This is my entry for the Spring 2011 Bloggers’ Quilt Festival, sponsored by Amy’s Creative Side. Click on the button in the sidebar to see other participating blogs.
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For this post I thought I’d dust off an old favorite to share. This is a quilt I completed back in 2003. I was housebound, recovering from a surgery and going a little bananas, so this is what I worked on to fill my time. A few months before that I had purchased EQ5 (Electric Quilt software), and this was the most ambitious project I had been working on so far. I was so pleased with the results I decided to submit it to their 10th Anniversary Contest, and was tickled pink when it won first prize! And several years later, I was invited by the Electric Quilt Company to put out a CD of dollhouse patterns born out of this quilt. I didn’t know it then, but this quilt pretty much put me on the map as a designer!
Click on any image for a larger view
Finished size: 58″ x 62″
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!
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!
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! 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 am a self-learner. I taught myself to sew and to quilt. And I taught myself how to draw. I am learning how to dye my own fabrics and am dabbling with mixed media. I am a quilt designer and teacher, and design and publish my own line of quilt patterns. With this blog I would like to share the bits and pieces of my life.
20 Comments
Whoa. Those itty-bitty dishes! The bathroom scrubby! I love the notes to yourself on the memo board. It’s a masterpiece, hope you have hugged yourself many times over for creating it.
Holy cow! Amazing!!! Looks great.
This is fabulous! All those tiny pieces all put together beautifully! Thanks for sharing.
This is a masterpiece. I would never have the patience or ability to create something like this. Can’t believe you would do it again!
I want a fabric room just like that!!! What a fun quilt. Lots of work but well worth it!!
I dream of one day being able to create something like this. Your “Dream House” is simply breath-taking. Absolutely beautiful.
Angie, i could share at this quilt for hours. Like a dollhouse! I love how the perspective is the second story… oh, I was really transported away!
Never doubted your talent, Angie, but this puts you in a different league in my book! Thanks for sharing, Angie!
🙂
Wow that is amazing!
Boy that is wonderful, thanks for showing and I wish my studio looked like that
This is amazing! I love all the little details! I think it is great that the quilting room takes up 1/3 of the house…in my dream house it would take that much space too! Great work!!
WOW!!! It’s amazing. What a lot of work. Beautiful 🙂
What an ingenious quilt!
Hi Angie 🙂
I followed your link over from Amy’s quilt link-up party.
Your from Ecuador huh? I love how the web can connect us with so many people from so many places!!! Yesterday I chatted with a ladies from Malaysia and Australia. I have blogging friends from Mexico and California. I live in Michigan (the state shaped like a mitten ;->)
You shared that you were house-bound when you made this quilt. What, for y-e-a-r-s?!!!! WOW!!! The amount of detail work in this thing is mind boggling!!!
I am linking up the quilt I made last spring for our grand daughter. If you would like to see it, go here –> http://thebzhousethatlovebuilt.blogspot.com/2011/05/my-thrifty-quilt.html
I can totally relate with a dream house which stays clean, neat and tidy (and no, that wasn’t redundant ;-p). o/~ To dream, the impossible dream …. o/~
Thanks for sharing you masterpiece with all of us!
I love looking at your dollhouse. I really would like to make my own dollhouse. I never had a real dollhouse, now I can sew one!.
Amazing attention to detail…..beautiful.
Stunning. Left me speechless….
Wow! This is amazing! I love it! 🙂
I love this quilt. Talk about a dream studio…. an entire floor of a house. I like the way you dream! It is all beautiful and tells a wonderful story.
Your “Dream House” is beautiful. I did a similar counted cross stitch farmhouse for my mother years ago and she loved. Keep up the beautiful work. 🙂
vraiment superbe