You are here: Home > Users > Newsletters > Archive
of E-mail Newsletters > 2007
- September Newsletter > An Interview with Angie Padilla
Interview with Angie Padilla - September 2007Meet Angie Padilla, a quilt designer from Quito, Ecuador
Q: Angie, we're so pleased to be working with you, and to be publishing a CD chock full of your amazing appliqué designs. We'll have your "My Dream House" CD (think houses and hundreds of wonderful furnishings, and even dolls) out in November, 2007 -- all in EQ projects which will load right into EQ5 or EQ6. We first really became aware of you as a designer when you entered, and won (!) our Anniversary Contest several years ago. Next you won second place in the "Do You EQ?" contest that Quilter's Newsletter Magazine sponsored with us. You've been an EQ user for a long time. How did you first find out about Electric Quilt and begin using it? Were you living in Ecuador at the time? A: Margo Rose, from Future Heirlooms, was the one who introduced me to Electric Quilt software. I had been testing for her and she became somewhat of a mentor when I decided to leave my former career as an interpreter and turn to quilting full-time. Margo kept insisting that for teaching purposes it was worth my time to invest in this software. I purchased EQ4 online and then waited a couple of months until someone traveled down to Ecuador bringing it for me. Margo was right. Within ten minutes of installing the software I had "designed" my first quilt, printed the templates, and began sewing that same day. Within weeks I was using it to plan all my quilting projects, as well as all the graphics for my website and for my teaching materials. Nowadays it is my #1 tool for all my quilting (and many non-quilting) endeavors. Q: Your drawing skill is quite amazing! Were you interested in drawing as a child? What's your art background? A: Actually, I am a very late bloomer. I grew up with two incredibly talented and artistic brothers and always envied their creativity, but no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't even draw a straight line, much less come close to their artistry. I married and became a mother while still in college, so living on a student budget drove me to learn how to sew most of our clothes. That was the first inkling of a creative streak --- although I purchased commercial patterns, most of the time I would mix and match parts of them to come up with "original" garments. But I still couldn't draw. People think it's funny when I say I learned to draw with Electric Quilt. I think it would be correct to say that the average user begins learning the software with the Easy Draw tools, and that's precisely were I began. I had finally found a way to draw a straight line! And I discovered I felt more comfortable holding a mouse than a pencil! Until then, my quilting had pretty much been limited to traditional patterns. Now I had the freedom to experiment and draw my own designs. I really enjoyed appliqué designs, so was interested in trying out the PatchDraw tools, too. As in sewing, I began by imitating. My first designs tended to be Baltimore Album style, since drawing leaves and petals was an easy way to start, and then using WreathMaker gave me the illusion that I had come up with a really nifty design. I then started to experiment with tracing photographs, and learned to simplify lines. And I realized that this is what artists do: they take something and reproduce/trace it they way they "see" it. I also started looking for online drawing resources and picking up tips here and there. I guess the creativity was there, but I hadn't found the channel to express it. For most people it probably is a sketchbook and pencils or paints. For me it was a computer, a mouse, and Electric Quilt software! Q: You have a wide variety of original patterns for sale on your Web site. What do you most enjoy designing? Perhaps the most important lessons I learned from my parents were to find the balance between living intensely and being passionate about what I do, while at the same time being able to see the funny side of things and not taking myself too seriously. I eat, breathe, live quilting. That is my passion. And to make sure laughter is a part of that passion, whimsical designs are what I have come to enjoy drawing the most things to tickle my funny bone, just because! Q: What made you begin creating house quilts that we could see inside? A: My first two years in college, I lived in Chicago. My very favorite hangout in that city soon became The Art Institute of Chicago, which I visited nearly every week. Of all its wonderful collections, the one that fascinated me the most and always drew me in was the Thorne Miniature Rooms. I eventually started collecting miniatures, and at one point, while living in California, even built a 1:12 scale house and started making all the furniture and accessories for it. The house was left behind when we returned to Ecuador, but I still have all the furniture packed away carefully. If I hadn't taken up quilting, I probably would have continued with this interest in miniatures. I kept thinking someday I would go back to that, but the amount of time needed for it was something I consciously chose to put instead into quilting. When the Electric Quilt 10th Anniversary contest was announced I decided this was an opportunity to challenge myself: I had chosen quilting over miniatures, but here was the chance to do both! So I did. (-:
