eQuilter Blog

We are thinking of all of you affected by the hurricane, and we hope you, your loved ones, your home and your stash are safe.

Things don’t always go the way we plan. I got home Wednesday night, decided to be a responsible human being so I took a Covid test Friday morning….and was shocked to test positive with no symptoms! Now I have mild symptoms and I am isolating in the bedroom. My last booster was mid-July so hopefully that is protecting me from something worse. Ugh.

However I came home with a sketchbook full of paintings from Tuscany/Umbria, and then spent a few days with a curator friend on the Ulysses Coast, and visiting the Caserta Palace and the Belvedere Silk Textile Museum. I think my favorite activity during the painting retreat, was going to a paper studio and making my own version of marbled paper. As a result, we are adding that activity to my Italy tour in December!

It is bird migration season, and although I am limited to my bedroom, I have the window open and I am using the Merlin app to identify the birdsong that is showing up in my backyard today. Right now I am listening to a chorus of Grackles, a Downy Woodpecker, and Blue jays in the distance. One thing I decided from this trip is to stop and enjoy the small simple things all around us, on a daily basis. I hope you are also finding joy and inspiration in the changing seasons.

I’ll be back in the studio working on a couple small quilts for a museum show, and also editing my TONS of photos from the trip to share with you next week!

sharing your love for fabric,
Luana and Paul

Travel/Quilt Dates:
Oct 31 – Nov 3 – Houston Quilt Festival
Nov 13 – Canada Zoom Lecture
December 5-13 – Textile & Costume Tour – Italy. Alpine Xmas Market Extension Dec 13-15.
Jan 21 – Visions Museum Zoom Lecture

Visit eQuilter’s Instagram, Pinterest or TikTok pages for Color and Design ideas.

See Luana’s Flickr Photo Pages for travel images, comment on our blog, or follow us on Facebook.

Check out our Video pages for interviews and show reviews.

This last week I’ve been on a self-care trip that was planned the last year of my mom’s life. I just finished a one week painting retreat in Umbria, and this weekend I am meeting a friend in Rome to spend a few days on the coast. Today is Sophia Loren’s 90th birthday and is therefore an unofficial national holiday. Sophia’s famous quote is:
“Everything you see, I owe to spaghetti.”

Sunday is the Fall Equinox, when the Northern and Southern hemispheres are in balance … when day and night are equal. Now the days will shorten and the nights will lengthen in the Northern hemisphere. We feel an autumnal chill here in the hilltop ancient town of Citta della Pieve. While here, I visited our host’s ancient home. The main part of the house is the medieval era, the ‘wine cellar’ was perhaps catacombs, and below that is an Etruscan tomb where you can still see the marks of the tools on the walls where the cave was carved out 3000 years ago. Standing in a space like that certainly puts things in perspective. The ‘new’ addition was from the 1800s. Time has a different meaning here.

I’ll be flying home on Wednesday, and will share photos from my trip then. I’ve been painting for a week and I am a happy camper! I hope you have also had a creative weekend, looking forward to the change of seasons.

Looking forward to sharing my inspirations with all of you!

sharing your love for fabric,
Luana and Paul

Travel/Quilt Dates:
Sept 15-25 – Painting Retreat – Tuscany
Oct 31 – Nov 3 – Houston Quilt Festival
Nov 13 – Canada Zoom Lecture
December 5-13 – Textile & Costume Tour – Italy. Alpine Xmas Market Extension Dec 13-15.
Jan 21 – Visions Museum Zoom Lecture

Visit eQuilter’s Instagram, Pinterest or TikTok pages for Color and Design ideas.

See Luana’s Flickr Photo Pages for travel images, comment on our blog, or follow us on Facebook.

Check out our Video pages for interviews and show reviews.

I am back from Tarrytown NY, where I was attending the American Quilt Study Group Seminar. As AQSG president Nancy Bavor noted, this is a little out of my usual oeuvre, but nevertheless I enjoyed hanging out with some of the most serious quilt history nerds on the planet. And I learned what is Linsey Woolsey! I thought I knew a lot about textile history and production, but there is always something new to learn. And…I learned from a historian named Rabbit Goody.

This delightful vintage confection (above) is a 19th century quilt from New York state, part of a collection that was presented by Sharon Waddell at this event. The applique reminds us of the fine handwork that we see in contemporary Japanese quilts. I took this photo as I ran through her exhibit, and the next 2 times I tried to return the doors were locked, so I am sorry I was not able to photograph the information card next to the quilt. I tried.

Anyway, this event attracts museum curators, journalists and authors, historians and quilt celebrities. One of the talks I attended was about Jean Ray Laury, presented by Tara Miller. Many of you older quilters will remember Laury. She was born 9 years before my own mother. One of Laury’s most significant books was ‘The Creative Women’s Getting-It-All-Together at Home Handbook’ written in 1977. My mother could have used that book. When I was a young mother juggling babies and a new business, I could have used that book!

I met her near the end of her life, when she visited Boulder and was the guest of honor at a party here. She sat down next to me and said she had heard such good things about me and my business. I was so honored that she even knew who I was! She was so kind and encouraging, and had these fabulous big red glasses which I remember very clearly.

Laury’s theme was empowering women, and one of her most well-known quilts was “Barefoot and Pregnant” made in 1985. It was inspired by an ignorant quote by a male politician. You can imagine.

Jean Ray Laury was a prolific quilter, a feminist, and an instigator. She helped women realize that they could be creative without sacrificing their responsibilities at home. From what I know, she became more sassy as she aged. May we all live long and be so sassy.

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Sharing your love of fabric…
Luana and Paul

Visit eQuilter’s Instagram, Pinterest or TikTok pages for Color and Design ideas.

Follow Luana’s Flickr Photo Pages for quilt & travel images, review our blog, or follow us on Facebook.

Check out our Video pages for interviews and show reviews.

Subscribe to Luana’s Artist Website blog for more creative inspiration.

Travel/Quilt Dates:
Sept 15-25 – Painting Retreat
Oct 31 – Nov 3 – Houston Quilt Festival
Nov 13 – Canada (CQA) Zoom Lecture
December 5-13 – Textile & Costume Italy Tour. Alpine Xmas Market Extension Dec 13-15.
Jan 21 – Visions Museum Zoom Lecture

I am writing to you from Tarrytown, New York tonight, while attending the AQSG Seminar (American Quilt Study Group).

This is the group of quilt history nerds who dig into the past with a combination of genealogy and textile sleuthing. My friends from the museum world are here, and I love to be the fly on the wall when they get excited about historic textile minutiae. This is my 2nd time at this event, but I learn something every time I attend. There are also many well-known personalities from the quilting industry here, so it is fun to connect and share quilt and textile information. It is a different end of the quilting spectrum for me, because I am mostly focused on contemporary quilt making, but I love the opportunity to learn new things from a different group of quilters!

Watch for my next email on Wednesday morning, with more details from this event.

sharing your love for fabric,
Luana and Paul

Travel/Quilt Dates:
Sept 4-8 – AQSG Seminar, Tarrytown NY
Sept 15-25 – Painting Retreat
Oct 31 – Nov 3 – Houston Quilt Festival
Nov 13 – Canada Zoom Lecture
December 5-13 – Textile & Costume Tour – Italy. Alpine Xmas Market Extension Dec 13-15.
Jan 21 – Visions Museum Zoom Lecture

Visit eQuilter’s Instagram, Pinterest or TikTok pages for Color and Design ideas.

See Luana’s Flickr Photo Pages for travel images, comment on our blog, or follow us on Facebook.

Check out our Video pages for interviews and show reviews.