Little Penguin Quilts Through the Year

Little Penguin Quilts Through the Year

Sunday, October 25, 2015

Finally... a Design Wall!

I was so excited this week when I finally figured out how I could incorporate a design wall into my sewing space.  I sew in the basement of our little house, a room that used to be our family room, but which I took over after our boys left home and it was no longer needed for a teenage gathering place! Although I am still working on getting better lighting for it, I love this space because there is lots of room and no need to clean up every mess I make!  (I do clean it up once in awhile, I promise!) The one thing it has always been missing is room for a design wall, and I have always made do with the design FLOOR instead.  It has worked for me, but with wanting to spend more time working on my Scrap Vortex quilt, a place to lay everything out and be able to leave it up and mull it over on a daily basis was sorely needed!


So what did I figure out?  We still have a fairly large wooden entertainment cabinet down there, and I realized I could drape a king-sized flannel sheet over the top of it, pin back the sides, and set a couple of heavy items on top to hold the sheet on, and it worked!  Below you see my Scrap Vortex as it is right now, and I have loved being able to leave it up all week as I've added blocks to it so that I can see how it is developing.  


My Scrap Vortex quilt is coming right along, and is about 40 x 50 right now.  Still not big enough, so I keep working on adding on to it.  I think of it as "building" a quilt!

This week, I also decided to join in a little paper-pieced quilt along with Faith at Fresh Lemons, and it will be a great use for scraps!  She is generously sharing several paper-piecing patterns for some adorable spool blocks in a series she is calling "Fresh Spools."  Week 1's block looks like this:


These blocks are finishing at 6 x 6 inches.  I haven't done any paper-piecing since I finished up my And Sew On BoM quilt with Quiet Play back in 2013, and I had forgotten how fun it is!  I'm looking forward to experimenting with different low volume backgrounds and colors for the spools themselves.  I started with the blue for this spool because I have so much of it, and love the way it turned out!

Happy Sunday sewing to everyone!  Linking up to Oh Scrap! at Quilting is More Fun than Housework.


5 comments:

Ivani said...

What a great idea! Now you have a design wall. Love your blue spool, it is a fun block to use those scraps. Have a wonderful week.

Cynthia Brunz Designs said...

Such a clever idea Diann! You will love being able to have your blocks out on a wall. Thanks for sharing with Oh Scrap! Your vortex quilt is really coming along nicely.

JanineMarie said...

Quilters are such inventive people. They "make do" with whatever they have available--even space. Your design wall looks like it will work really well for you. The spool block is so cute. It will be fun to see what other colors you come up with.

Sandra Walker said...

Ha! You are a genius! Love what you did. I'd be lost without my design wall; I made my husband help me pin it to our vapour barrier in the unfinished basement corner where I sew. :-) I just did some PP this week too! Love the colours in your block.

Linda said...

Yay for your design wall!