Who is behind The Design Room Quilt Show

Quilts are judged in gymnasiums, on pipe-and-drape, under fluorescent light, against other quilts. They are almost never judged as what they actually are: the largest, softest, most opinionated piece of furniture in a room. So we asked three working interior designers to hand over three real rooms, with real proportions and real palettes, and invited makers to build for them.

This edition is the first one. There is no archive to show you yet, and we would rather say that plainly than dress up a launch as a legacy.

• The Best in Show purse is funded before entries open, whatever the entry count.
• The full weighted rubric is published before entries open, not after.
• Every entrant receives their score card after the reveal — not only the winners.
• Judging is anonymous. Names reach the panel only once the awards are set.
• A named human answers the desk, usually within one business day.

One fee per quilt: $35. It is the same number wherever you enter from — we simply bill in the currency closest to you, and your bank sets any conversion rate.

Cash prizes are paid by PayPal within 30 days of the reveal. If PayPal is not available to you, ask us and we will arrange an electronic transfer or a cheque instead. Winners are responsible for any taxes or transfer fees in their own country.

The show is open worldwide, and you never ship your quilt to us — entry, judging and the show floor are all online, from photographs. Physical prizes and marketplace sales do involve shipping; those terms are on the prize page and in the marketplace terms. You are billed CA$35 unless you are in the United States, where you are billed US$35, and your bank does the conversion at its own rate. Prize money is paid to a PayPal account; PayPal reaches over 200 countries, and where it does not we will arrange an electronic transfer instead. We do not withhold tax and we do not issue tax forms — declaring prize income where you live is yours to handle. All entry materials, briefs and judging are in English, and machine-translated entry statements are perfectly welcome. We cannot pay prize money or ship prizes into countries under sanctions that block payment processing or freight; if that affects you, tell us before you enter and we will confirm.

You keep copyright in your quilt and in your photographs. By entering you grant us a non-exclusive licence to display those photographs on this site, on the show floor, in the winners announcements, and in our own marketing for this and future editions — including paid advertising for the show itself. We never license your images to a third party and never sell them. Your name is credited every time an image appears unless judging is still anonymous. The licence has no end date so past editions can stay online, but you may ask us to remove an image at any time by writing to the show desk and we will take it down within 14 days.

Tell us what you need and we will make it work. We can supply room briefs as plain text or large print, read a brief aloud on a call, accept an entry statement by voice note instead of a written form, and help you upload photographs if the form is hard to use. If a disability, illness, bereavement or caregiving makes the deadline impossible, ask before the deadline and we will extend it for you privately — no documentation required. The show floor is keyboard navigable, every image carries alt text, and the awards reveal is captioned. Write to the show desk with the subject 'accommodation' and a person, not a form, answers.

The show desk handles entrant, sponsor, media and accessibility questions. Signed-in members get a running thread; everyone else gets a reply by email. We aim to answer within one business day during the entry window, and within three outside it.