Your Free Quilt Pattern – Dream Big Holiday

Posted on December 21, 2021 by Luana

The gift of a beautiful Poinsettia at Christmastime is such an expression of joy and love, and this week’s exclusive eQuilter Free Quilt Pattern is a huge Ruby-Red Poinsettia that will be treasured for years to come. You can purchase this seasonal quilt kit now while we still have this limited edition panel, and get an early start on a holiday gift for next year.

To make this dazzling 67″ x 67″ quilt design, you will start with the 43″ x 44″ digital-printed huge flower panel. Sew the pieced border with Red and Green Stars, and a White Snow blender.

Please note that we also have the Pink Poinsettia and White Poinsettia panels in stock now, in case you want to re-design with your own color combination. See instructions on customizing your quilt, at the link below.

Consider finishing the project by freemotion-quilting with Metallic Thread, and be sure to use a Metallica needle and Sewer’s Aid thread lubricant for metallic stitching-success!

…from the ‘Dream Big’ collection by Jeanie Sumrall-Ajero for Hoffman Fabrics.

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).

Don’t miss the ‘Rescued and Loved at Home‘ and ‘Destination USA‘ quilt patterns!

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.

Click Here for a Video Tutorial of the Free Pattern Designer.
Download Instructions for the pattern at the bottom of the pattern designer page.

Luana and Paul Rubin

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Last Minute Holiday Prep

Posted on December 20, 2021 by Luana

Now is time of year when Gift Certificates become the supreme choice for last-minute shoppers…to Give and to Receive! We can send them out email, even on Christmas Eve. Drop a hint and you might get one too. *wink*

My painted 54″ fiberglass bear “If Mama Bears Ruled the Earth” is now on public display in Chautauqua Park here in Boulder. It will be there through April 3 when the fundraiser auction ends and some lucky winner will take it home. I met the juror and he told me that the 15 artists (including Barbara Beasley) were chosen from 100 applicants, so I am feeling kind of proud of this accomplishment. I enjoy quietly sitting on the bench nearby, and watching the children play on the bears.

The construction in my new studio space finally finished yesterday, and although it is not quite ready to be fully set up, I’ve carved out a space to plug in my BERNINA and finish my current project for an exhibit that has been delayed several times during the pandemic, but now has an imminent deadline. The construction delay (from 1 week, to 5 weeks) was due to supply chain and labor issues, and was very stressful. But what can you do? I will spend the last 2 weeks of the year organizing my new space and plowing ahead with new projects for a creative New Year. Can you believe it? …2022 is just around the corner now.

We are having a severe winter drought here, so the topic of the week has been Winter Watering. We will either have to turn on the sprinkler system, or get a really long hose, to water our young trees on the property. You may recall we moved into our new eQuilter building 3 years ago, and we had to replace some trees last year, so the current drought has become a concern for all of us with new trees. Planting trees is a way to fight climate change and bad air quality, but you have to give those young trees a chance to put down some deep roots.

This week we’ll be having our Ugly Christmas Sweater and Holiday Costume Contest at the office, so I’ll be posting photos on our Facebook page. Please note we will be closed on Friday Christmas Eve and Friday New Years Eve so our staff can enjoy the holiday.

Send us your photos of the holiday quilts you’ve made with eQuilter fabrics this year, and we’ll put them on our social media this week!

…sharing your love of fabric,
Luana and Paul

Quilt/Travel Calendar:
Jan 18 – Apr 9, 2022 – New England Quilt Museum (NEQM) “For the Love of Gaia” exhibit
Feb 16-19 – QuiltCon – Phoenix Arizona
Sat, April 9 – “International Quilt Trends” lecture – NEQM Closing Reception
October 2022 – Luana’s Polar Bear Tour – Churchill Manitoba Canada

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Your Free Quilt Pattern – Hydrangea Garden

Posted on December 17, 2021 by Luana

Tonight we celebrate the Beauty of the Garden, with colorful Songbirds visiting a lush haven of jeweltone blossoms. This collection is an amazing example of how technology (digital printing) can bring the artist’s original illustration to life.

