The New Design Wall, Take 2 + Slogging Along With FrankenWhiggish Rosebuds

Good Morning and Happy Weekend!  We've been bustling and busy since my last post.  Bernie and I drove eleven hours back up to Charlotte, North Carolina to move our youngest son Anders into a new apartment at UNC, spent some time with my mom in South Carolina, and then drove another eleven hours to get back to our new home in Naples, Florida.  We drove him up this time because we needed to get his car up there and we had a lot of stuff we were bringing for the apartment, but we'll be flying him home for breaks.  Meanwhile, the new bump drapery interlining fabric for my design wall was delivered from Amazon (this post contains affiliate links) and Bernie and I are both SO much happier with how it looks now!

96 x 96 Design Wall Wrapped with New Bump Drapery Interlining 

When I posted about the first version of this design wall last week a lot of you thought it was fine as long as it was functional, and if it was in a dedicated studio or craft space in my home where no one had to look at it besides myself, I might have agreed with you.  But I lobbied hard to get my husband on board with putting the design wall in a very prominent, public part of our home where everyone would walk past it and have to look at it all day long, every single day, and I promised that I was going to make it look GOOD there.  

In the photo below, we've recovered our 4' x 8' foam insulation board on the right with a 3 yd. length of 54" wide white bump drapery interlining fabric, and you can see how much better it looks than the natural cotton quilt batting on the left panel that ripped, puckered, stretched and bulged when it was glued to the foam board and then screwed into the wall:

Batting, Washers + Screws on Left, Bump Interlining + Velcro on Right

Since we'd used Super 77 Multipurpose Spray Adhesive to affix the batting to my foam boards, we left the batting in place and just wrapped and smoothed the bump interlining over top of it.  Fuzzy interlining sticks to fuzzy batting!  We both agreed that the screws and washers looked horrendous, so we used Heavy Duty Industrial Strength Velcro to reattach the panels to the wall this time for a much cleaner look.  We also lowered the board a few inches, centering them vertically and horizontally on the wall this time even though that meant completely covering an electrical outlet.  (One important caveat to anyone wanting to replicate this design wall in your own home: industrial Velcro is really, really strong, and should be considered permanent.  We are fully expecting to have drywall damage to repair when the time comes to remove this design wall and sell the house, and we are cool with that).

Here's a closer look at the bump drapery interlining fabric I'm using on my design wall:

Bump Drapery Interlining

Bump interlining, also known as English Bump, is commonly used in high end custom drapery workrooms with fabrics like silk taffeta.  It feels kind of like a cross between cotton quilt batting and flannel.  Unlike batting that gets secured to the quilt top and batting by quilting stitches spaced at most 4-8" apart, drapery interlining is only attached to the face fabric and lining fabric at the very top of the drapery panels, where the pleats are stitched, so interlining has a lot more structural integrity preventing it from stretching and sagging, similar to a flannel fabric.  But it's also a lot thicker and softer than regular flannel, with even more fuzzy nap to help it stick to the drapery fabric and lining (or to the quilt batting and quilt blocks, in my case).  It almost feels like a blanket.  I was delighted with how well the bump interlining covered the messed up batting layer and holes from the washers and screws, because I really didn't want to have to start over with brand new foam boards.  You can't see any of the damage through the interlining.  Yay!

Here's a shot of the back of one of the design wall panels showing how we used Duck Tape to secure the wrapped edges of the Bump interlining and to miter the corners:

Duck Tape Secures Wrapped Interlining and Mitered Corners

Now I have a design wall that we can both live with, that looks great with or without quilt blocks, and I can get back to actually working on my projects!  Speaking of which, I'm cruising along with those little rosebuds on my FrankenWhiggish Rose appliqué blocks!

Rosebuds Stitched Down!

