"Make An
Anniversary Quilt"
Winner:
Angie Padilla
Quito, Ecuador

See this quilt on display at our booth at the International Quilt Market and Festival in Houston, Texas

Finished "My Dream House" Quilt by Angie Padilla

EQ5 project for "My Dream House" Quilt

When my children asked me why I named my quilt, "My Dream House," I told them: there are no kids... there is no mess. The kitchen is tidy (obviously nobody cooks in this house!), the whole house is magically in order, and no one seems to sleep here, because the bed is always made. In my dream house... everything takes place in the studio! Sigh... in my dreams... I've wanted to make this quilt for some time. I had already made some two-dimensional rooms, but wasn't satisfied. So a graphic-designer/architect friend gave me a two-hour crash course on drawing three-dimensional rooms. -Angie Padilla Angie's website
I first drew the background blocks in EasyDraw. Four of the blocks are exactly the same – just rotated. Then I drew each and every one of the appliqué blocks in PatchDraw. I reused a few that I’d already drawn for previous projects – like the shoes, purse, teapot and teacup, and some sewing materials. For all the other blocks, I started out by drawing a complete piece of furniture (or other object) then "clipped" them depending on the angle in which they were placed in the room. For example, the original bathtub had claw feet and was taller, but I cut it in half to give the impression of looking up into that room, so the feet would be hidden. Then I deleted the block outside so that they could be set on the quilt as motifs.
	Sometimes I drew blocks from my imagination, and sometimes I used decorating magazines for ideas. I even dragged furniture around the house so I could see it at a distance to judge angles. The ironing board, iron, and sewing machine are replicas of my own... I just set them up on the other side of my studio and sat down to "paint" them on my modern-day "canvas"... my computer.
From the very beginning, my intention was to make the studio the focal point of the quilt, and I think I was able to achieve that. I also wanted to have a lot of small details, so that when looking at the quilt there would be lots of things to "discover".
The biggest challenges – in design and sewing – were getting the correct angles for the rectangular blocks (which particularly affected the windows) and the staircases. I wanted viewers to imagine climbing up those stairs! Designing the quilt took about 90 hours. Printing patterns also posed a problem for me, that I wasn't able to resolve in EQ. Since most of my blocks were laid out as motifs and my preferred method to appliqué is using freezer paper, I faced the problem of not being able to mirror the blocks in the print menu. This is probably the most important feature I would like to see in future versions of EQ; that is, the ability to mirror templates in the same way we are able to do with foundation pieced blocks.
Sewing really pushed my limits, too. The hardest parts to sew: those itty, bitty, little blocks... like the pincushion, and bottles on the bathroom shelves. I had to hold some small pieces down with a pair of tweezers to sew them – there is no such thing as basting spray in Ecuador! The staircases were also challenging and took a long time to sew, in an effort to keep all those strips straight. Would I do it again? In a heartbeat. I can say that now, weeks after finishing the project. The truth is that toward the end I started feeling like I'd never start another appliqué project again! But as the days and weeks go by, I find myself drawing again... and I guess I just can't help myself... the Patch Draw feature is a magnet!