To make this 69″ x 69″ quilt design, you will start with the gorgeously detailed 24″ x 44″ scenic panel, then cut up and piece 2 of the vignette block panels for the side sections. Add the engineered stripe and coordinates to finish with a clever border.

We offer this exclusive eQuilter Free Quilt Pattern to you this week, because we know the holidays will be over soon enough, and this is a special project that will bring you joy over the coming Winter months of sewing time. This one’s for YOU. We are so grateful for your support of our family business in these challenging times, and consider this a hug of gratitude at the end of another long year.

…from the ‘Hydrangea Garden’ collection by Janie Lee Designs for Studio E Fabrics.

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).

Don’t miss the ‘Rescued and Loved at Home‘ and ‘National Parks‘ quilt patterns!

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.

Click Here for a Video Tutorial of the Free Pattern Designer.
Download Instructions for the pattern at the bottom of the pattern designer page.

Luana and Paul Rubin

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Long Nights & Starry Skies

Posted on December 15, 2021 by Luana

“Only in the darkness can you see the stars.” – Martin Luther King Jr.

As we head into the darkest week of the year, approaching the Winter Solstice, I am thinking about all the ways I can appreciate the longest nights of the year. We’ll have 9 hours and 21 minutes of sun tomorrow. The sun set here at 4:35 pm tonight, and night falls heavily in late December like a door slamming shut. These quiet dark nights are good for sewing, sipping tea, reading and resting.

“Someone I loved once gave me a box full of darkness. It took me years to understand that this too, was a gift.” – Mary Oliver

Light pollution has spoiled our view of the Milky Way over the decades, but I have memories of a few remarkable nights when I experienced the galaxy strewn across a black velvet sky in a light show that left me speechless. The ones I remember most are – reclining in a high mountain meadow in a sleeping bag when I was at summer camp as a kid, and more recently being blown away by the Southern skies on a pitch black night, on the Southwest coast of Australia. The Milky Way was like fireworks reflected in the bay!

Because of this love of stargazing, every night I go out to look at the sky, without fail. These days I do it when I take my dogs out to pee, before I go to bed. Before I knew Paul, I would go out on my back porch to look at the stars at midnight. When I met Paul and visited his house for the first time, the garage opened up and there was a huge telescope taking up half the garage, and I knew he was the one. We bonded over our mutual love of Star Trek and Monty Python.

“Look at how a single candle can both defy and define the darkness.” – Anne Frank

Some of you may feel that we are going through a dark time. Our hearts go out to those affected by yet another natural disaster – the tornadoes that hit 5 states a few days ago. I want to let you know that thanks to the eQuilter charity fund, we donated to the Community Foundation of West Kentucky (based in Paducah) and the Team Western Kentucky Tornado Relief Fund. We are relieved to know that the Quilt Museum in Paducah was not affected.

On the other hand, we are entering the Season of Light, which we celebrate next week when the Solstice marks our return to longer days. As we prepare for the season of love, generosity, and compassion…I hope you have some quiet time to contemplate the stars and the New Year ahead.

“It’s better to light a candle, than to curse the darkness.” – Confucius & Eleanor Roosevelt

…sharing your love of fabric,
Luana and Paul

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Your Free Quilt Pattern – Destination USA

Posted on December 14, 2021 by Luana

We are celebrating all 50 states of the United States of America in this week’s Free Quilt Pattern. This exclusive eQuilter quilt design would make an excellent teaching tool as a wall-hanging, or a nostalgic trip around the country as a Lap Quilt or Nap Quilt. The states are alphabetized so it is easy to find your favorite states. This is quite a conversation-starter with beloved iconic images and symbols from around the country.

To make this 55″ x 47″ quilt design, you will start with the large 36″ x 44″ panel, featuring a ‘Retro Postcard’ from every state….a reminder of how we used to collect postcards from every state we visited on those family road trips.

