Tonight’s Free eQuilter pattern features a gorgeous garden poppy collection filled with elegant dragonflies and forest textures.
Start with the main 24″ x 44″ panel, piecing sets of three blocks above and below, with a deep aqua sashing. Then miter and surround the panel with a coordinating poppy stripe, and finish with a rich red texture for the outer border.
This 52″ x 70″ quilt makes a wonderful addition to your living room, or a gift to someone who spends a lot of time in their flower 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).
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.
After I left the fashion industry and found my way to the quilting world in 1990, I spent a few years taking quilt classes to learn some of the more advanced techniques. First I had to learn how to use a Rotary Cutter. Who knew? I had a giant heavy pair of Gingher Shears that could cut silk chiffon with a whisper, but there were quilting terms and toys I had to learn all about. Fat Quarters, needle-turn applique, quarter inch seams, binding, batting, basting, bearding, etc.
When I was ready to buy fabric, I was very disappointed by what was in the stores at that time. There was a lot of beige and dark colors. I was looking for Jewel tones! Pastels! Floral hues! Well, you know the rest is history. I had to start my own business to find those contemporary brilliant fabrics, back in 1999. Back in the Dark Ages.
These days quilters are not afraid of color, and they have become more sophisticated in their color choices. We put together stories based on a variety of color palettes: Midcentury Modern & Retro Midtones Ice Cream Pastels Mineral Earthtones Metallics like Rose Gold, and Pearlescent Shimmer Deeply Saturated Midnight Palettes Natural Plant Hues & Delicate Floral Tints Analogous and Tertiary Color Groups
This makes me so happy to have witnessed the unfolding of Color Courage in the Quilting Tribe. We can thank Kaffe Fassett for blasting open the barn door years ago, and let me tell you, the horses are out of the barn!
Today I am sharing one of my favorite quilts from the Houston Quilt Festival a few weeks ago. Aren’t those colors absolutely luscious? I just want to eat them with a spoon.
This beautiful quilt is by Caryl Bryer Fallert-Gentry, and it is a great example of the use of a full spectrum of colors. The colors of the birds form a color wheel with warm colors on the right side and cool colors on the left. She calls this piece “Confabulation”.
One trend that I’ve been watching over the last 10 years is a growing Color Courage for quilters working with more thread colors. The extreme cutting edge of this trend would be a whole-cloth quilt with multiple bright threads forming a mandala on a black background.
Every time I start a new project I add a few new key colors to add to my palette of thread colors, which is part of the excitement of the stitching phase. I have been using Aurifil 50 weight in both my Bernina 790, and Q20, to make my recent larger pieces. I have gotten pretty fast at switching out the colors as I move through the different sections of the quilt. Practice makes perfect!
Long ago when I started taking quilt classes, there were little old lady teachers who insisted that we use ‘neutral’ threads like midtone Gray or Beige…for the whole quilt project. These days, I often will use a midtone gray in the bobbin, but the top of my quilt is a wild Carnival of Color! So I invite you to take advantage of a special pricing on all our Aurifil threads through the end of the year. We will not be restocking until after the New Year, so if you see some colors that make your heart sing…snap them up now!
Well, it finally happened. I am turning 65 this weekend and am officially a senior citizen at last. I don’t feel like a ‘old person’ but I am sure a twenty-something person would think differently, ha. I signed up for Medicare and AARP, and how appropriate that it happens on Small Business Saturday.
As you may know, I worked in the garment industry after I got my design degree, and experienced much of the trauma that Corporate America has to offer. During those years I became a freelance designer, eventually traveling back and forth from New York to Asia (on Pan Am Business Class – those were the days!) and racking up miles and #metoo stories until I finally left the fashion industry in disgust.
I found my way to the quilting world in 1990, and we opened our business in March 1999. That’s 33 years that I’ve been hanging with the Quilting Tribe, and I’ve never looked back! I’ve been some version of self-employed since 1982, and I married a man who also came from an entrepreneurial family business background, which is why being business partners with my spouse has been such a success, and a blessing. In the process Paul has become a Quilt Maven which has deepened our marriage in ways I could not have imagined. He’s a Keeper, for sure!
On this Small Business Saturday, I am grateful that all 3 of our kids have been able to work in the family business. Currently Sam, our middle child, is handling our social media and writing descriptions. Mason and Sophie both worked for us during the pandemic, but now they are off in other jobs. Our office manager Dijana has been with us for 17 years, and we have a mix of old and new employees throughout the company. Most are mothers or grandmothers.
As I start another trip around the Sun, I am so grateful for the opportunities and friendships this industry has offered to me, to us, and in particular it has been a place to explore and expand my creative expression. Now that my caretaking role has been lifted, I am planning to return to my art studio and design work in 2024….which is very exciting.
sharing your love for fabric, Luana and Paul
Travel/Quilt Dates: Feb 21-24, 2024 – QuiltCon in Raleigh, NC – eQuilter is a GOLD Sponsor.
