eQuilter Blog

The monsoon rains have finally begun here in Colorado, and you'd never know that over 600 homes were consumed by fire here in the last few weeks.

On Friday I'll be visiting the distribution center in Fort Collins, for the survivors of the High Park fire. I spoke to the executive director of ACS today – the group that is partnering with Larimer County and the Red Cross to set up a place where the community can donate goods – and fire victims can receive what they need. Before someone can enter the disaster relief center, the Red Cross identifies them as someone who has been affected by the fire. This is very important because sadly, sometimes there are people who try to take advantage of a disaster for their own gain. So I am confidant that they are managing the donations so they will go directly to those most in need.

If you watch this video of the distribution center, you'll see that they mention the need for blankets. Michael the director said that if they received quilts, it would be the most treasured donations of all. They will keep the center open through August, and we'd like to start by asking for 100 quilts to be donated for these folks.

If you are local to the Boulder area, you can drop the quilts off at eQuilter, and we'll personally deliver them to the distribution center in Fort Collins. If you are further away – out of state – you can ship them to us and we'll take them up there for you.

I have a couple quilts that I'll donate to kick off the quilt drive, and I'll be going up there this Friday to drop off any quilts that might come to us by this Thursday. At least one of our staff is volunteering up there on the weekends, so we'll make more than one trip up there in the next couple months.

If we receive more quilts than they can use in High Park, then we'll distribute more down south in Colorado Springs for the Waldo Canyon survivors. We know there are many quilt groups around the region who are working to supply quilts to the survivors, so if we can help your group to deliver your donations, let us know.

Many thanks to all of you who have called and emailed, wanting to help. We'll make sure your comfort quilts are handled carefully, and delivered to those who have lost everything.

When I left the garment industry, and subsequently came into the quilt industry, I felt so lucky to have discovered this little corner of the textile world. Quilters are so generous, and it is always amazing to me how quilters can pour so much heart and healing into a handmade quilt, and then give it selflessly to a stranger in need.

If you donate a quilt, be sure to put your name and contact information on a label, with a message of hope and love for the recipient.

All quilts delivered to eQuilter by 5 pm this Thursday will be hand-carried by me to the relief center this Friday.

I will also be visiting the exhibit of Hawaiian Quilts at the Avenir Museum, at CSU's University Center for the Arts this Friday. The show closes August 2nd, so if you are in the area, go check it out soon!

We've received so many emails and phone calls from all over the world, expressing concern about the fires that have burned in Colorado this week, including a fire in Boulder several days ago. Thanks so much – we have really appreciated hearing from all of you. Our business, staff and homes are all ok.

The huge fires burning near Colorado Springs (Waldo Canyon) and Fort Collins (High Park) are truly devastating, and they are not under control yet. Even our little fire is still smoldering, and we've been advised to expect smoke rising from the mountain until the fall. After a week of record-breaking 100+ degree weather, the situation was ripe for firestorms.

We are told that if you want to help those who lost everything in the fires, honestly what they really need is money. I know there are local quilt groups around the state that are collecting and distributing quilts in those 2 communities. We are, of course, hoping that we don't have any more big fires in our area this summer, but the odds seem long…so we are on standby for a possible quilt drive if the need arises locally.

If you would like to help fire victims, you can start looking on this page, but since the fires are not over yet I am sure there will be further needs and requests for ongoing help.

Heat, storms, flooding…and it's only July first! This last week we stayed indoors because of the bad air quality (my eyes were burning outside) and so I decided it was a good time to really get into my Instagram account… and then last night I couldn't access my account! This morning I had the same problem, but then my Instagram-guru Dennis at Andover told me that Instagram was down due to the big storms. Sheesh!

Anyway if you are playing around with Instagram look me up there. I am having way too much fun with a variety of filter apps, and all my photos.

Now that my personal Facebook page has over 5K friends (!) I have made it available for non "friends" to view, but I also encourage you to move over to my fan page for Color and Design. Also many of you are having lots of fun on Pinterest (me too!) so check out the colors and design inspiration I've gathered there.

