANY effort that you support is just fantastic! We are not "in
competition" with any of them – but we do want to caution you to make
sure you are giving to an authentic and reputable group.
In the past we've seen there have been a few people who take advantage
of these events for their own gain, so just be sure whoever you work
with is a known entity.

Over the years, working with Mission of Love, we've distributed 10,000 comfort quilts for relief efforts after 9/11, Haiti, Katrina, the Japan tsunami, Colorado Fires, and other smaller projects for various orphanages and other disaster relief.

We have a LOT of experience with this volume of quilts, and our main
focus is treating the quilts with the very special respect and value
that they deserve.
It is just not the same as handing out blankets.
It is a very special gift of love when a person who has lost everything –
receives a handmade gift of love from a stranger.

Be sure to check our project page for updates, and feel free to share this link!

We now have SIX new videos from the awards ceremony and winners at the Houston Quilt Festival.

Be sure to check them out – ENJOY!

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eQuilter – Hurricane Sandy – 5000 Quilt Challenge

Posted on November 6, 2012 by Luana

MarianneWilliamson_550

Now that the election is over,
I am hoping that we will see more information about what is really
happening post-hurricane on the east coast.

I've been in touch with friends and business contacts since the storm
hit last Monday night, and it is clear to me that the media has not been
able to cover the scope of the disaster.

Many thanks to all of you (!) who have emailed and called, asking how you can help.

Tonight I am putting out a call to quilters all over the country, to donate 5000 quilts to the victims of Hurricane Sandy.

You donated over 3000 quilts for 9/11 survivors, and over 2000 quilts
after the Japan tsunami.
I just KNOW that you are all asking – what can I do to help? As the
media begins to report more of the vast destruction from the storm, I
know more of you will be moved to make and donate comfort quilts.

So we are going to work in partnership with Timeless Treasures Fabrics to provide the means to collect and distribute your quilts to those most in need.

The first phase of this effort is over the next 3 months: Timeless
Treasures is offering us not only their warehouse space, but also their
staff for the huge task of processing the thousands of packages we
expect to receive in response to this need.

We are working to identify multiple trusted organizations to distribute
your quilts in the hardest hit areas: Rockaways, Long Island, New
Jersey, and Staten Island are locations that need us the most right now,
where we can channel this relief to those in need quickly.

I have posted guidelines for this massive relief effort on this page, and we ask you to read through ALL the details carefully before contacting eQuilter's Customer Service with any questions.

Please do NOT contact Timeless Treasures – so we can let them focus their resources on receiving the quilts.

Ship your quilt to New Jersey by a trackable method to confirm receipt,
and be sure to put a label and message of comfort on the back of your
quilt!

Feel free to share the link for the project page!

We are also going to work with Mission of Love
to get a truck full of relief supplies to devastated areas that are not
receiving Red Cross or FEMA aid.
On Saturday night we will also issue a challenge for matching funds, to
fund this relief effort…watch the newsletter for more information.

Many thanks to Ellen and David Brown at Timeless Treasures, Victoria
Findlay-Wolfe who is helping us identify distribution points, and Kathy
Price at Mission of Love.
Thanks to many others who are helping us identify relief organizations this week.
Our biggest thanks to all of you who are making and sending the quilts!!!

sharing your Passion for Fabric…
Paul and Luana Rubin

* The quilt shown above was photographed at the Houston Quilt Festival – and is by Marianne Williamson.
Sophie thought it looked like a hurricane! *

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Hurricane Sandy Quilt Relief

Posted on November 3, 2012 by Luana
Yes, we ARE initiating a disaster relief quilt drive for those
affected by Hurricane Sandy!
 
The events of the past week have been so unbelievable. I will start by
saying – for all of you affected by Hurricane Sandy – our most sincere thoughts
and prayers go out to you and your families, and your communities.

We
have been inundated with messages from all over the US and indeed around the
world, expressing concern, and asking "how can we help?"…and and we are
humbled at how many have reached out to us, asking us to coordinate another
quilt drive for the hurricane victims.

The answer is – yes of course we
will coordinate another disaster relief effort. I have asked the director of
Mission of Love to help us again, and Kathy has agreed.

So tonight I am
issuing a challenge to our friends, customers, our guild contacts, and anyone
else who wants to help:

We are going to
collect and distribute 5000 quilts to those affected by Hurricane
Sandy.

We will work to make sure that the quilts go to those most
drastically affected by the hurricane's destruction.

Right now almost all
of my east coast contacts are dealing some difficult aspect of post-storm
trauma. Some are "just" dealing with no power, no heat, no water, no food and no
gas. All of this with another storm bearing down on the area.

Others have
had their cars smashed, their boat washed out to sea, and the worst so far is
one of our industry's beloved talents has had her house smashed by a tree…but
they escaped with their lives. Another contact had a neighbor killed by a
falling tree. They all say – they feel so lucky not to have sustained the
devastation suffered by their neighbors.

From what I am hearing from my
east coast contacts, the destruction and power outages are so widespread, that
we can't possibly comprehend the scope of the situation.

