Budget Quilter's Design Wall

A good design wall is something all quilters want and/or need, but often either don’t have the dedicated wall space or the budget to create themselves.

What is a design wall? According to Quilting.About.com the definition of a design wall is: “Any wall where you can position quilt blocks, then step back to view the layout at a distance. Quilters often hang batting or plain white flannel on their design walls, because quilt blocks and other components stick to it easily without pinning.”

When you don’t have a design wall, you tend to use what’s available – floor space, the dining room table, the top of a bed, your cutting table, etc.. Although these are well-used alternatives, they don’t always provide the proper perspective needed to audition blocks, colors and lay-outs.

Judie Bellingham, BellaOnline’s quilting editor, came up with a creative solution for her sewing room, which had three doors but very limited wall space.

Using cotton batting from her stash and two dowels cut to size and placed in “pockets” at the top and bottom of the batting, she created a portable design wall that she simply hangs over the top of the door. The top dowel holds the design wall in place, the bottom dowel gives weight to the design wall so it hangs evenly and stays taught.

With her permission, here are Judie’s instructions for making the wall:

Requirements:
Cotton Batting
2 lengths of dowel 1¼’ diameter
Sewing machine and thread

How to:
Using a Tape Measure, measure from the very top of your door to 6” below the handle. My measurement is 60”.

Turn the top and bottom ends over by 6” and sew down using a straight stitch. This will give you a rod pocket top and bottom and is big enough to slide the dowel into place.

Slip the dowel into the pockets top and bottom and hang one end over the door.