How to Make a Quilt Design Wall It Worked!
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Here are some reasons why a design wall would be a great DIY project. After piecing blocks, I often leave designs partially pinned up as works in progress or reference materials. The design wall really becomes the ultimate brain for any quilter’s ideas. Continue using it throughout your project to stay inspired and work efficiently.
What is the best material for a quilt design wall?
Once your design wall is prepped, it’s time for the fun part – laying out your quilt design! Start by pinning swatches of your fabrics in a layout you like. When happy with the fabric placement, pin or magnet individual blocks onto the wall in that order. Make wonderful quilts in different designs with the Fons & Porter Design Wall.
Design Wall Setup Options
I honestly don’t know how we haven’t thought about that sooner. But I think we just thought it was a bigger investment than it is. A simple design board is a sturdy, portable and smaller version of sturdy insulation foam board. Flannel backed vinyl tablecloths are another option for either portable or permanent design walls. Secure the tablecloth to a wall in several places along its top and bottom edges, flannel side out. Design walls are available commercially, but it's easy to make an inexpensive portable or permanent quilt design wall.
Inexpensive and Portable Quilt Design Wall
The final size of my design wall is 58″ wide by 36″ tall. Mine has turned out to be pretty much a permanent design wall (although I will explain how you could make even one on the wall movable). You can watch my design wall come together in my YouTube tutorial below or follow the written steps below.
Why Would You Want a Design Wall for Your Quilts?
The image above is an excellent example of a design wall that you can make using the flannel. It looks great on the wall, even without quilt blocks attached to it. If you can’t use an entire wall, you can make a quilting board. Quilting boards are the same concept as quilt design walls, except they are much smaller and can be stored when not in use.
Step 3 - Attach the Design Boards to the Wall
Organize your piecing process, watch your progress happen before your eyes and create layouts in full view while you sew. My job was to carefully hold the design wall against the wall while my hubby attached it into place with screws. The 5" box helped prop it up while he used a measuring tape and level to ensure that it stayed straight and square while attaching. Some types of commercial design walls resemble quilt batting — thicker than flannel, and with a good grip to hold patches in place. Yes, that’s really all you have to do to have an official, totally useful design wall. I used cotton batting because it has that handy cloth-sticking factor, but it’s not the only fabric with that magic touch.
How do you make a quilt design wall?
When planning your design wall I’d say make it a bit larger than what your largest quilts are. If you plan to lay out entire quilt tops (which you will, I promise!) you want to have enough space for all the pieces. So take the dimensions of the largest quilts you make and add some extra inches for seam allowances between blocks etc.
Some quilters place the flannel around thin composite boards arranged side by side. Neutral colors of flannel, such as white, ivory or beige are usually best for design walls since they aren't as likely to detract from the quilt. A quilt design wall is basically a blank space on the wall where you can project your quilty brain. In summary, a design wall is a total game-changer for quilters. It allows you to logically arrange and fine-tune quilt designs before sewing.
Besides it’s sublime beauty, this wall is my favorite quilting notion. Experiment with design walls to discover which methods work best for your needs. Make a small design wall from a trifold cardboard display board like this 36" x 48" example from Staples. The free-standing boards are available at most office supply companies and stores that sell school supplies. You can use a typical wall to preview quilts, but be prepared to attach pieces with lots of straight pins — heavier push pins will leave holes in the fabric and the wall.
Sewing a vision of peace: Students create International Day of Peace quilt - Illinois State University News
Sewing a vision of peace: Students create International Day of Peace quilt.
Posted: Thu, 16 Nov 2023 08:00:00 GMT [source]
That will make the seam on the front side less noticeable and will give the whole structure more stability once it’s attached to the wall. The boards we bought have writing on one side, and a silver reflective surface on the other side. We chose the silver side to be the front so that none of the writing would show through on the front. I basically wrapped the front of the board with the batting – leaving enough overhang so I could tape the ends down onto the back of the board using my duct tape.
In total, we used 8 screws and washers to secure the boards to the wall; holding down all 4 corners of each foam board. The reason I chose a flannel sheet is that it's lightweight, gives an even surface, and fabric and quilts will stick to it. Sheets of foam-like insulation board are another display wall option. Cover the foam with flannel or leave it bare — it's easy to insert straight pins into the insulation. Lumber companies will cut the sheets to a manageable size, and a series of boards can be arranged side by side on a large wall, with screws holding them in place.
Whatever material you choose, I suggest you go with a neutral solid color. As a quilter, I get how you might be tempted to turn your design wall into wall art, but assessing your blocks and colors might be impossible against a non-solid background. And I’m guessing many of you might have the same preconceived notion. That’s why I’ve decided to put together a quilt design wall guide. To show you just how easy (and cheap!) it is to make one and to convince you you need one in your life like yesterday. So we decided it was time we upgraded our sewing room and got ourselves a design wall for quilting!
A quilt design wall is a space that is specifically dedicated to laying out and arranging quilt blocks or quilt designs. It is usually a large, flat (vertical like most walls haha) surface that is covered with a special fabric or batting that allows quilt blocks to stick to it. Quilt design walls can be made from a variety of materials – we’ll get to that in a minute. Christa from Christa Quilts does quilting for her full-time job, so she needed a large, high-quality design wall for her many projects. She used foam core insulation boards for the foundation and covered them in flannel. Foam core board and foam core insulation panels are super popular among quilters with a dedicated sewing room and enough wall space.
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