Stare deep into the eyes of the all-knowing Cosmic Owl, with this week’s Free Quilt Pattern. The powerful image captures the magic and wisdom of this nocturnal raptor, in vivid kaleidoscopic colors and ornate embellishments.
To make this 71″ wide x 55″ high quilt design, you will start with our exclusive 28″ x 44″ digital-printed panel. We have used 2 complementary colors of Paula Nadelstern’s marbled “Cosette”, combined with Kona Solid Black, to construct the pieced border. A 3rd color of Cosette is used for the binding.
As a wall hanging, this is a real conversation piece for the true Strigiformesphile. (Owl lover) Or use this as a Nap quilt or small bed coverlet for soaring raptor dreams. Did you know the Japanese word for Owl is Fukuro? In Icelandic it is Ugla. Maltese – is Kokka. What will you name your owl?
PLUS – you’ll receive Free USA / 50% off INTL shipping when you order the fabrics for this exquisite quilt pattern (orders $100 and over, no coupon needed).
Order the pattern as configured, or customize it to your liking with any of our thousands of fabrics. Just place your desired fabrics in your Wish List, and these fabrics will appear in the Fabric Selector below the pattern.
Today is the first Full Day of Spring which is always a cause for celebration here in Colorado. Our mountains are cloaked in snow, but our bulbs are pushing up through the ground, and the tree buds are swelling with our sunny mild weather. I am including a collage of a new collection of Sea Turtle/Ocean prints that just arrived this week….with warmer weather I think about visiting the coast later this year!
In Washington DC the cherry blossoms are at peak bloom, and I have just come back from an opening reception at the DAR (Daughters of the American Revolution) Museum which is a couple blocks from the White House. I was there for the first day of “Sewn in America” which will run through December 31.
As you enter the exhibit, you read this description:
“Sewn objects surround us. They clothe us from birth, cover our bodies day and night, furnish our living spaces, line our coffins. Until recently, nearly every woman knew how to sew – knowledge imparted in childhood and employed through a lifetime.
Without formal art training, women used needle arts to express themselves. In quilts, embroidery, and other fancy work projects, they beautified their surroundings, made gifts of love and friendship, expressed emotion, proclaimed their identity, and conveyed their support for causes.
Sewn in America examines the way in which American women (and men) from the 18th and 19th centuries learned and deployed their needle skills to furnish their households, earn livings, and express themselves, with contemporary examples of the themes explored.”
My quilt “Stardust Mothers” is one of the contemporary examples chosen for this historic 2024 exhibit, and I also wrote a chapter about Craftivism in the companion book. If you are planning a trip to our nation’s capital this year, please stop to visit the DAR to see this exhibit, and all their other quilts on display from all the states, over the last 200+ years.
Our Fabulous Floral Kitty panel displays charm and elegance, dressed in a classic Victorian hat. This week’s exclusive Free Quilt Design is full of gorgeous details and a captivating kitty surrounded by graceful, painterly flowers.
To make this 58″ x 64″ quilt design, you will start with our ever-popular 43″ x 44″ digital panel. The central masterpiece is framed by mitering our detailed wood grain print, and then bordered with a deep Amethyst Hoffman Hand Dye.
PLUS – you’ll receive Free USA / 50% off INTL shipping when you order the fabrics for this exquisite quilt pattern (orders $100 and over, no coupon needed).
Order the pattern as configured, or customize it to your liking with any of our thousands of fabrics. Just place your desired fabrics in your Wish List, and these fabrics will appear in the Fabric Selector below the pattern.
When you receive this email, I’ll be flying back from Washington DC, where I attended the opening reception for ‘Sewn in America – Making-Meaning-Memory’ at the DAR Museum. My quilt ‘Stardust Mothers’ is hanging in this exhibit, next to a quilt made by fellow artist Dr Carolyn Mazloomi. The exhibit will be open through December 31st. I hope you can see this beautiful exhibit if you are visiting DC, which has both historic quilts and contemporary quilts illustrating ‘craftivism’.
You may have heard that we got about a foot of heavy wet snow on Thursday. I was supposed to fly to DC Thursday morning, but was able to switch my flight to Wednesday to get out of town ahead of the storm. Here in Washington, the magnolia trees and daffodils are in full blossom, and the cherry blossoms are just starting to open. DC is about one week from ‘peak blossom’. Of course with the cherry blossoms come the huge crowds. They seem to get bigger every year. I am getting out of town just in time.