Next Up for FrankenWhiggish: 96 Stuffed Berries

I only have eight SIX more rosebuds to secure with hand stitching and then I will be moving on to the very last appliqué element needed for these blocks, the 96 stuffed berries (12 per block) with the fussy-cut flowers.  Here's what I found packed away with this project from when I made the first test block TEN years ago:

Archaeological Evidence for Stuffed Berry Construction

If I knew it was going to take me an entire decade to get around to making the stuffed berries for the remaining blocks, I would have left myself better notes.  First thing I'm noticing is that I seem to have cut some of my berry stuffing circles from a scrap of wool batting, and others from scraps of white polyester quilt batting.  Which ones did I use in my completed quilt block?!  Aaargh!  Why did I put both of them together in this project box to confuse myself?!  Thank goodness for my blog posts preserved and searchable here on the Internet, but unfortunately I didn't think to specify what type of batting scrap I used in my blog post.

On reflection, I think I might have been using wool batting scraps for the stuffed berries on my Jingle quilt, switching to the polyester batting for FrankenWhiggish because I had more of it or because it flattened less when I hit it with the iron, or who knows why.  There's just a small piece of the wool batting in the box, but there's a much bigger piece of the folded white poly batting.  Maybe I worried that I didn't have enough wool and didn't want to have to buy another package if I ran out.  Whatever -- I'm going with the poly.  One thing I did have the prescience to include in that old blog post was a link to Erin Russek's YouTube tutorial demonstrating the method I used to make my stuffed berries, so I was able to watch that here to refresh my memory.

Seven Sisters Coming in September!

Meanwhile, my Seven Sisters pattern and acrylic templates have arrived from Australia, and so have the other odds and ends I ordered for this new Rainbow Scrap Challenge project I'm planning to begin in September.

Well, almost everything has arrived -- I ordered the wrong size (4" green handle) Karen Kay Buckley Perfect Scissors by mistake.  The micro serrated blades on green ones are the same size as the Apliquick scissors I use for snipping needle turn appliqué, but the larger plastic handles are more comfortable in my hand so I'm going to keep them anyway.  I ordered the blue handled 6" Karen Kay Buckley Perfect Scissors for hand cutting all of the diamonds for my Seven Sisters project, and they'll be here tomorrow.  It's so much easier to pick the right size when shopping in person (support your local quilt shops!), but I was shopping for these items from the passenger seat of Bernie's car on the drive to North Carolina.

The white Pilot gel pens were a tip I picked up from Wendy Welsh's hand piecing tutorial, something I want to try next time I'm marking on a dark fabric.  I already have mechanical graphite pencils, Bohin extra fine chalk pencils, blue and purple and pink temporary fabric marking pens, and Frixxion heat erasable pens in my bag of fabric marking tools, but it's nice to have lots as options as every now and again I've run into a fabric that none of my marking pens shows up on.   I'll be drawing on the wrong side of my fabrics to mark both cutting and hand stitching lines for this project.  I also bought a nice, fresh pack of my favorite Bohin size 10 Milliners needles.  I'll be piecing with cotton thread, mostly Aurifil, but there was no need to purchase any thread as I already own scandalous quantities of thread in every fiber, weight and color under the sun.

3 inch Diamonds for Seven Sisters

By the way, Karen had asked me what size the 60 degree diamond patches were in my Seven Sisters pattern from Michelle Yeo Designs.  The finished size, measured across the length of the diamond from one acute point to the other, is 3".  

Alright, that's enough blathering from me for one day.  Those last six rosebuds aren't going to stitch themselves, and it's time to take Samwise the Spoiled Rottenweiler for his pre-dinner neighborhood patrol.  I'm linking up today's post with my favorite linky parties, listed below.  Happy Quilting!

MONDAY

Design Wall Monday at Small Quilts and Doll Quilts  

Monday Musings at Songbird Designs  

TUESDAY

To-Do Tuesday at Quilt Schmilt  

WEDNESDAY

Midweek Makers at Quilt Fabrication

Wednesday Wait Loss at The Inquiring Quilter

THURSDAY

Needle and Thread Thursday at My Quilt Infatuation  

FRIDAY

Peacock Party at Wendy’s Quilts and More

Finished or Not Friday at Alycia Quilts

Off the Wall Friday at Nina Marie Sayre

Beauty Pageant at From Bolt to Beauty

 TGIFF Thank Goodness It’s Finished Friday, rotates, schedule found here: TGIF Friday

SUNDAY

Frédérique at Quilting Patchwork Appliqué

Oh Scrap! at Quilting Is More Fun Than Housework

 

Slow Stitching Sunday at Kathy's Quilts