eQuilter Blog

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,

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

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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Posted in Charity | 7 Comments

Creative Nudge – IQA Awards – Hurricane Sandy Comfort Quilts

Posted on October 31, 2012 by Luana

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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Posted in Creativity | 2 Comments

Creative Nudge – Quilt Nerd

Posted on October 24, 2012 by Luana

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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Posted in Travel | 2 Comments

Creative Nudge – Shadow and Light

Posted on October 22, 2012 by Luana

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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Day 7 – Weds Sept 26 Afternoon – Textile Academy Museum

Posted on October 14, 2012 by Luana

In the afternoon of Weds Sept 26, my new friends Victoria, Maria and Olesya picked me up at the hotel (after my morning with a tour guide) and we made our way through the Moscow traffic to the Textile Academy.

They picked up up TWO HOURS before our appointment, because the traffic and the parking is so horrible in Moscow. It took us over an hour to get there, and quite awhile to find a parking place. Did I mention that double parking and even triple parking is the norm in Moscow?!? The two way street in front of the college building had so many cars double parked that it was reduced to a one way street. We ended up parking on the main street a block away – there was one line of cars parked on the side of the street, and TWO lines of cars parked on the wide sidewalk! We parked in the second line of cars on the sidewalk, blocking any pedestrian passage. What a crazy system!

As we entered the several story building that was the Textile Academy, I asked about this school. It is a college for textile design and production, and attracts students not only from all over Russia and former USSR member countries, but from around Asia, including China and South Korea.

We were greeted by a professor Tatyana who had agreed to give me a private tour of the school's textile museum. I had absolutely no idea what to expect. We went up several floors and waited in a classroom. Tatyana got a key and opened a door that led into a long hallway that was filled with textile display cases and wall hangings. Then we turned right into a large room – and I quickly realized that I was in not just a museum, but a library filled with the history of the Russian textile industry.

Along the front wall were shelves filled with thick books. It was explained that these were swatch books from Russian textile manufacturers. Each heavy book was filled with samples and swatches of fabrics and designs, and each book represented ONE year of designs and production from one factory.

I was told that I could take all the pictures that I wanted, but I could not share them publicly. They said the only photos I could share were of this wall full of shelves and swatch books.

Here I am with Victoria, who owns a patchwork shop (and who arranged for the tour), and Tatyana the professor. This is only part of the wall!

Behind the photographer in this room, were display cases, textiles hanging on the walls, ethnic embroidered costumes on mannequins, and larger precious swatchbooks dating back over 200 years. Some of the textiles were from the 18th century.

As we progressed from one display room to the next, Tatyana turned off the lights in one room, and turned on the lights in the next room. The only room in which she wouldn't allow me to take photos, was the room where I wanted *most* to take photos – the history of Russian Art Nouveau.The historic textile samples locked in wall cases, were some of the most beautiful versions of Art Nouveau that I have ever seen.

In Russia this was known as Stil Modern, or "Modern Style". It's counterparts were Jugendstil (German for "youth style") and Secession in Vienna.

In Italy it was known as Stile Liberty from the department store in London, Liberty & Co., which popularised the style. The style was influenced strongly by Czech artist Alphonse Mucha. In Spain, the style was based mainly in Barcelona and was an essential element of the Catalan Modernisme. Architect Antoni Gaud?,
used Art Nouveau's floral and organic forms.

As I moved through the rooms and main hallway of the museum, I tried to take thoughtful photos of the intrinsically Russian textile designs, especially focusing on those that displayed technical expertise and the most sophisticated designs. So many of the historic textile designs are still being reproduced today, in the babushka wool challis scarves that are so often sold to the tourists. The big bold florals in jeweltones and black, are seen on tourists and Russian grandmas alike.

The other room which could not be photographed was the Asian collection room, which was full of vintage Japanese and Chinese textiles. There were several exquisitely intricate embroidered murals and room screens, and a formal embroidered wedding kimono stood on a mannequin in the center of the huge room. I didn't feel quite so bad about not being able to take photos there, because I've had so much exposure to Asian textiles since I lived in Hong Kong, and also from my annual trips to the Tokyo Quilt Festival.