We’ve finished off this quilt design with 4 different Earthtone Stonehenge textures, to symbolize the journey across our rugged landscape. Because this is made from a grid panel, you can do an easy faux ‘stitch in the ditch’ around the postcards which means this is kind of a cheater quilt with a border. This is a great quick gift for your favorite person with a bad case of Wanderlust!

…from the ‘Destinations’ collection, by the Anderson Design Group for Riley Blake Designs.

Don’t miss the ‘Rescued and Loved at Home‘ and ‘National Parks‘ quilt patterns!

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.

Click Here for a Video Tutorial of the Free Pattern Designer.
Download Instructions for the pattern at the bottom of the pattern designer page.

Luana and Paul Rubin

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Elves in the Warehouse

Posted on December 13, 2021 by Luana

Today I went by myself to see the musical play “A Christmas Carol” based on the Charles Dickens novel. They have given the same production every year in Denver and I have seen it many times over the decades. The Victorian costumes, the singing and dancing and of course the message, are often just what I need to get in the holiday spirit. This production was particularly emotional because they had to skip 3 years. The first year was for a theater renovation, and then of course …the pandemic happened. I felt safe to go because they are requiring that everyone be vaccinated and masked. There is a new middle-aged actor playing Scrooge. I couldn’t help but wonder what happened to the older gentleman who has played the role for so long…but I was not surprised.

And so we are coming out on the other end of a wormhole and everything has changed, whether we like it or not. Some things have speeded up, like our adaptation to being educated and entertained online. Some things have slowed down, like the supply chain that will bring some of our gifts next year. This week I had to laugh – when a Christmas gift I ordered in September 2020 – finally arrived in time for Christmas 2021!

This coming week we are working hard to get your holiday gifts out the door. If you order something that is meant to be a gift, give us a call and we’ll try to push it out the door a little faster. We have a team of elves in the warehouse who can work some magic if you let us know it is a last minute gift. For the non-quilters in your household, our Artisan Chocolates will please almost anyone, and you can slip a few bars in with that order of precuts and thread. We do still have a good selection of Quilt-themed Calenda rs in stock, but when they are gone that’s it folks!

Otherwise we are getting into that time of year when Gift Certificates become the supreme choice for last-minute shoppers…to Give and to Receive! We can send them out by mail or even by email on Christmas Eve.

…sharing your love of fabric,
Luana and Paul

Quilt/Travel Calendar:
Jan 12 – Apr 9, 2022 – New England Quilt Museum (NEQM) “For the Love of Gaia” exhibit
Feb 16-19 – QuiltCon – Phoenix Arizona
Sat, April 9 – “International Quilt Trends” lecture – NEQM Closing Reception
October 2022 – Luana’s Polar Bear Tour – Churchill Manitoba Canada

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Your Free Quilt Pattern – Ornamental Owls

Posted on December 10, 2021 by Luana

Every once in awhile an artist comes along whose work is an instant phenomenon, and illustrator David Galchutt’s 2 recent collections have obviously made quite an impression on our customers!

For this week’s exclusive eQuilter Free Quilt Pattern, we offer another option for David’s fabulous stylized Owls. This 47″ x 47″ quilt design comes with a subtle complementary color story, combining the Aqua-Blue with the warm earthtones to make a vibrant wildlife quilt that can be displayed as a wall hanging or used as a delightful Lap/Nap quilt.

…from the ‘Owl Arabesque’ collection by David Galchutt for Quilting Treasures.

Don’t miss the ‘Rescued and Loved at Home‘ and ‘Lantern Song‘ quilt patterns!

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.

Click Here for a Video Tutorial of the Free Pattern Designer.
Download Instructions for the pattern at the bottom of the pattern designer page.

Luana and Paul Rubin

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Weekly Current Events Quiz

Posted on December 8, 2021 by Luana

A lavishly gilded Medieval illuminated manuscript has been recently recovered from a hermetically-sealed trunk in the crypt under a Norman-era chapel, and this tattered gold-leafed folio seems to validate the existence of Unicorns and Dragons in the prehistoric Bronze Age. Geneticists are testing an apparent sliver of bone fragment found between the pages.