I also learned this week that my ‘Uncompahgre Fritillary’ quilt has been accepted into the SAQA ‘Camouflage’exhibit, which will open at the Intl Quilt Festival in Houston this Fall. Also just finished an article on color trends, that will be in the July/Aug issue of Quiltmaker, which we will of course have in stock in a a few months.
Do you remember the Bicentennial celebrations in 1976? That is the year that I graduated from high school. It was also the Centennial year for our state of Colorado. When I went to the AQSG seminar last year, I heard a lecture by a historian studying a Bicentennial quilt from 1976. Well guess what? We have the semiquincentennial coming up: 2026 will be the 250th anniversary of the American experiment. Start working on your semiquincentennial quilt now, and maybe in 2076 somebody will give a lecture on the history of YOUR quilt! If you have a centennial or bicentennial quilt in your family, send us a picture and I might know a historian or curator who would like to know more about your historic quilt.
The quilts we make today will potentially become part of history some day. Be sure to label your quilts today, for those who are curious tomorrow. Always put a label on the back of your quilt, with your name, date, town, and any other pertinent information. Was the quilt made to celebrate a wedding or a baby? Was it for a kid going off to college, or graduating? Is it a friendship quilt, a memorial quilt, or to document another important event in your life? Some day, that information will fascinate someone admiring your quilt. For myself, I am starting to plan a semiquincentennial quilt!
sharing your love for fabric, Luana and Paul
Travel/Quilt Dates: April 7-12 Allegre Retreat May 1-7 – England
The remarkable panel celebrates a woman with shamanic headdress, while an explosion of color and shadow brings life to the face paint, feathers, and flames. The center panel is framed by a mitered Native American blanket print, and bordered with solid black.
This 65″ x 65″ quilt displays a powerful image wherever it hangs … or make this quilt for someone with connections to Native Tribes or a love of the colorful beauty of the Southwest.
PLUS – you’ll receive Free USA / 50% off INTL shipping when you order the fabrics for this exquisite quilt pattern (orders $100 and over, no coupon needed).
Order the pattern as configured, or customize it to your liking with any of our thousands of fabrics. Just place your desired fabrics in your Wish List, and these fabrics will appear in the Fabric Selector below the pattern.
Tonight I’d like to feature an artwork from QuiltCon that was made by a group of students at the Marylhurst School in Portland Oregon. It won a 1st Place ribbon in the Youth category, and their teacher Jessica Bernert deserves recognition as well.
Many years ago when I attended Quilt Canada in Ottawa, I heard a Land Acknowledgement statement for the first time. It was a statement of the indigenous peoples who had lived on that land originally. It was a very powerful experience to hear those words spoken and contemplate what it meant. We have the same issue here in Colorado. You can read about what happened at Sand Creek to learn more. Search for ‘land acknowledgement’ and your state, to learn about the original inhabitants of the place you live.
This 2nd and 3rd grade class (collectively known as the Meadowlarks) studied the indigenous people of North America, and then made this Map Quilt. They committed to give any prize money won, to the Confederated Tribes of Grande Ronde, as it is their land where the school is located. What a powerful lesson for this group of young people.
As you know, quilts can tell powerful stories. Kids are often fearless about telling these stories with their art. (The emperor has no clothes….) But guess what? More and more adults are choosing to tell stories with their quilts. Sometimes the image says what cannot be said with words. I know that this quilt spoke to many of the viewers at QuiltCon, and I thank Ms. Bernert and her class for sharing their message with us.
The title the kids chose: This Land (Is Not) Our Land
You can see this quilt and its artist statement, and other quilts from QuiltCon, on my photo pages.
Enter the Zen Garden of this Asian-themed collection in this week’s free quilt pattern. The leafy branches of a ginkgo tree stand boldly against the moon in the twilight sky in this beautiful view of a Japanese garden.
PLUS – you’ll receive Free USA / 50% off INTL shipping when you order the fabrics for this exquisite quilt pattern (orders $100 and over, no coupon needed).
This weekend we are celebrating our 25th Anniversary since eQuilter.com started in our home here in Boulder. We still live in the same house, and it is just one mile down the road from our 5-year old new warehouse building. We have some very special customers who have been with us since we started with a few hundred bolts in the basement…I thought I was going to have a little part-time business so I could stay home with the kids when they were little. Ha!
Later this year Paul and I are coming up on another big anniversary – 30 years since our first blind date. We both come from entrepreneurial families so we’ve hung on for the rollercoaster ride of running a small business, raising our kids, buying a piece of dirt and building our warehouse, keeping it all running through the pandemic, and raising $2 million for charity. Wow, what a ride!