When we got to the end of the tour, I told Tatyana that my website could be of great inspiration to her students, since we have over 1000 new textile designs every month. I also pointed her towards my video page, with dozens of artist reviews and quilt show reviews. She was also interested in my photo page (http://www.flickr.com/photos/luanarubin/) where I post hundreds of photos from my travels around the world.

It was truly an amazing afternoon, and I feel so lucky to have experienced this private museum tour. Many thanks to Tatyana who opened up the museum for my visit, and Victoria who arranged for the private tour!

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Creative Nudge – An Authentic Voice

Posted on October 11, 2012 by Luana

We do our
best work when we express what is close to
our heart. For writers, it is "write what you know". For
composers, it is "stay true to your musical
voice". For
artists, it is "paint what you see".

For quilt artists, we do our
best work when we are ourselves. When we put too much energy into trying to be
like someone else, then… our work just looks like somebody else.

When
expressing our true selves… when we
choose colors that feel right…when we sew in the style (traditional or
contemporary) that we are drawn to, we tap into a deep vein of Creative Truth
that has a power beyond words or conscious thought.

Yes, it is great to
challenge ourselves beyond what is safe and familiar, but if we try to be
someone other than ourselves, it is not our best work.

As I have traveled
around the world during this amazing year, visiting quilt festivals from
Japan and Australia,
to Ireland
and England, and now Italy
and Russia…this is what really strikes me about the quilters'
work:

Those who express themselves authentically, create something that
draws an audience. The Japanese quilters are really masters at this – which is
why we can spot a Japanese quilt a mile away at a big international show like
Houston. The Japanese quilts really stood out among the equally distinctive Australian
quilts at the Melbourne
show.

This month I was absolutely delighted to compare the quilts in
Rome (expressing the art aesthetics of Italy) with the irresistibly charming and
very Russian quilts in
Moscow.

Vive la diff?rence!

Next Monday I will give a power
point presentation at the Front
Range Contemporary Quilters meeting in Westminster Colorado. I hope to see
many of you there!

Also, I have uploaded the last 3 videos
from the Birmingham Festival of Quilts: SAQA Masters 2, Sophie Furbeyre, and C.
June Barnes.

I am working on all the photos from Rome and Russia, but
first I have to pop out for a couple days to a textile show in Las Vegas.

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Day 7 – Weds Sept 26 – Leo Tolstoy House

Posted on October 2, 2012 by Luana

Late morning on Weds I visited Leo Tolstoy's city house.

( author of War and Peace, Anna Karenina,
etc.)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leo_Tolstoy

http://www.concierge.com/travelguide/moscow/seeanddo/500203

http://www.frommers.com/destinations/moscow/A34510.html

http://www.ehow.com/how_2313357_visit-moscows-house-tolstoy.html

This was particularly interesting to me, after seeing the 2010 movie The
Last Station, with Christopher Plummer, Helen Mirren and James McAvoy:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0824758/

The house is preserved by his ancestors and a historic society. When you go in, you have to wear sock booties over your shoes so you won't scratch the floors.

They have tried to keep all the furniture, fixtures and even place settings the way it was when he and his family lived there.

In one of the rooms, the embroidery on the chair's slipcover was by Tolstoy's wife Solphia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sophia_Tolstaya

In daughter Tatyana's room (she was a portrait artist) there is this delightful black tablecloth with 70 embroidered autographs – first written in chalk by visiting friends – then embroidered by Tatyana.

There was not just one, but TWO grand pianos in the house: a baby grand on the ground floor in a private family room, and a large grand in this upstairs entertaining room that had a huge long dining table, lots of chairs, and Limoges china tea service. Here the Tolstoys received guests and held musical and literary evenings, with visitors such as Rachmaninoff, Rimsky-Korsakov, Chekhov and Gorky. Here Tolstoy read his manuscripts to family and close friends, and also played chess.

In the adjoining family salon, there are a lot of textile treasures:

The family employed a dressmaker, and several of Countess Tolstoy's and her daughter's dresses are displayed:

In the back you can look into Tolstoy's study, and see the desk where he wrote his stories.

In the back there is a lovely garden area which is really a small forest! The red brick walls that are the boundaries of the property, are really the walls of textile mills that were there at the time the family lived in the house.

They say that the cats that wander the property are the descendents of the cats that lived with the family. Here are the stables, with the walls of the textile mill behind.