Researchers have discovered that chocolate desserts eaten at holiday parties will only release 20% of their calories into the metabolism of party-goers who drink organic cocktails and alternate between animated conversation and energetic dancing for the whole evening. However whipped cream topping from an aerosol spray can will nullify this phenomenon.

Scientists have discovered that vast pockets of precious gemstones buried in the Earth on 3 continents were caused by an exploding giant alien meteor that hit the planet 200 million years ago, and these gemstones are being churned up to the surface by La Nina, along with pre-Dragon fossils. The price of diamonds is expected to plummet.

A life-sized animatronic Tyrannosaurus Rex in London’s Natural History Museum has been dressed in his own gigantic (Ugly?) Christmas Sweater, with tiny sleeves for his tiny little arms, fashioned out of recycled yarn and plastic bottles. ‘British Christmas Jumpers’ has previously produced sweaters for Ed Sheeran and the Houses of Parliament.

Which one of these is true?!?

…sharing your love of fabric,
Luana and Paul

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Your Free Quilt Pattern – Lantern Song

Posted on December 7, 2021 by Luana

A pensive Geisha is lit with a dreamy golden glow of paper lanterns in
this week’s exclusive eQuilter Free Quilt Pattern, featuring the artwork of one of our favorite new artists, David Galchutt. (His Owl collection has been a recent hit!)

To make this beautiful 57″ x 64″ quilt design, you will start with the 36″ x 44″ digital-printed panel. Then piece the lush colors of the coordinate prints with Kona Jet Black for an asymmetrical pieced border.

As we have mentioned recently, it is becoming more difficult to find and stock Asian-themed collections, so we are excited to have this extra special Japanese-themed group. The panel is absolutely gorgeous in person…you’ll just have to trust us that you’ll be even more excited by this digital panel when you open the package!

…from the ‘Lantern Song’ collection by David Galchutt for Quilting Treasures.

Don’t miss the ‘Rescued and Loved at Home‘ and ‘National Parks‘ quilt patterns!

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.

Click Here for a Video Tutorial of the Free Pattern Designer.
Download Instructions for the pattern at the bottom of the pattern designer page.

Luana and Paul Rubin

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No Expectations

Posted on December 6, 2021 by Luana

One of the things I learned as a teenager was to have goals but not expectations. That way you are not disappointed by things that are out of your control. I was just commenting to Paul this week, we are soon entering the 3rd year of the pandemic. The thing that helps me to face the myriad of unforeseeable challenges, is always looking for the silver lining, and not getting attached to any outcomes. This whole wild ride has been a long exercise in learning how to let go of expectations and live in the moment. It is a good time to learn how to meditate, if you have not already!

My mother-in-law had a lot of useful sayings. One of them was – “Life is what happens while we’re busy making plans.” She is gone now, but I think about her tidbits of wisdom often. I think as quilters we have our own version of that idea – “When life gives you scraps, make a quilt!”

As we slide through the end of this year, to the Home Base of the holidays, I am still thinking about the goals I want to set for the coming year. Now more than ever, I set my expectations aside. I will write down my list of goals, pin them on the wall, and go forth with hope for the future. The joy that I carry in my heart, which is the fire of creativity that we express through our art and craft, is what will carry me forward no matter what the next year brings. That passion for creativity is what binds us together, and I am grateful to share this journey with all of you. All we have is this day, this moment, and today is a good day.

…sharing your love of fabric,
Luana and Paul

Quilt/Travel Calendar:
Jan 12 – Apr 9, 2022 – New England Quilt Museum (NEQM) “For the Love of Gaia” exhibit
Feb 16-19 – QuiltCon – Phoenix Arizona
Sat, April 9 – “International Quilt Trends” lecture – NEQM Closing Reception
October 2022 – Luana’s Polar Bear Tour – Churchill Manitoba Canada

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