The thing that Paul and I just LOVE about our business, is our wonderful customers. Paul loves to tell people about the amazing quilting community. When we first met, he had no idea what he was in for! But now as you know, he is an integral part of our business…from handling all the website design and maintenance, to designing quilts for our Free Pattern program, and managing our exclusive line of Rubin digital prints. We are 50/50 partners and co-owners. We are truly grateful for our years together, and our success…and your friendship.
All 3 of our kids have grown up in the business, and all 3 of them have worked for us at some point, before pursuing their own talents and adventures. Right now Mason works for a non-profit solar panel company, Sam is helping us out part time, and Sophie Quinn is finishing her degree in Music Education. We have many employees who have been with us for several years, and we’ve watched their kids grow up too. We have such a great team working together to get your orders out the door, answer your questions, and hopefully make all your quilting dreams come true.
THANK YOU – for giving us 25 years of this creative adventure. We’re so glad you could come along for the ride.
REMINDER: Tonight when you go to bed, most of you in the US will need to set your clocks ahead by one hour, for Daylight Savings.
sharing your love for fabric, Luana and Paul
Travel/Quilt Dates: March 10 – Guatemalan Textile Panel – Rocky Mountain Quilt Museum March 14-16 – Washington DC April 7-12 Allegre Retreat May 1-7 – England
Capture the glittering opulence of Gustav Klimt’s artwork, with today’s exclusive Free Quilt Pattern…featuring a Klimt-inspired kaleidoscope of butterflies in richly saturated hues of Cobalt and Sapphire. Klimt’s highly decorative style was compared to the Art Nouveau design movement, and his use of gold leaf in his paintings relates to his father who was a gold engraver.
To make this 48″ x 66″ quilt design, you will start with the central 24″ x 44″ panel, lavishly embellished with gold metallic. Construct the pieced border with blue mosaic prints, set on point in a field of golden spirals. The pieced border is layered between inner and outer frames of a black confetti print.
Fun Fact: A group of butterflies (like this) is officially called a kaleidoscope. Also known as a swarm, rabble, or flutter of butterflies.
PLUS – you’ll receive Free USA / 50% off INTL shipping when you order the fabrics for this exquisite quilt pattern (orders $100 and over, no coupon needed).
Order the pattern as configured, or customize it to your liking with any of our thousands of fabrics. Just place your desired fabrics in your Wish List, and these fabrics will appear in the Fabric Selector below the pattern.
A little less than 20 years ago, on election night, I was at the awards ceremony in Houston. Outside passions were raw and votes were being counted, but inside the auditorium we quilters all sat together under the red and blue streamers, and we laughed and cried and cheered and clapped as one. When it was my turn to get on stage to give a major cash award, I said a few words. Maybe some of you were there that night. I talked about the unity and peace that we find in the presence of the quilting community, when the world outside seems to be impossibly divided. It is still true today.
Tonight I share with you this quilt from the QuiltCon exhibit, that expresses this thought so eloquently without words. On the left is blue, on the right is red, but the intricately pieced Capitol Dome is bathed in shades of purpleand pink. That is the place where we come together. I really admired the skill and patience it took to draft, design, and construct this piece of textile architecture.
The quilt was designed and constructed by Aynex Mercado, and quilted by Julia Triman. I see this quilt as a prayer for unity in this difficult election year. Aynex belongs to the Washington DC Modern Quilt Guild, so she is ‘in the soup’ as my mother would say.
Although the piece speaks for itself, I do want to share these words from the Artist Statement:
“We hope quilting the U.S. Capitol…in these shades of purple, offers a counterpoint to red vs blue portrayals of American politics, culture and society…Our hope is that instead of arming yourself in your team’s color, recognizing connections between our beliefs and values might strengthen the resilience of the American Gradation.”
Well said Aynex. There is so much we all have in common, and it is expressed in our quilts. Love, comfort and healing are all part of the quilting tradition….in America and around the world. There is more that unites us, than divides us.
My quilt “Mothers of the World” has been hanging at the Peace Tech Lab, in the U.S. Peace Institute in Wash DC. It is now traveling with the founder to a new non-profit in Zurich, and I am so honored that he plans to hang it in his new office. We never know how our work will inspire and comfort others.
Every stitch is a prayer, and I pray for Peace every day. Will you join me?
Travel/Quilt Dates: March 6 – Canadian Quilters Association – Zoom Lecture “Intl Quilt Trends” March 10 – Guatemala Panel – Rocky Mtn Quilt Museum March 14-16 – Washington DC April 7-12 – Allegre Retreat May 1-7 – London UK