Tonight’s exclusive eQuilter Free Quilt Pattern features a snow covered scene with an illuminated chapel and horse drawn carriages. This peaceful, celebratory scene is surrounded by bountiful pine trees and a shining full moon.
To make this 68″ x 56″ wall hanging, begin with the Silent Night panel, and piece the borders & spiritual corner blocks with wintry blue tonals and a golden 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.
Over the decades, I’ve had a mad love affair with Wisteria. It doesn’t really grow here in Colorado, but when I lived in New York there was a building on my block with an ancient wisteria that had patiently crawled up the painted brick facade to the 5th floor. Every Spring it would put on a dazzling perfumed show. Crowds would gather….we would ooh and aah…and when they cut it down we gathered again, and wept. It was 125 years old.
During my travels around the world I’ve encountered wisteria tunnels, drapes and arbors in Asia and Europe, and I always try to take time to sit under these wise elders, breath in their intoxicating fragrance, and wonder at all they have seen. At a temple in Japan, a garden in China, a castle wall in Italy, and recently at the public botanic gardens in Nantes France, when I was at the Pour l’Amour du Fils quilt festival in April…in these places I have sat under the graceful dripping clusters of pea-like flowers, and hummed “Amazing Grace”.
Wisteria symbolize resilience and longevity, and this plant can live for centuries. Sheltering under an ancient wisteria in a rainstorm is an absolutely magical experience, with the clusters of blossoms dancing and dripping in the wind.
As we head into the Thanksgiving holiday this week, I am going through my old family scrapbooks, and remembering my grandmother’s Oregon flower gardens, and how she hummed quietly in the kitchen…I find myself humming “Amazing Grace” again, as my grandmother and mother sang to me, and as I sang to all of my children at bedtime when they were small.
As we prepare for this time of grace and gratitude, I feel so blessed to be safe and healthy, and also that we have a business that generates funds to help those who live in war zones, in extreme poverty, natural disaster zones, or other unfathomable disruptions. At our Thanksgiving tables, let us all think about how we can help those in need. If not money, then the gift of time, the nurturing support of listening and caring….random acts of kindness and senseless beauty.
Through our charity program, we continue to send funds to those most in need, and for that we thank you for supporting our family business. Together we CAN make a difference.
We wish you peace at your holiday table this week.
To make this 53″ x 63″ quilt design, you will start with the opulent 34″ x 44″ central portrait panel. We’ve set it in a frame of coordinating African Kente-inspired geometric, and a rich Mahogany Hoffman hand dye.
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.
Many thanks to all of you who sent messages of condolence. It means a lot to me, and I appreciate your kind words of comfort. Now that these years of caretaking are behind me, I am feeling a deep exhaustion this weekend. With the holiday week coming up, I am taking time to rest and dream of the future. I am having my art quilts professionally photographed this week, with an eye on spending more time making art in 2024. Many thanks to the New England Quilt Museum (Lowell, Massachusetts) for arranging to have my Uncompahgre Fritillary quilt photographed while on display in the Animalia exhibit!
This week I am so excited that we have our Multicolor Hand-Dye category restocked (And this 25-piece Fat Quarter collection). I am also thrilled with the new Imperial Collection – a beautiful group of Asian prints with gold metallic. These are 2 product categories that have been difficult to stock the last several years, so if you collect these types of fabrics, don’t wait to place your order. We will restock if possible, but these days there is no guarantee they will be available again. We do our best!
If you are a Dragon fanatic (like me) I want to make sure that you don’t miss this Free Dragon Quilt Pattern. (emailed to you on Nov 12) I am just gobsmacked by the artwork on this ‘Dragon Fyre‘ panel, from Morris Creative Group. Fun Fact: this was created by the 2nd generation of an artist family – Dan Morris‘ kids are now creating art and designs for Quilting Treasures. Watch that space!
I’d like to offer my zoom lectures to your quilt guild, for the winter months when maybe you are stuck at home but still wanting some inspiration. I can offer a few topics to match your group’s interest. Send us an email if you are interested, and I’ll be in touch. I enjoy meeting quilt groups through zoom, and I am scheduling through February now. I prefer a larger group – the bigger your group the more time I can give. You can also combine 2-3 smaller guilds for a presentation.
The 3 popular lecture topics are:
1. International Quilt Trends 2. Art and Activism 3. My Creative Life (My career as an artist/designer.)
sharing your love for fabric, Luana and Paul
Travel/Quilt Dates: Feb 21-24, 2024 – QuiltCon in Raleigh, NC – eQuilter is a GOLD Sponsor.
