I have a magic wall in my sewing room. Two 4’ x 8’ sheets of foam insulation board are covered with fleece and nailed to the wall. They hold projects for me to consider, analyze, rearrange, and organize for sewing.
My grandmother did not have a design wall. Quilters these days are advised to use a vertical wall to consider color placement and other options in the quiltmaking process. I am fortunate to have space to have a permanent design wall, but there are options to use one that can be put away when it’s not in use.
In the photo here, you see that my space is larger than most quilts I make. The left side holds a wall quilt in progress. Once I start sewing the blocks together, I’ll put them back on the wall in units so the layout doesn’t become confusing. The magic of this wall is that fabric clings to the fleece (or flannel, or batting, whatever you use) without pins. This makes it easy to move blocks around until the arrangement is just right! Once several blocks are sewn together, the weight sometimes makes it necessary to add pins to hold things in place. And, yes, I do move to the floor when the whole thing is too cumbersome to hang – but by then the design decisions have been made.
My wall also serves as a holding station for projects on the way to becoming. As I see pieces in progress (as on the right side of the photo here) I plan ways to bring them to completion, or combine them with another project. Serendipity comes into play sometimes as stray blocks sit beside each other and become companions in a quilt.
The blocks on the wall are a reinterpretation of Miss Lily’s Red Baskets, which I shared here. I stitched all these little baskets (they finish at 5 1/2” square) with Kaffe Fassett fabrics onto a Cherrywood background. Once I put them on the wall, they needed something. I decided to use the focus baskets like one in Miss Lily’s project, but, rather than one, I used three. And, rather than a bow, I added these birds cut from a funky whimsical fabric I had on hand. The leaves came from that fabric, too. While the baskets are all needleturn applique, the birds and leaves are raw-edged. They are held in place with Jude Hill’s invisible baste stitch. As I do the free motion machine quilting, I’ll stitch these pieces down.
This photo shows my debate about using all basket blocks, or including some free-flying birds.
As usual, you can click on any image to enlarge it. When done, just exit the photo and you’ll come back to this page.
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