eQuilter Newsletter - December 7th, 2025
50% Off FABRIC SALE - December Designer Prints

I hope all of you have plans to join your quilt guild or your local quilting klatch for holiday merriment, stitching and b**ching, or whatever makes you laugh. It has been a heckuva year and we all need to have some clinking glasses and quilty gift exchanges to get through the end of the December. Our local Meals on Wheels sells frozen take-and-bake pies as a fundraiser, so I went and got a couple pies for our family Christmas celebrations. All my quilt projects are finished for the year, so it is time to hit the quilt parties. Yay!

This week the organizers of the Houston Quilt Festival had a big announcement: The dates for next year's festival have been moved forward and will now be November 12-15. But also they announced that Quilt Market (the trade show for quilt shops) has been permanently cancelled. I have been going to Quilt Market since March 1999 so I've had waves of nostalgia the last few days, thinking of all the wonderful talented people in the industry who I have come to know and love. It is the end of an era.

However this week also brought us an abundance of magazine publications, and I am most excited by Quilting Arts Magazine because my artist group "Soul Stories" (premiered in Houston) is featured with a fabulous 12-page gallery, starting on page 32. Congratulations to our group of artists, on such a strong start to our project the last couple months. If you pick up the magazine, be sure to check out this article.

A couple days ago we had our first big snow of the season (7" total) and our first super-chill nights. (Down to 9 degrees Fahrenheit) The luminous full moon shining on the snowy trees and hills, reminds me of that Christmas Eve poem:

"The moon on the breast of the new-fallen snow
gave the lustre of midday to objects below..."

It was a harbinger of the Pantone Color of the Year for 2026, which is "Cloud Dancer"...an ivory color representing clarity and serenity...a calming influence in a frenetic society. Think of it as a blank canvas. I like the whisper soft palette of pastels that coordinate with this floating, illuminating hue. You don't have to like it or not like it. It is a color trend forecast for 2026 and it is also the color worn by Suffragettes. You may recall that I spent an evening with Lee Eiseman in September, and had a 6-hour conversation over dinner. As the executive director of the Pantone Color Institute, she is the color maven who makes the final choice and announcement of the COTY.

We've hung a fresh pine wreath in the office and at home, greeting us with that woodsy green fragrance, and now I am in the holiday spirit. Today I am taking my "Celtic Christmas" quilt (made for the now-defunct "Irish Quilt Magazine") to a Denver Christmas quilt guild party, where we are going to hang up all our quilts and celebrate our quilty friendships and count our blessings.

We all wish you many seasonal joys as you prepare for whatever holiday you celebrate.

Sharing your love for fabric,
Luana and Paul

Subscribe to my artist blog here. Most recent article - Pro Tips for BERNINA Q 20

Travel/Lecture Dates:
Dec 10 - Canadian Quilt Association - Zoom Lecture - Intl Quilt Trends
Feb 2 - SAQA Europe/Middle East - Zoom Lecture
Feb 18-21 - QuiltCon - Raleigh NC
Apr 26 - May 1 - Alegre Retreat, Gateway CO
May 16 - New England Quilt Museum, Soul Stories Artist Reception


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