The Sun peeks over a rocky skyline and spreads its warmth over a glowing landscape, in this week’s exclusive eQuilter Free Quilt Pattern. Is this a Desert Sunrise or Sunset? It is whatever you want it to be….but it is depicting the Golden Hour when a soft light illuminates the valley with sweet rays of Honey-Gold sunshine.
To make this 54″ x 70″ quilt design, you will start with the 28″ x 44″ central scenic panel. Then piece a Blanket Stripe, Blanket Geometric, 2 tonal coordinates and a Hoffman Hand-Dye to make the border. The complementary color-play of Teal and Molten-Copper is what gives this quilt design a real eye-popping effect. Imagine you are on the porch of your hacienda somewhere in the Southwest, and enjoy the view!
PLUS – you’ll receive Free USA / 50% off INTL shipping when you order the fabrics for this wonderful 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.
The seasons’ first clumps of early Spring flowers burst up out of the ground this week. There is nothing like the first crocuses and hyacinth blossoms to lift one’s spirits!
Today is Sophie’s Gotcha Day. 19 years ago she was placed into my arms in China. She was 8 months old, but the size and development of a 4 month old. Once we got ahold of her, her development took off. Those of you in the adoption community are very familiar with the Gotcha Day. Many adopted kids do not know their actual birthdays so the Gotcha Day is the next best thing. It is a date you can mark on the calendar with confidence. Sophie is lucky – she was found at 2 days old so we also know her birthdate.
Many of you have followed Sophie’s story from the beginning, but if you are new to eQuilter and are curious, you can find our adoption story here, and our 2019 Heritage Tour story here. We are so grateful we were able to visit China and her orphanage before the pandemic hit! Anyway Sophie Quinn will turn 20 in June, and she is finishing her sophomore year at CU Boulder as a Music Education major. She is driven by the knowledge that music is a healing force for stressed-out teens and those with mental health struggles.
The fire in Boulder last weekend did not spread into the city, but for awhile there was a big evacuation and it was scary for everyone on that end of town. I did finally make it to see the Mens Quilt exhibit at the Rocky Mountain Quilt Museum in Golden. As always, it was a delight to see what the guys have created, and of course this time the quilts were extra special, having been made during the lockdown.
This is the last weekend to see my painted bear sculpture at Chautauqua Park, and bid on any of the bears in the online fundraiser auction. I attended a lunch for the 15 artists on Friday, and it was great to hear them talk about their inspirations. I hope my Mama Bear goes to live somewhere where she will be loved for many years to come.
This coming week I am taking my first trip of the year! My curated exhibit “For the Love of Gaia” is winding down, and I am giving a power point lecture on International Quilt Trends at the closing reception – 1 pm Saturday April 9, at the New England Quilt Museum in Lowell, Massachusetts. If you are in the area please come to my free lecture!
The donated comfort quilts are pouring in at Mission of Love, and also being dropped off here at eQuilter. If you would like to donate a comfort quilt for Ukrainian refugees, or donate money to help ship food and medical supplies to refugees in Europe, please read the details here. Thank you so much.
Quilt/Travel/Sponsor Calendar: June 15-18 – Quilt Canada, Vancouver BC July 22-26 – Sacred Threads Weekend, Dulles/Wash DC August 4 – Long Beach Quilt Festival Aug 17-20 – Festival of Quilts – Birmingham UK October 2022 – Luana’s Polar Bear Tour – Churchill Manitoba Canada
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To make this 57″ x 65″ quilt design, you will start with the 36″ x 44″ scenic digital panel with sailboats, waves and seagulls. Then cut up and piece the 4 corner star blocks, using 3 colors of Hoffman Hand-Dyes. Add the seagull coordinate and hand-dyes to create the border, in shades of cool soothing Blues. You’ll be off the water, perhaps humming that old Chris Cross tune “Sailing”.…
PLUS – you’ll receive Free USA / 50% off INTL shipping when you order the fabrics for this wonderful 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.
Dear Friends, The quilts for Ukrainian refugees are coming in now, in batches. They are arriving at Mission of Love in Ohio, and you are dropping them off at our office in Boulder Colorado. Today we shipped 100 lbs of donated comfort quilts to MOL, and we’ll keep shipping them as they come in.