Q: What were your biggest design challenges? Getting perspective right? We have your projects here in the office, and we can play with them. And I've noticed how easy it is for us to put a piece of furniture in place, hang a picture on the wall, or put down a throw rug, and it all looks right. The perspective just works. But was this tricky for you to figure out as you drew? A: Oh, yes. With the My Dream House quilt, getting the perspective right was the biggest challenge. I was really fortunate to have a great teacher, not only with that project, but with 3D and perspective in general. Tomás Eskola is an architect turned graphic designer and one of my first quilting students. (Have I mentioned I seem to learn more from my students than I am able to teach them?) With that first house project, Tomás went over my first, and second, and endless drafts of both the house, individual rooms, and pieces of furniture time and time again, explaining about angles and helping me correct lines. And it stuck. For this CD, it was important to maintain the perspective, but simplify a little to make the projects easier to sew. The angles are not always true, but they are close enough to give that impression. Working with small to large sizes also helps give that impression, and hopefully the individual pieces are not too difficult to sew. Q: Your CD offers such an imaginative variety of furnishings --- something for everyone, from Victorian chairs to modern loungers for example. What inspired you as you were choosing what furnishings your "Dream Houses" might have? A: In real life I still have to find/live in my dream house. Until then, I continue to collect home decorating magazines, which I love to sit and browse through on rainy afternoons while sitting by the fireside. My own personal tastes tend toward Country French and Spanish styles, although I am often tempted by stark Scandinavian simplicity. I have friends with beautiful homes that range anywhere from complete minimalism to Victorian-style rooms packed with knick-knacks. And my daughter-in-law, Allison, has a knack for finding and combining old and new and at times very odd objects that has led me to appreciate (although not yet in my own home!) retro and vintage styles.
Q: We can see quilters using these projects as wallhangings (perhaps one for each season), quilts for the bed perhaps with little pockets to hold dolls (you've even designed people for your quilts), and even a fabric dollhouse panel that we're currently having a great time making - with furniture that is moveable. (More about this in a later newsletter perhaps.) Have you "play tested" the idea of these houses, and all the furnishings, with your grandchildren? How do you see people using your Dream House CD? A: Actually, the idea for doll "people" came precisely from a family discussion around the dinner table, where I had been telling them about the panel you were working on. My grandkids, Alexia and Julian, wanted me to make them one immediately. But it was my nineteen-year old daughter Jamie who pointed out you need dolls to play dollhouse, so that is where the idea of including doll people came from. And yes, since I'm fairly sure the kids won't be reading this interview, I'm planning on making them their own dollhouse for Christmas, where the house will be constructed out of flannel and where I plan to print the doll people and furniture onto fabric and then fuse them onto flannel so they stick but can be moved around. I think the projects in this CD can be used in many different ways. The most obvious is as wallhangings, but I can think of many other uses. My favorite ones are related to the bathroom, probably because it is often the most overlooked room in the house. I could see using all the perfume bottles or bathtubs to decorate a bathroom in different ways, such as using the motifs along the edge of a shower curtain or along a window ledge. Or on individual towels or bathrobes for "his & hers" gifts. Instead of quilting small wallhangings, why not frame several individual blocks to hang together in a row, as a set? One of the houses provided comes with a front and back. I could see a large cushion with the front on one side and the back on the other. Or perhaps a bed-sized quilt in a child's room made of one of the house sides, and a wallhanging over the bed with the other side. In other cases, think of using different motifs for table runners and placemats, or covers for kitchen appliances. Appliqué one of the clocks as a wallhanging, but attach a clock mechanism to make it a real working clock. Think of other non-traditional but quilty uses, like using fabric sheets to print the rooms of a house as individual pockets for a house "organizer". And why limit it to fabric? Stencil the designs onto the wall or other decorative objects! This applies to any room in the house. The idea here is to take the projects as they are, or divide them up and use them in parts, or mix and match with whatever other designs you like. Quilters are so creative, I'm sure they will discover many other possibilities we haven't even thought of! Visit Angie's Web site which offers a wide variety of patterns for sale. Angie's Bits 'n Pieces [http://ajpadilla.com] While on Angie's site, be sure to see her granddaughter, Alexia's own EQ6 quilts: And see her wonderful, finished EQ6 quilt top while you're there too.
|
by Penny McMorris