As this quilt
drive comes into focus, as I get in touch with my various industry contacts, I will update
this page daily. There will be another detailed update in my Creative Nudge
on Tuesday night, so watch for that as you stay up to watch Election
Returns. (It is almost over – yeah!)

In case you are new to eQuilter,
in addition to raising over $1
million for charity over the years,

we have coordinated many thousands of comfort quilts donated and delivered
over the years for 9/11, Katrina, Haiti and Japan
tsunami survivors.
http://www.equilter.com/cgi-bin/webc.cgi/quiltsforjapan.html

Feel
free to share this
link for our project, with any individual or guild who you think might be
interested in participating. The bottom line is – yes you can start planning and
making the quilts you'd like to donate to Hurricane Sandy victims.

Our
humble and sincere thanks to those of you who have helped in the past, and those
of you who will help with this effort.

 
I will be posting details and guidelines as quickly as possible.
 
It has been my experience with this type of disaster, that bed-sized quilts
are what is most needed.
 
We will accept lap-sized quilts and crib quilts, but we really encourage
you to send at least twin or full sized quilts for those who have lost
everything. We want to keep these people WARM for the winter, so if you can send
it soon that is best, but we will continue this project for many months.
 
We will not be accepting afghans, pillowcases, or other non-quilt items. We
want to stay focused on our goal of collecting and distributing 5000
quilts.
 
See our page for last year's quilt drive for Japan, if you'd like to get a
preview of how this project will unfold.
 
Thank you!!! – Luana
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Creative Nudge – IQA Awards – Hurricane Sandy Comfort Quilts

Posted on October 31, 2012 by Luana

SherryReynolds_550

 

What an exciting night!

Tonight was the IQA award ceremony here in Houston, and eQuilter was the
sponsor of the $7500 cash prize for the "World of Beauty" winner. Sophie and I
got on stage to announce the winner, and it was the same quilter who received an
eQuilter cash prize in Birmingham, in August 2011! (Janneke de Vries-Bodzinga
from The Netherlands)

Then an ever bigger and more wonderful surprise –
Sherry Reynolds, to whom I gave the Grand Prize at Quilt Colorado this summer –
was the big $10K cash prize winner of the evening! Sherry claims she didn't know
she was getting the big prize, but she looked like a movie star in a little
black sequin sheath dress.

My friend and camerawoman Bonnie McCaffery
got stuck on the East Coast due to the storm, so I had to draft Pam Holland to
take the video footage at the award ceremony. (she was a willing conscript –
*smile*) We interviewed several winners, so you can watch for those videos in the
next couple weeks.

Sophie was very brave and interviewed winner Hollis
Chatelain on camera. We always said Sophie might be a talk show host one day –
ha!

You can see images of the top winners on the Quilts.com website now. Some of
these quilts I've seen earlier this year in Colorado, Tokyo and Birmingham, so
it is exciting to see them show up and win big in
Houston.

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

Our hearts and prayers go out to
all of you affected by the big storm on the East Coast. In talking or texting
with some of my friends there, it is evident that the whole story has not been
revealed yet on the news. Friends are reporting devastation in neighborhoods
that I haven't seen on TV yet.

Are any of you thinking about donating or
making a quilt to give to a storm victim? we are working on a connection to make
and give quilts to those who have lost their homes because of Sandy.

Happy Halloween and Safe Trick-or-Treating,

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Creative Nudge – Quilt Nerd

Posted on October 24, 2012 by Luana


RussianXmas_550

 

Our first
real snow of the season will arrive early Thursday morning, and the winds
are blowing away the last few leaves clinging to our trees.

Many of you
have started holiday projects, but we still have an excellent
selection of Christmas and Winter fabrics in stock…for those of us who
don't like to start holiday projects until the stores put out the Halloween
decorations… haha!

I am still going through all my photos from Russia, and this
week I thought I'd share this delightful handpainted folk art which I saw in a
shop on Arbat Street in
Moscow.
This is the lid and the side of a wooden chest.

Inspiration comes from
many places, sometimes from sources that catch us by surprise. If you were
watching my Facebook page, you know that Sophie and I attended MileHi Con this
weekend, which is basically a bunch of SciFi/
Fantasy
Geeks and Nerds who dress up and get together to share their love of Star Trek,
Harry Potter, Steampunk, Anime, etc. It is kind of like ComicCon but focused on
books
and movies
instead of comics.
Best of all – almost everyone wears a costume! Brilliant!

I love hanging
out with geeks and nerds because they are singularly passionate about their
chosen fantasy world. They enter the world of SciFi
or Fantasy
and completely immerse themselves in the experience. They experience true geeky
bliss when role-playing with fellow fans, cracking jokes in a secret language,
and creating fiendishly wacky detailed costumes from recycled and found objects.
I met a guy who has been making SciFi
art (sculptures) from recycled and found items (translation: garbage and junk)
for 20 years…way before it was trendy.

Sound familiar?