We want to ask you to keep in mind that MOL is a volunteer operation and they are stretched thin right now between loading up trucks at the warehouse, and getting the food and medical supplies to the airport to catch the next plane to Poland.
Please do NOT call them. They will only refer you back to us. If you have questions call or email eQuilter. We are prepared to answer your questions. We don’t want to interrupt their life-saving work while they are rushing to get these urgent supplies shipped. Thank you!
Ship to: Mission of Love 2054 Hemlock Ct, Youngstown, OH 44515
We also want to remind you to think of those who will receive these quilts, and the conditions in which they are living now. Generous lap/nap quilts and small bed quilts are the best sizes. Nobody has a king size bed there.
As you may know, the Mission of Love is the largest user of the Denton Program. This is a program which uses military cargo planes to transport relief and medical supplies and food (without charge) usually after a natural disaster. In this case we are trying to get supplies to the edge of a war zone, so these military planes are currently not available to us. At the moment we are also having to pay to have them shipped on commercial planes which is very expensive.
Remember to get a tracking number for your shipment to Ohio if you want to confirm receipt. They do not have an office staff to let you know the package was received.
I want to share a photo we took today, (above) with the batch of quilts that was shipped out to Ohio an hour later. Many of our staff are in the photo, and they were so delighted to see what you quilters have contributed to this effort.
We want to remind you that the most urgently needed help right now is medical supplies, food, and of course housing. We can help with the first two, through Mission of Love. Kathy wants to send a 40’ container ($7200 shipping) with wheelchairs, walkers, canes, hospital supplies etc from their warehouse. The refugees and orphans are in need of all the humanitarian aid now. Last week they sent 16,000 lbs of rice to Kyiv by container. The cost of all this shipping needs to be covered.
If you got this far down the page, I also want to point out that we are having our 40% Off End-of-Season Chocolate Sale this week, because it all needs to be shipped out now before it gets too warm! If you live in an area that is still a cool early Spring, it is not too late to snag a chocolate stash to share with your local quilting buddies.
Praying for Peace, Luana and Paul
Sat April 9 at 1 pm – Intl Quilt Trends lecture – New England Quilt Museum – (Closing reception for Luana’s curated exhibit – “For the Love of Gaia”
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To make this week’s exclusive eQuilter Free Quilt Pattern, you will start with the fantastic 36″ x 44″ digital printed scenic panel. Then you will cut up a Block Panel to make the Dragon Portrait corners, and piece the matching Dragon stripe, Solid Kona Black and 2 collection coordinates to finish the border.
PLUS – you’ll receive Free USA / 50% off INTL shipping when you order the fabrics for this wonderful 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.
Well, today did not go as planned. I was on my way to Golden to see the Men’s Quilt exhibit at the Rocky Mountain Quilt Museum, when I spotted a plume of smoke in the mountainside behind NCAR. In the 5 minutes it took to drive into town, the fire exploded and tripled in size. We have many friends who have evacuated, and our 2 kids in town are a couple blocks from the edge of the evacuation zone. They are packing up in pre-evacuation mode. So it is on the opposite end of town from our family home and business, but we know so many people affected by the evacuations. Between the recent devastating fire (1100 homes lost) and the one year anniversary of the King Soopers mass shooting, that end of town has to be experiencing PTSD at the moment. I hear it is on the national news, but hopefully by the time you see this, the fire will be under control. Ugh.
Anyway, I did not make it to the museum today. Hopefully next week!
Our relief effort and comfort quilt drive with Mission of Love is picking up speed now. We have received a big batch of quilts dropped off at our eQuilter warehouse, which we will ship out Monday afternoon. You can drop off donated quilts here, or ship direct to Mission of Love in Ohio – see details here..
Kathy Price at MOL has this message for you:
“Unbelievably, such kindness being shared with the refugees of Ukraine. You can feel the love and compassion radiate from the boxes as I open them. Everyday this week UPS, Fed Ex, and US postal service has delivered over fifty parcels from many of the states of America. We truly are making a difference in so many in need in Ukraine, together. Every box has a note saying thank you for helping Ukraine. The thanks goes to you who are making comfort quilts for complete strangers with no attachment or expectation. Together forever we can and will share the gift of love to those in need, as in the past 15,000 comfort quilts that were sent in America and the around the world via eQuilter.com and Mission of Love.”
