This weekend we celebrate the American worker, as we take a day of rest on Labor Day.
Today’s exclusive Free Quilt Pattern captures the spirit of freedom with a wild Bald Eagle in flight, set on a backdrop of the American flag. This Hoffman panel is a favorite for those making Quilts of Valor, so we offer this pattern idea to inspire your quiltmaking efforts.
To make this 66″ x 54″ quilt design, you will create diagonal wide Red and Cream stripes to frame the Eagle panel, which represent the rippling stripes of a flag in the wind. Using the same Northcott Stonehenge blender, frame the quilt with a Navy Blue border, and Red binding. Note: the Cream blender has silhouettes of flying Eagles, to complement the main panel.
We hope you are having a relaxing holiday weekend with loved ones, and yes we are closed on Monday to give our staff the holiday off as well. *Happy Labor Day!*
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.
We hope you are enjoying the unofficial end of Summer, and maybe even sneaking in some sewing time over the long weekend.
This week I am just over the moon with the Paris Panel and Poppy collection that we are featuring at the top of the newsletter. Jason Yenter’s Halcyon II is a stunner, and we got in a precious shipment of 10 new Cream/Natural Batiks that are in such high demand. Be sure to check them out.
The next couple weeks I am playing catchup, after being gone to Alaska for a week, and down with Covid for another week. Today is the first day I got totally dressed and got out of the house. It was good to come to the office and work on my list of things to do. I have a couple deadlines to nail down, plus prep for my lecture at CU Boulder. Then I have some time and energy to devote to a new creative project.
So I have a question for you. Would you like me to create some applique patterns to download? Would you like me to design a Mystery Quilt or Block of the Month for eQuilter customers? Is there something else you’ve been hoping I’d apply my designer brain to, for your future enjoyment?
I am also starting some projects that hopefully will lead to resuming my textile design work, but that is a longterm project.
Please write to me at [email protected] and give me your ideas, your requests, and I’ll use your feedback in making a choice for my next Creative Time Pod.
In the meantime I am also working on editing more photos from the Birmingham Festival of Quilts, and of course my recent trip to Bear Camp in Alaska. You will see more photos popping up on my photo pages this week.
Travel/Quilt Calendar: Sept 14, 5:30 pm – “Art & Activism” lecture at CU Boulder. (Contact us for a link to free tickets.) Sept 28-30 – AQSG Seminar – Louisville, KY Oct 27 – Nov 3 – Quilt Market/Festival – Houston TX
This fabulous Free Quilt Design captures that breathtaking magical moment as baby turtles are scrambling to the water and taking their first swim, to life in the wild. The artist has included colorful seashells, coral, and cool clear waters to set off neutral colors of sand and hatchlings.
To make this 53″ x 62″ quilt design, you will start with the central 24″ x 44″ panel which captures an overhead view of this flurry of tiny-turtle action. This exclusive eQuilter quilt design uses fabrics from 4 different manufacturers to create a dazzling piece of quilt art that will amaze your friends! You will enjoy cutting into these fabrics – this is one of the most beautiful combinations of ocean prints and blenders that we’ve ever created!
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.
As you probably know I have recently returned from Bear Camp in a remote area of Alaska. Unfortunately the day I got home I had symptoms and then tested positive for Covid. After all this time, it finally got me – ugh! I went on Paxlovid Friday night and I am starting to feel human again today. I am in isolation so I don’t pass it to anyone else.
Last week I shared a bear photo with you, but this week I want to share another kind of wildlife photo with you, that was a daily part of our experience. Baby Foxes! There was a family of SIX foxes living in and around our camp. 4 kits and the 2 parents. It was a circle of life. The voles would hang around hoping for crumbs. The foxes would catch the voles, and then bring them to the teenager kits (fox cubs) who basically ran around tumbling and playing all day, delighting us all.
This beautiful fabric panel (top) really captures the beauty and lush wilderness that I experienced on this trip. There is of course a huge richness of wildlife in Alaska, thanks to so much preserved National Park and State Park land. We have to thank those who had the vision and foresight to set aside these pristine wildlife sanctuaries, despite continuing pressure to invade and disrupt these habitats. Everyone I met who lived there expressed relief that it looks like the Pebble Mine has been stopped. We must thank those who continue to fight, to protect these wild and irreplaceable lands.
Another treasure of our National Parks is the opportunity to view the starry sky in all its glory, in a super dark sky area. The further you are from ‘civilization’ the more you will see in the sky. I have not seen the Milky Way with the naked eye so vibrant and densely full of stars, for at least 10 years, maybe since my childhood, and maybe never…until now. It is worth going to a place like this just to see the sky, but of course I went to see the bears.
Because the late Summer sun was still setting late and rising early (due to the Northern latitude), I had to set my alarm for 2 am, climb out of my tent, and then stand alone in the dark looking up in amazement. The Milky Way filled the sky! I felt like I could reach out and touch the dazzling streams of stardust. Every shooting star was vivid and left a long trail. Hooting owls called to each other across the forest around us. We only had 2 clear nights of star viewing, but it was…one of those experiences I will never forget.
Once I get out of quarantine and can start editing photos on my big computer, I will start posting photos on my photo pages. I am anxious to see the images that came home with me too!
Check out our Video pages for interviews and show reviews.
Travel/Quilt Calendar: Sept 14, 5:30 pm – “Art & Activism” lecture at CU Boulder. (Contact us for a link to free tickets.) Sept 28-30 – AQSG Seminar – Louisville, KY Oct 27 – Nov 3 – Quilt Market/Festival – Houston TX
This glowing Tree image has ignited our creative juices! Is it a Family Tree? (YOUR family tree?) Is it an impressionistic Autumn portrait from the Forest? A statement about Climate Change? The inside of a Poet’s brain? What do you think??