Yes we
quilters started out the same way. Scrap
quilts, gossip-fests over the quilting
frame, fat
quarters and frog stitches.

I am proud to be a Quilt Geek.

I
laugh at really bad quilting puns just because it is our own secret
language.

This weekend I am off to the ultimate gathering for Quilt Nerds
and Geeks, in Houston. Like a Star Trek convention, we don our quilty garb and
excitedly stalk our quilty celebrities. At MileHi Con there was a SciFi/
Fantasy
Art Fair and auction. In Houston we have multiple categories to showcase
creativity and technical genius…and our own fundraising auctions.

I
have to say though, the costumes at MileHi Con were more detailed and
outrageous. Quilt Market always occurs right around Halloween, so we see a few
witches wandering the aisles. As the quilting movement expands to include more
young people and fashion sewists, perhaps we'll see more creative costuming in
Houston?

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It’s a Small, Small World

Posted on October 22, 2012 by Luana

You've heard of the term " Six Degrees of
Separation"?

The more I travel, the smaller the world becomes, and
lately I am thinking that Earth is just a series of connected villages on an
orbiting spaceship.

While on this last trip, I had some stunning
coincidental experiences. One of them had to do with the US Embassy in Rome.
While visiting
the embassy to give my quilt presentations, I made a new friend. She has
been there for 30 years. When I returned home, I went to Sam's school teacher
conferences, and started chatting with his history teacher. She mentioned that
she had lived in Rome as a child, then she said that her father had worked at
the embassy there. I thought, wouldn't it be funny if my new friend in Rome knew
this teacher's dad?

I emailed Rome and sure enough, Sam's teacher's dad
had worked with my friend at the Rome embassy years ago. Then on top of it all,
Sam's teacher turns out to have an adopted
Chinese daughter. We have mutual friends in the adoption community, but
somehow we hadn't crossed paths yet.

There was a similar experience on
the flights to Italy. On the Denver>Wash DC flight, I sat behind 2 ladies
happily anticipating their trip to
Italy. As we all got off at Dulles Airport, I said "Hi, I am on your flight
to Rome too!" and then we all got off for our short layover.

When I got
on the 2nd flight Wash DC>Rome, I made my way back through the aisles to my
seat, and who was sitting next to my empty seat? These 2 ladies! We started
talking and found we all live in Boulder, then discovered that we both have
connections to Engineers Without Borders,
and then it turned out it was the wife of the founder of EWB. I've been hoping
to meet him for years in Boulder, and somehow I ended up sitting next to his
wife?! We just hit it off and chatted the whole flight. I just had lunch with
her now that we are all back in Boulder. What are the odds?

Of course
this kind of thing happens ALL the time in the quilting world. We meet a
friend-of-a-friend and sit down to chat over
coffee. We start talking about quilt exhibits and classes we've attended. We
find some mutual ground and then start asking if the other knows this friend or
that quilt shop. Pretty soon we've identified a whole circle of mutual friends,
and shared experiences, and we feel like old friends who need to catch up! I
just love that feeling, don't you?

In a week I'll be off
to Houston, to see old and new friends at Quilt Market and Quilt Festival.
We all speak the same language of quilting, and we all delight in the mutual
experiences that give us such joy. Sophie and I will be at the Tuesday night
award ceremony, and I hope to see many of our eQuilter friends and customers
there! She'll be climbing onto the podium with me, to help announce the World of
Beauty cash prize winner. (Gosh I am so excited – can't wait to meet this year's
big winner!)

If you'd like an idea of what goes on at the Houston award
ceremony, check out our video page and
scroll down to "Houston Quilt Festival, Top Cash Prize Winners".

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Creative Nudge – Shadow and Light

Posted on October 22, 2012 by Luana

RussianTree_550

This is another quilt from the Moscow
Quilt Exhibition. This is a closeup of the center of the wallhanging, with
embellishment details that are absolutely charming.

Everyone who looked
at this quilt smiled. The 3-dimensional wedding
couple and the lacy crocheted tree
branches made this quilt really jump out. I really like the bride's
looooong braid too!

When I showed my power point presentation to the
quilters there, they were interested in a quilt from the Houston Quilt
Festival that depicted a Chinese political activist. Some of them came up
afterward to ask about quilts that make a social or political
statement. Here in the US, it is allowed, although unusual.

Quilts
can express a wide range of emotions and ideas. Through
color, value, and motif, they can express anything from anguish and grief,
to joy and healing. Exploring the darker side of one's emotions through art can
be an illuminating journey on the path of self-discovery. Sometimes you have to
stand
in the shadow to see the
light.

One quilt exhibit which encourages this inner journey of
self-exploration, is Sacred
Threads. The call for entries is Jan 9 – Mar 9, 2013. Perhaps you are
working on a quilt that could be in this show?

We've had a glorious
Fall season here in Boulder, with a long stretch of foliage color, and
brilliant blue skies. Perhaps we have another week, or two, before the trees are
bare.

Many thanks, again, to FRCQ who invited me to speak to the group
last Monday – I had a great time with all of you!

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