Quilt/Travel/Sponsor Calendar: Now through Apr 9, 2022 – New England Quilt Museum (NEQM) “For the Love of Gaia” exhibit Sat, April 9, 1 pm – “Intl Quilt Trends” lecture – NEQM Closing Reception, Lowell MA June 15-18 – Quilt Canada, Vancouver BC July 22-26 – Sacred Threads Weekend, Dulles/Wash DC August 4 – Long Beach Quilt Festival Aug 17-20 – Festival of Quilts – Birmingham UK October 2022 – Luana’s Polar Bear Tour – Churchill Manitoba Canada
Have you ever gone snorkeling, and encountered a Sea Turtle? These gentle creatures glide silently through the water, nibbling algae and occasionally bobbing to the surface for a breath of air. We feature this peaceful scene as our exclusive eQuilter Free Quilt Pattern, at a time when we could all use a soothing image.
To make this 69″ x 63″ quilt design, you will start with the central 35″ x 44″ scenic turtle panel. (Which is absolutely gorgeous.) We’ve added a Turtle Stripe and 2 coordinates to create the border. This is a quick and easy quilt design that will delight anyone who loves and protects these endangered creatures.
Turtles have been part of legends and spirituality around the world, and are associated with indigenous creation stories. In the cosmological myths of many cultures a Great Turtle carries the weight of the world upon its back. In several religions, mythology and folklore, turtles symbolize wisdom, long life, and resolute tranquillity.
PLUS – you’ll receive Free USA / 50% off INTL shipping when you order the fabrics for this wonderful 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.
I imagine many of you are feeling the same way that I am feeling now. The weight of all the world is very intense. Climate change, millions of refugees all around the world, endangered species, and now Ukraine, are all weighing heavily on our hearts and souls. Because we are working to help those in need, and speaking out to fight eco-system collapse, I have to keep going. But tonight as I drove home I wept in the car. This week we topped $1.9 million raised for non-profits in the last 23 years, but it is bittersweet. There is so much more to do. We thank you for supporting our family-owned business, which allows us to help those in need, and protect the Earth.
Today was also the 1 year anniversary of the mass shooting at the King Soopers grocery store here in Boulder. Some days it feels like too much, but just like you, I get up and keep going. I practice Daily Gratitude and meditation which helps me to stay centered in the moment. Quilting is certainly part of that grounding and centering. I make art and do something creative every day. It keeps me sane in these troubled times.
Today I had lunch with 2 of our humanitarian friends – the founder of Engineers Without Borders, and a retired administrator for Doctors Without Borders. One of them had just come back from a refugee camp on the border of Mexico, full of desperate Haitian refugee families. These 2 have decades of experience and stories to tell about those who have fled violence, natural disasters, and famine…in Asia, Africa and Central America. I have witnessed extreme poverty and shanty towns on 4 continents as well, so we have some pretty intense conversations. I have this kind of relationship also with Kathy Price at Mission of Love, who is shipping food, medical supplies and your donated quilts to Ukrainian refugees now.
However we are part of an international network of people who don’t look away. I have been blessed to meet many of these people who spend their life in humble service, and they continue to energize and inspire me. They give me hope for the future. They are always looking for ways to help others. One of them recently had surgery and he is already out there volunteering to help those who lost their homes in the fires. And I know that many of you are part of that network as well. When you stand up to donate money, time, and quilts to those who have lost everything, you are part of that Global Network of Love.
Tonight Sophie and I finally got to see Hamilton in Denver. How many years have we been trying to get tickets? I don’t know. I’ve lost track. We did see the live recording of the original cast when it came out from Disney in 2020. But we always wanted to see the live show. We’ve watched the film several times with subtitles so we actually can follow what is happening in the rapid-fire historic rap. (That’s how I learned to understand Shakespeare by the way – I watched several Shakespeare films with subtitles until I learned to comprehend the Shakespearean language.) Anyway, if you’ve seen the live show or the film, you know that it is quite intense and emotional. The message that we only have so much time in this life, to make a difference, to help others, to positively affect the future….was not lost on us.