Today’s adorable Free Quilt Pattern features a goldendoodle puppy in a woven basket, ready for you to take home. She flashes her irresistible puppy-dog eyes at us, knowing exactly how cute she is!
To make this 60″ x 68″ quilt, you will start with the 36″ x 44″ central panel. Fussy cut the allover puppy print to set on point in the corner blocks, then use Hoffman Hand-Dyes to piece the clever ‘dog bone’ borders. Finish with our exclusive brushstroke tonal for the outer border.
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.
You may have read in our Saturday newsletter, that early last Thursday we lost my mother, our beloved Nana. Many of you met my mother over the years and decades, because she was such a part of our lives. I moved back to Colorado in 1990 as a major life decision, because I knew she would need me one day. We helped and supported and loved each other over the decades, and I would not be who I am today, without her enthusiastic support. In 2009 as her older husband’s health seriously declined and he needed fulltime nursing care, she moved in with our family. She had just about killed herself caring for an older ill spouse by herself. My whole family has been involved in helping her since then, and I am grateful to my husband and kids for their love and patience as we went on this journey with Mom.
My mother was a pianist, and she was my accompanist when I performed on my cello in junior high and high school. We won a talent show together. She shared her love of horses with me, and I got a pinto quarter horse and did junior barrel racing at 14 years old. She supported me as an artist, framing my artwork and hanging them on the walls. One of my paintings was on the wall next to her up until the end. She always had a hug and a smile, a positive word, and an optimistic outlook. She was a Pisces, a true idealist, and she always managed to always see the best in others.
At the age of 46 she had breast cancer. She survived the surgery, chemo and radiation, to live another 40 years. Paul’s mother was a BC survivor also, and hence the inclusion of Breast Cancer Research in our list of 7 charities. She was so proud of our success, our family, and every milestone as we raised money to help those in need. I know that I was so lucky to have her for a mother. The last time we spoke, she said, as she always did…”I am so lucky to have you as a daughter.” May you all be so blessed with such unconditional love in your life.
I have posted her obituary and some photos on this page, for those of you who would like to remember or know more about Carolye Johnson. When she came to the end, she was supported by a privately-owned hospice team who came to her room in the nursing home every day. I highly recommend seeking out a non-corporate hospice team when a family member needs this kind of support. They are Angels on Earth. Mom had the peaceful end of life that she deserved.
Carolye G Johnson (nee Collins, Walker) of Boulder, died Thursday November 9, 2023. She was born March 10, 1937 in Compton, Los Angeles, California to John Edgar Walker and Merle Frances Swanson Walker. She lived on a farm in Clackamas County, Oregon and attended the one-room Wildcat schoolhouse, later graduating from Molalla High School.
She attended business school before marrying her first husband, Kenneth G Collins in 1956. After moving to Milwaukee Wisconsin, she worked for General Electric while her husband attended college. A daughter was born there, and 2 sons were born later in California. In 1968 the family moved from Hermosa Beach CA, to Longmont Colorado. The couple divorced in 1976.
She remarried in 1977 to Vern Wilfred Johnson, and they worked together in Johnson Realty. During these years she earned her Real Estate Brokers License and they worked in a business partnership. It was during these years that she joined the Longmont Charter Chapter of ABWA, the American Business Women’s Association, serving in many positions and eventually as President. The organization raised scholarship money for women to return to finish their education, and she was very proud of her time in ABWA. Many of her closest friendships came from these years. She was a longtime friend and business associate of Eleanor Flanders of Longmont, assisting with matters for the Longmont Historical Society and the St Vrain Education Foundation.
Carolye was an accomplished pianist and thoughtful poet, encouraging her children and grandchildren to explore their musical and artistic talents, and pursue higher education. She was still playing her piano up until the last month of her life. She was an avid outdoor enthusiast, going on daily long walks with Vern and their dogs, near their homes in Niwot, Louisville, and later Fort Lupton. Their many years of real estate transactions in farm and ranch properties in Eastern Colorado, were reflected in their large vegetable garden at each residence.
She is survived by sons Kristopher (Alison) Collins of Rockville, Maryland; Brent Collins of Laguna Beach, California; and daughter Luana (Paul) Rubin of Boulder. Also grandchildren Connor Collins (Knoxville TN), Katie Collins (London UK), Mathilde Collins (New York City), Roman Collins (Newport Beach CA), Mason and Samuel Rubin (Boulder) and Sophie Quinn Rubin (Denver).
Carolye is remembered as a kind and generous woman, with a gentle nature, always promoting peace. She was quick to smile and give a hug, and to help anyone in need. Those who knew her always felt enriched to have her in their lives. Her optimistic outlook made her a natural leader and a beloved mother and grandmother.
