Monday, February 20, 2012

I need a design wall!

I came to this realization over the weekend.
Up until now it hasn't been that BIG of an issue. I've only done quilts that need to be layed out and arranged after the blocks themselves are completed. I use the floor and with the exception of Jammer's mega huge 100 Good Wishes Quilt, for which I had to practically clear the entire room of furniture (in our old house), this has been fine. It has even been fine in this new house, especially since we have a much larger great room here and I need to move the furniture out of the way a lot less.

But now that I am actually designing a quilt (make that 3 actually) that don't have a preset pattern, I need to have a better system. Keeping track of the blocks on the floor of my studio, so I don't make too many of the same time for any one quilt, won't work for long as I will quickly run out of free carpet space.

Yes I would love to have some fancy schmancy cool design wall set up. But this room (like too many others in this house) still needs to be painted (white flat wall paint sucks). Until the room is done, hopefully this spring, I don't want anything permanent on the walls.
So I came up with the idea to use these.
The kids and I ran out to Home Depot to pick them up (I use the hook ones for our Christmas stockings and they work great) and then hopped over to Joanns for a pack of inexpensive white batting, at 50% off thank you very much. It isn't batting that I would ever put into a quilt but it was cheap and will serve this purpose just fine.
This is what I have now. MUCH BETTER! I had to fold the batting over one to get it to stay in the clips but otherwise a problem cleverly solved I believe. And all for $10.13.

5 of you added your own colorful comments:

beaquilter said...

I was about to suggest just pinning batting on the wall, but you did! looks great :-)
I was fortunate enough that our old projector screen got covered in batting after our old projector broke and is not worth fixing.... isn't it just nice to see blocks from standing and looking straight at them??

Diane-crewe said...

well done you ... the mother of invention is... aquilter who needs a design wall! x

Annie said...

A nice bargain design wall and I sure do like what you are working on with it!

Heather said...

Another cheap, portable idea is to use the back of a picnic tablecloth (you know the kind ~ with plastic on one side, flannel on the other. Works great, especially if you want to take your project on the go.

leanne said...

great design wall - I've discovered they really are an essential tool - I've got a fons and porter one with holes in the top and I'm using the same clips so they won't leave marks on the wall - and its also easier to see your design on the wall rather than the floor :)