Sophie Quinn (now a sophomore Music Ed major at CU Boulder) was at the String Teachers conference in Atlanta Georgia last week, and she was bubbling over with excitement being there – kind of like when we all meet up at the quilt festival. A few years ago she was complaining that there were so many ‘Sophies’ in her classes, so I suggested that she could go by the Americanized version of her Chinese middle name, so you might see her on social media as Quinn Rubin these days. But she says that our family, and our quilter friends can still call her Sophie. She was named after my great-grandmother who immigrated from Sweden in the 1800s. But the poetic name she was given in the orphanage as an infant, means “Musical Heart” so her new nickname has deep meaning as well. It is good to have options!
Praying for Peace, Luana and Paul
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Has March come in like a lion or a lamb in your community?
The symbol of the Lion and Lamb together, comes from both Christianity and Judaism, representing a prayer for Peace. With today’s world events, it is a symbolic image that deeply resonates with many of us.
To us, this iconic image represents a visual prayer for that much-needed Peace.
To make this 63″ x 65″ quilt design, you will start with the central 28″ x 44″ scenic panel. Then cut up the 24″ x 44″ block panel with verses and prayers from the Bible. Piece together with the gorgeous coordinates from this group, and you have a comforting keepsake lap/nap quilt that will become an heirloom for someone special.
PLUS – you’ll receive Free USA / 50% off INTL shipping when you order the fabrics for this wonderful 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.
Happy National Quilt Day! We have a little giggle about this because around here, and we think for most of our customers, every day is Quilt Day. But if it has given you an excuse to have a quilt party or get back to a quilt project – celebrate the day!
The Spring Equinox arrives today and for all of us in the Northern Hemisphere, it is very welcome. Although we have a respite from Covid here now, we know it is surging in other places around the world, so can only hope with the warmer weather that we can all feel a little freer to step out and enjoy the sunshine and our friends again. I saw the tulip leaves pushing up through the dirt today. But of course, since this is Colorado, we’ll have a snowstorm on Monday.
Kathy Price from Mission of Love wrote to let me know yesterday, that the first donated quilts have arrived in their warehouse, and they took 2 truckloads of medical supplies to be shipped to Ukraine this week. If you would like more information about our project with Mission of Love, you can read the details on our eQuilter blog page. Mission of Love is a trusted partner of 22 years, and we are grateful to know that the money and quilts donated will go directly to Ukrainian refugees.
2 of our charities are helping Ukrainians now – Mission of Love and Doctors Without Borders. We are amping up our donations to support these and other non-profit relief organizations on the ground now. We share your intense emotions about this incomprehensible situation, and we are glad to see the quilting community, and the whole nation rising up to help those affected.
I am actually taking a quilt-related trip in the near future! I am traveling to the New England Quilt Museum in Lowell Massachusetts and will give my updated power point lecture on “International Quilt Trends” for the closing reception of my curated exhibit “For the Love of Gaia“. This will be at 1 pm on Saturday April 9. I hope to see some of you there!
I am actually making plans for some other quilt-related trips this summer, and the thought of hanging out with our quilty friends, and looking at actual quilts hanging in exhibits, is VERY EXCITING! I am being optimistic about the current worrisome variables out there in the world. Fingers crossed that our paths might cross this year…dates for the events we are sponsoring (that I hope/plan to attend) are below.
Quilt/Travel/Sponsor Calendar: Now through Apr 9, 2022 – New England Quilt Museum (NEQM) “For the Love of Gaia” exhibit Sat, April 9, 1 pm – “Intl Quilt Trends” lecture – NEQM Closing Reception, Lowell MA June 15-18 – Quilt Canada, Vancouver BC July 22-26 – Sacred Threads Weekend, Dulles/Wash DC August 4 – Long Beach Quilt Festival Aug 17-20 – Festival of Quilts – Birmingham UK October 2022 – Luana’s Polar Bear Tour – Churchill Manitoba Canada
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