Many thanks to my Irish tour group, who sent me a beautiful signature quilt which arrived yesterday. How cool is that?!? Special thanks to Kathryn! What a wonderful memory of all you sweet ladies. (and one intrepid husband!) A reminder that I've posted 500 photos from the tour and festival so far…more being edited and posted this week.

Our local fireworks are banned this year due to the high fire risk, but maybe we can drive to a show far away from the tinderbox foothills. We'll see…

I hope you've had a chance to check out the 250 photos I've posted so far from my tour of Ireland. This week I am posting photos from the first few days of our tour – from the Irish Quilt Festival in Galway.

eQuilter was the sponsor of the "My Quilted Garden" exhibit which was in the beautiful ivy-covered "castle" on the university grounds. Here is a closeup of Ros Pollock's beautiful quilt "Jaggy Thistle" from that exhibit. (An Irish Thistle) You can see this whole quilt, plus other quilts from the IQFOI (International Quilt Festival of Ireland) on my photo page.

You may have heard that we have several fires burning in our state of Colorado. Until today the fires were all an hour or more away, but now we have a fire of our own in the foothills of Boulder, just behind the mountain with our famous Flatiron rock formations.

eQuilter is 5 minutes northeast of Boulder, and the fire is southwest of town, so we are on the opposite side of the city from the fire. Our oldest son lives 12 blocks from tonight's pre-evacuation area, and he was not able to go to work because the road was closed down. Tonight I was able to see the flames on the top of the mountain from a distance, but it is nowhere near our home or business. However I have many friends in the evacuation or pre-evacuation zone, and we are all praying for rain.

On July 11th I will be attending the evening award ceremony at Quilt Colorado in Loveland, Colorado. It is a good thing they moved this bi-annual event from Estes Park I guess, since they just had a fire up in Estes. CQC has expanded the event with lots of great teachers and events, so check it out!

Have you seen the movies Moonrise Kingdom and Best Exotic Marigold Hotel yet? There is lots of color inspiration in these 2 summer movies, so if you want to get out of the heat for a few hours in an air-conditioned theater, I highly recommend these two!

Sophie and I have just come back from a reunion celebration for CCAI, the adoption agency we used for her adoption 9 years ago. They are celebrating 10 years and 10,000 adoptions which is just incredible. Even though it was 100 degrees at the park, we managed to find some shade and visit with fellow adoptive family friends…and you just can't help but think of what might have happened to all these girls if Josh and Lily hadn't started this adoption project in China.

Here at eQuilter we are also celebrating a huge milestone. A few of our sharp-eyed customers have already noticed that the charity number on our home page popped up over $1 million in the last week! That means this last week when we cut our monthly checks to our various charity recipients, it brought us up over the million dollar mark.

It is surreal, I must admit, because when we came up with the idea of giving 2% of sales to charity, it really never occurred to me that we could accomplish something like this. People often ask us – did you ever think it would grow to this large of a number? – and the answer is no. I am still amazed, dumbfounded really, that together we reached this goal.

Sophie is currently trying to raise money for some of the struggling organizations that are helping orphans in China. All around the world these organizations that help children and families with disaster relief and medical supplies, have seen a severe drop in donations.

Believe it or not, Sophie's 10th birthday is this weekend, and she asked me to put a plea out in the newsletter, asking for donations to organizations that help orphans around the world. That is really all she wants for her birthday, and if you would like to support her birthday wish, please send us an email and let us know… if you make a donation in her honor for her 10th birthday. There are so many worthy organizations home and abroad, trying to help these children – we appreciate hearing your stories and your inspirations.

We are starting to give her more information about how she came to be an orphan, now that she is older. She was abandoned on a doorstep when she was 2 days old, so that means that Tuesday is her "Finding Day". Somewhere out there in China, I know her biological mother is thinking of her this week…. and I send out a silent "thank you" to the woman who had to give up that tiny bundle.

My only hope is that our accomplishment – this tremendous goal having been reached – will inspire others to commit a percentage of their sales or income to help others in need. Perhaps today that person is you? *smile*

I've posted about 250 photos from Ireland on my photo page…more coming next week!