To make this 50″ x 64″ quilt design, you will start with the luminous “Electric Tree of Life” – a radiant 24″ x 44″ panel digitally printed with a full spectrum of COLOR. You will love the collection’s coordinates – a dazzling leaf print in 2 colorways – and an allover floral. Piece them with Kona Solid Black to make those zingy colors really POP!
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.
I’ve just come home from my trip to Alaska, photographing the Brown Bears (Coastal Grizzly Bears) and also visiting with the Homer Quilt Guild. I had a fantastic time in Bear Camp, and besides amazing viewing of the bears, it was the first time in 10 years since I was in a dark sky environment and was able to see the Milky Way in all its majesty. It was a much-needed deep embrace with Nature, and I know it will nurture and inspire me for a long time.
You may not know that there are a lot of serious quilters in Alaska! The Homer Quilt Guild is no exception. They get together and sew once a week! I imagine they don’t get together as often in the winter, but it was fun to learn that Homer is considered the ‘banana belt’ of Alaska because of its warmer coastal temperatures. Homer was our jumping-off point to take a 1953 Beaver prop plane across the bay to the park. Our pilot gave us a swooping close-up tour of an icy volcano on the way to the park, which I only need to do once in life, thank you very much.
Now that I have visited both Katmai and Lake Clark National Parks, I have a greater appreciation for the work that goes into preserving and protecting these priceless pieces of land. We met a park ranger named Diane who comes out for 4 months a year and lives alone on the coastline of the park, with bears wandering past all day and night. She lives here in Colorado the rest of the year.
I will be working on my bear photos to share with you, and I am still catching up on my photos from the Festival of Quilts. (Birmingham UK) Thanks for your patience. There is another reason why it will take me a little while to edit and upload these photos: on the way back home I started feeling funny so I took a Covid test and found out that I finally had succumbed to the virus. Ugh! But I got on Paxlovid immediately and that took the edge off in 4-5 hours. Now I am isolating in my bedroom for a week, and hopefully, due to my vaccinations and the Paxlovid, I’ll be bouncing back soon.
Happy National Dog Day! You may have read that we lost our beloved dog Ruby recently. It didn’t take us long to realize that we (and our remaining dog Leo) need a 2nd dog in the house. So two weeks from today we’ll be welcoming a new puppy into our home. No name yet – we’ll have to meet her first – but we are super excited and that anticipation will get me through the next several days of isolation.
Tonight we are featuring Carol Cavalaris’s stunning piece of artwork as the centerpiece of our exclusive Free Quilt Pattern – with the dramatic imagery of three galloping horses running through the surf, accented by a spirit horse above, and a sunset southwest backdrop.
To make this 58″ x 65″ quilt design, you will start with the finely detailed 36″ x 44″ panel. Use the indigenous geometric stripe, with warm desert sand cloud and wild tossed horse coordinates to create the border. This is a quick and easy project and makes a great gift for someone who will love this powerful ‘Wild and Free’ Southwest themed quilt.
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 am writing to you from Homer Alaska. I have just spent a mind-blowing 4 days at Bear Camp at Lake Clark National Park, among the bears ( and foxes) with no wifi or cell service. I slept in a fancy tent and went out with the NatHab group several times a day to photograph the bears on the homestead property and the adjacent national park land. One of the high points was this morning as we went out for our final bear viewing session. As we tromped single file through the woods behind our guide, I was scanning the forest around us. I saw a dark round shape and immediately called out “Bear on the right in the woods” and at that moment another larger shape stood up and looked us in the eye. It was a huge mama bear who had been nursing her cubs, before we so rudely interrupted. Those moments when you look a wild beast in the eyes, out in the woods, are moments you never forget. She gazed at us for awhile, then laid back down, and we took a hard left on another trail. Phew!
(Natural Habitats is the tour company that has hosted my previous polar bear trips with eQuilter friends and customers.)
We flew back midday in a small prop plane, and when I got back to Homer and turned on my phone, I was inundated with text messages and emails. That is the price you pay for going off the grid for a few days I guess. I have a couple thousand photos and videos to go through, so I can share my favorites with you in the weeks to come. Here is just one that I grabbed off my SD card tonight. It was another younger mama bear running through the river trying to catch a salmon for her yearling cubs.
One of the emails I found this afternoon was a congratulatory notice of an award that I received this week! It was from Vivika Denegre, senior editor at Golden Peak Media.
“Today, Quilting Daily formally announced the Top 20 Award Program and list of the 2023 honorees in our newsletter. Congratulations, once again, for being recognized as an individual who has shaped the quilting industry by your artistry and passion.
As a group, your combined contributions have made an impact that resonates beyond the craft and into the world of design, entrepreneurship, and philanthropy. It is a true pleasure to highlight your accomplishments with this recognition.”
I have posted a link to the article and the awards on our Facebook page. I share this award with my partner and husband Paul, and I am honored to share this award with several other industry luminaries. Congratulations to all of the other winners!
Tonight’s Free eQuilter pattern features RJR’s amazing digitally printed collection of peonies, roses, dahlias & poppies. The dramatic lighting creates still life effects that mirror the Romantic art style.
To make this 59″ x 59″ masterpiece, you’ll start with the main 24″ floral vase panel, and accent with coordinating floral blocks & Garden Gems double border print. The solid black background adds to the romantic feel, creating an overall picture of ‘Shadow and Elegance’.
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.
Luana is traveling to Alaska to photograph the Bears! She’ll be flying to Lake Clark National Park tomorrow, and she will report on her epic adventure in our midweek newsletter. Stay tuned!
Don’t forget to check out our Designer Clearance while it is 40% off! Lasts through Tuesday 8/22/23!
